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Bee Sweet and Reuse Photo Competition!

When we were deciding how to package our honey it had to be glass.  It is so much more healthier, attractive and environmental friendly.  I came across this on Glass for Life facebook page which sums it up quite well - "People trust glass more than any other packaging material to protect the flavor and freshness of their food and drink. And for good reason. Glass is safe and healthy, pure and virtually inert. It’s made of natural ingredients—sand, limestone ...

Sharing Your Product Surplus

With many lifestyle properties around New Zealand enjoying an abundance of fruit, there's plenty of opportunities for sharing the surplus....

A Reflection of Nature

Much like a great wine reflects the terroir of where the grapes have grown, Sweetree Honeys reflect the area and season the bees worked their magic. Sweetree Marokopa Summer is collected December to February high in the bush clad hills of Marokopa (in the Waikato). A blend of pasture flowers, rata and other natives, this honey is soft and smooth with a peppery sweet flavour. As a raw honey Marokopa Summer has a rougher texture and tastes like the honey we used to have when we were young (those o...

Beehive Update - December 2012

We've officially hit summer and the bees are bringing in nectar into the hives. The recent period of fine weather has allowed the bees to draw out the frames and build up to good levels. Spring was very much a stop start affair which made for a slow buildup of colony strength and extended periods to get virgin queens mated. Bee pollen has also been slow coming in which has made it difficult to meet the demand from our customers - sorry! However the forecast for summer is hot and dry and this sho...

Anabelle White Loves Our Honey!

Annabelle White, Chef, Author and TV personality was giving a cooking demonstration in Hamilton in September.  As a thank you Kitchen 'n' Things gave her a jar of our Hakarimata honey.  I contacted her a couple of months later to see what she thought of our honey and this is what she said:"I opened the jar and tried the honey Hakarimata is super - intense and full flavoured and quite delicious"She has since used our honeys in charity gift boxes....

Beehive Update - October 2012

It's close to November and it's the time of year when there can be a dearth of nectar before the flow starts. The bees have built up strongly and they are using all the nectar they can get to feed themselves. Our Horsham Downs, Glen Massey and Marokopa apiaries are low on stores, so we are watching them carefully. Tasks over the last two months have been collecting bee pollen (many different plants are now flowering), feeding hives where necessary, splitting hives, adding new queen cells and che...

Sharing the Surplus Update

You may recall in a previous blog post that we are donating our old honey jars to Rural Women of NZ to make jam, which is distributed to those in need in our area. We have had a couple of jam making sessions since then, the last one was last week.  Five of us, from the Horotiu Honeys branch, got together to make marmalade and plum jam.  We sterilised, cut, weighed, measured, stirred and poured.  It was lots of fun.  Here's a couple of photos.   Most o...

Sweetree Honey in 'Catch and Cook' on Choice TV!

A couple of weeks ago we were approached by Waikato Tourism, inquiring if we would be interested in taking part in a program called 'Catch and Cook' on Choice TV.  We jumped at the chance! Not being TV watchers we didn't even know about Catch and Cook or Adventure Aaron (the presenter).  We had to do a bit of googling to find out more information.  Aaron Carotta (aka Adventure Aaron) has been traveling the world for the last four years knocking off a few bucket list adventures whi...

Tiritiri Matangi Island

We have recently spent a few days at one of our favourite spots in New Zealand.  Tiritiri Matangi Island, an open bird sanctury (30km north east from Auckland).  There are no predators, so some of our rare native birds can florish.  The bird life is amazing - Stitchbirds, Saddlebacks, Takahe (as shown in the photo, please excuse the quality), Riffleman, Brown Teal, Fernbird, Kereru, Bellbirds, Tuis, Kiwi, etc.  There are also Tuatara. We walked around the island during the da...

Gordonton Country Market

Gordonton held its inaugural Country Market on the 8th September, "the sun shone, the forecast rain didn’t arrive and everyone had an utterly splendid time,” reported community news site Number 8 Network.Gordonton Country Market is like the Tamahere Market but on the north side of Hamilton.  It is fantastic to have such a market on our side of town.  There is a great variety of stalls including woodwork, needlework, baking, bread, honey, jewelery, sweets, garden ornaments, lucky di...

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day to all those wonderful Dads, Step-dads and Granddads out there! Fathers day is all about honouring and celebrating our Dads. Making him feel special and thanking him for the special role he plays in our lives.  It is not all about spending money on him but spending time with him and making him feel appreciated. It is also a day to remember those dads that aren't with us anymore and it is at these times that we remember them and cherish special memories.  One of Martin...

Beehive Update - September 2012

The first part of August was very wet - for almost two weeks - and that slowed the start of the normal spring build up. Luckily we were able to get to all our hives despite the wet weather and hives have been checked for diseases, bottom boards cleaned, fed where required, and varroa strips removed. The bees needed lots of attention to get them through this period. Thankfully the weather has improved and the bees are now busy flying, collecting pollen and early spring sources of nectar. Pollen t...

Latest Product Photos

Have you noticed some new photos on our website? We finally have our new 'Sweetree' look on all our honey and bee pollen labels.  We asked Claudia Aalderink, our great photographer, to update our photos.  You will see some of them around the website, with some more going up soon.I was keen to show you the behind the scenes photos of one of Claudia photo shoots.  She is very creative and came up with some wonderful shots!  Thanks Claudia!...

Claude Stratford, NZ Beekeeper, Turns 102!

