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We have just brought in the hives for 2015 to their wintering sites and wow what a year. We have had an amazing season! All our bees are healthy and we really couldn't have asked for anything more. We’ve got a lot of honey this year, it’s just been magical. For the few of you who have had the chance to get your hands on our 2013/14 honey you will be pleased to know we are now only about a year away from releasing our retail stocks of Avatar manuka to the world. It’s been a fantastic ten plus year journey beekeeping and we are very excited to now be moving from wholesale into the retail market. With how the manuka honey market has just kept growing, our decision to hold back and come to market with the best manuka honey, is really looking like its going to be well worth the effort.
We are still seeing manuka honey prices worldwide skyrocketing and demand increasing every year, helped by celebrity endorsements and the never ending public praise for manuka honey. It looks like its going to be an exciting few years.
Just want to take a moment to thank the team at Avatar. They are all working hard behind the scene to get everything ready for our transition from the local New Zealand wholesale market into the  worldwide retail markets. Who would have guessed 10 years ago, we would here now with our stunning new website and heading overseas for food expos and introducing Avatar Manuka Honey to the world?

These are all manuka rating systems and will correlate to the honey’s antibacterial properties.
Lets explore them in more detail…

Methylglyoxal (MG or MGO ) concentration (expressed in mg/kg) is a common rating system used by many manuka honey companies. Methylglyoxal is a stable natural antiseptic compound only found in manuka honey in high concentrations. Therefore, it is directly linked to a honey’s antibacterial potency and also a good measure of its manuka floral origins.
Recently, a manuka honey’s Methylgloxal concentration has been the most important factor in determining the quality and value of the honey.

BUT, not all manuka honey will have high concentrations of MGO and MGO can be added artificially by unscrupulous companies.

What about labels that rate their honey on the percentage of Manuka Pollen?
Pollen: Flower nectar contains a small amount of pollen. Pollen is also present on the anthers of all plants from which bees collect nectar and this is transferred onto the bee’s body during its foraging.
So bee’s foraging manuka flowers will collect manuka pollen, which carries over into the honey.
By observing pollen under a microscope, it is possible to identify its plant family, genus and species. Similarly by observing pollen present in the honey, it is possible to identify the floral sources of the nectar used to make the honey. This is why microscopy pollen analysis is an internationally accepted method of determining a honeys floral type.

However, pollen alone should not be used as the sole indicator of floral origin for manuka honey. The manuka plant’s closely related cousin, Kanuka, has pollen grains that are almost identical to manuka pollen.  In many parts of NZ, both manuka and kanuka plants co-exist in the same area and flower at similar times. The resulting honey is commonly a mixture of both or could even be wholly kanuka dominant.  The common name for both honey types to date has been Manuka. 
The resulting mix is still delicious and has good health giving properties, however Kanuka honey, won’t have a high MGO concentration.

The MQS (Manuka Quality Standard) system uses Methylglyoxal concentration AND also uses pollen concentration as its two key parameters to grade manuka honey to create a robust grading system specifically for manuka honey.

That’s why we use the multi-faceted MQS rating system as part of our 6 point quality assurance program to guarantee the provenance of our manuka honey.

 

MQS	MGO	Pollen %	Leptosperin	UMF	MGO	Pollen %	Leptosperin
5	100	50	N/A	5	83	N/A	100
8	180	60	N/A	8	182	N/A	100
10	250	70	N/A	10	263	N/A	100
12	350	70	N/A	12	356	N/A	100
15	500	75	N/A	15	514	N/A	100
18	700	80	N/A	18	696	N/A	100
20	800	85	N/A	20	829	N/A	100
25	>1000	90	N/A	25	1200	N/A	100

 

 

MQS source http://www.mqs.co.nz/
UMF Source: http://www.umf.org.nz/grading-system-explained/


Rating systems to avoid:
Avoid manuka honey suppliers that use one dimensional rating systems i.e. that only use one parameter to grade their honey.
Additionally, we recommend you avoid buying honey labeled as manuka based on a Total Activity or Peroxided activity rating as this is a property any honey will have and therefore not a good indicator of its ‘manuka’ properties.

All honey has antibacterial properties thanks in part to naturally occurring Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) present in the honey.
Manuka honey has H2O2, but has additional antibacterial properties that exist even when the H2O2 is neutralized.
Prior to 2013, manuka honey was commonly rated according to its antibacterial properties. This was determined by laboratory testing on a well diffusion assay of Staphylococcus Aureus (a bacteria) after the H2O2 was neutralized in the honey sample.
An industry-adopted scale was used to measure its antimicrobial efficacy from <5 (low efficacy) to 20 (high efficacy), with the higher rating indicating higher antibacterial potency. This was called the Non-peroxided activity (NPA) of the honey.
The area of exclusion of bacterial growth due to the honeys antimicrobial potency was measured and compared to a Phenol control (an antiseptic). The results were then referenced back to the equivalent concentration of Phenol. E.g. a manuka honey with an NPA of 15 had the equivalent antimicrobial efficacy of a 15% concentrated solution of the antiseptic Phenol. And so a grading system for manuka honey from 5+ - 25+ was developed.


In 2007 Professor  Henle at Dresden university in Germany, demonstrated the non-peroxided activity of manuka honey is directly proportional to the concentration of a compound Methylglyoxal (MG or MGO), present in the honey. Methylglyoxal has strong antiseptic properties. They concluded the majority of the non-peroxided activity was due to the honeys Methylglyoxal concentration.
Methylglyoxal or MGO is used as a grading system by many Manuka honey companies.

Moveover, as MGO is a unique compound found only in Manuka honey, it is also an indicator of the manuka floral origins of the honey. i.e. the honey’s manuka purity.  

To get the highest concentrations of MGO, Avatar beekeepers strategically place their hives among the purest manuka forests at just the right times and then they might mature the honey for years to naturally grow the MGO to its optimum concentration.

Methylglyoxal is naturally synthesized from another compound Dihyhydroxyacetone (DHA) found in fresh manuka nectar according to the temperature and time the honey is ‘matured’ in storage.
DHA is a compound unique to Manuka flower nectar. It’s concentration in new honey gives us a good indication of the honeys potential future methylglyoxal concentration. However, the concentration of DHA found in the nectar of manuka flowers has wide variability according to: the manuka species, the region, the season and environmental factors. The DHA (and therefore also MGO) concentration can also be artificially raised by unscrupulous companies by the addition of synthetic DHA to the honey.

That’s why you should always purchase  manuka honey from a supplier who uses a rating system that also uses other parameters (e.g. pollen) in addition to MGO concentration to guarantee you are buying a genuine manuka honey product.

Hive Location : Haha

 

 

Yep a goodie to say the least! Our team has done a great job building our hive numbers and setting up the hives for the manuka flow. We tried some new manuka forests with great results in terms of production and manuka purity. Some of our main blocks were a bit down on production from the previous season in terms of volume and activity but we usually experience a drop after such a boomer of a season the last one was. Some traditional manuka forests actually produced more than last season. It’s a great feeling visiting the hives in manuka forests that are well into the flow and finding the manuka is still in blossom, the bees are still building new wax in the honey boxes and you need to add more honey boxes to get every last drop of honey the season has to offer. (Not such a great feeling when we have to lift all those full, heavy boxes off the hives though!).
The NZ government is about to launch new guidelines on the definition and labeling of manuka honey. It will be great if they can develop a robust standard to unify the whole industry, so everyone is rating their honey to the same standard. But there are some large players in the industry that have invested a lot of money developing and trade-marking their particular rating systems so these entities have a lot at risk if a single regulatory standard is implemented.

Hive Location: Haha

 

 

 

 

Hive Location Shannon

 

 

Hive Location: Wai main

 

Hive Location: Kaikuri

 

Hive Location: Finlyson hill top

 

Hive Location: Shannon

 

Hive Location: Shannon