Founder of Comvita, Claude Stratford, celebrates his 102nd birthday in TePuke on the 18th August!  He is a walking advertisement for natural bee products, with his daily health regimen consisting of bee pollen, manuka honey, olive leaf extract, multi-vitamins and Omega 3 capsules. Beekeeping has been a constant in Claude's long career.  He started keeping bees at 11 years old, when he left school.  During his teenage years he ran a small commercial beekeeping busine...

Sharing the Surplus

Ever wondered what we do with the empty honey jars we get given back?  We planned to sterilise and reuse them but have since found a much better cause!As you may recall from a previous blog post I have joined the Rural Women of NZ.  The branch I have joined is the Horotiu Honeys (hard case, I was meant to join this group!).  We have been thinking about what we can do to help the community and we have come up with 'Sharing the Surplus'.We often see fruit trees laden with fruit...

Awards from Quality Food from Waikato

The Waikato has long been known as a producer of quality primary products but two food producers are proving the region is just as adept at turning good local products into great food. Sweetree Honey and Frank's Sausages have both taken awards at the Taste Magazine Farmers Market New Zealand Award for the quality of their foods. The annual award is an opportunity for regional food producers to show-off the quality of their wares and stimulate extra business in the process.Sweetree Honey run thei...

Sweetree Placed in NBA Honey Awards

Our new Hakarimata honey (which doesn’t even have a label yet! Watch this space for details on when this, now award winning honey is released) received 2nd place in the National Beekeepers Association ‘Beekeepers Special Reserve’ honey competition.  All products are sent in competition standard plastic pottles with no labels.  The honey was judged on colour (15%), cleanliness (15%), aroma (5%), texture/evenness of grain (20%), firmness (15%), flavour (25%) and general presen...

Taste Farmers Market Awards

Last night we went to Auckland to the Taste Farmers Market Awards dinner and we were awarded ‘Highly Commended (2nd)’ in the “From the Kitchen bench” category.  We were up against jams, preserves, pestos, etc.  The winner for this category was ‘Relish the Thought’ from Auckland with their 30 different relishes - Well Done!  Congratulations to Ron Aratema (aka the Salmon Man) from the Waikato Farmers Markets!  He won ‘Freshest Producer from the Water!  Well ...

Do You Remember Our Heketara Honey?

Around 2008 we harvested Sweetree 'Heketara Honey', it was our first bush honey and it was very popular.  People kept coming back for more and only wanted "The Heketara Honey" or "that yummy toffee flavoured honey!"The Heketara tree (Olearia rani) or Tree Daisy is a small tree found in New Zealand’s native forests. Hardy and tolerant of wind and drought, the tree has creamy white flowers which only produce nectar profusely some years during September to October.  They say when the He...

A Good Harvest Recipe Book

I have just joined the Rural Women New Zealand.  Rural Women New Zealand is a charitable, membership-based organisation which supports people in rural communities through opportunities, advocacy and connections.  Members are diverse, but all share rural interests that connect and energise each other.  It is the leading representative body promoting and advocating on rural health, education, land and social issues; and provides information, support, practical learning and leadershi...

Buzzing About Honey

Martin Lynch can remember being fascinated with bees as a young child. That childhood fascination, inspired by his father, blossomed into a much-enjoyed hobby and he set up his first lot of beehives in his early teens, eventually inheriting his father’s bees from the family home in Ohinewai.  Although he went on to train as an engineer, leading into a role as a corporate consultant, Martin’s early passion for bees remained. A self-confessed keen hobbyist, more recently his love for bees...

Kai Profiles Sweetree Honey and Bee Pollen

Earlier this month Kai profiled Sweetree Honey and Bee Pollen the the 'NZ Guild of Food Writers Market Day' in Auckland.  The May Day market went very well. People enjoyed tasting the honey, and it worked well on the canapés – with Andre's crostini, pear and cheese. See some pics attached- Kai got centre stage.  Looks like it was a great day! We sell our honey and bee pollen on the Kai website along with other New Zealand artisan foods.  Kai make it easier f...

Discover Local Flavours With Kai

Now it's ease to discover and enjoy the best of local artisan foods with the new website kai.co.nz... We believe that honey should be nutritious and flavoursome and reflect the area's flora and fauna.  Our honeys are location specific, each representing the area and season the bees worked their magic.  From the creamery, butterscotch flavour of the Four Brothers to the rich Marokopa Summer with its intense finish that dances on your tonue, the honeys are like great wines, each with the...

Buzzword in Honey

Buzzword in honey Lured by tales of manuka’s healing power and other regional sweeteners, Sam Vincent follows the bees Sweetener ... manuka hives at Sweetree Honey; (right) honey at BeesOnline. Photo: Claudia Aalderink I ’m hunched over a beehive eating honey like a grizzly bear. Running down my chin is a combination of dark honey, wax and a sticky bee cadaver. “You owe me about 50 bucks,” beekeeper Martin Lynch tells me. He, too, is eating a piece of honeycomb with all the decorum of a ...

Honey Nature's Golden Healer Book

Drawing on her background in the biological sciences, Gloria Havenhand illustrates the many ailments that honey can help alleviate, including IBS and gastric ulcers, and argues it is essential for healthy living - boosting the immune system and helping prevent certain diseases. But honey is also a delicious treat and Gloria claims we should eat it daily, using it as an alternative natural sweetener to sugar. She also tackles other bee products, discussing how propolis, a sticky resin produced by...