Some Background Information...

It makes sense to start with some background information on just what Manuka honey is.

Although some people can wonder whether there is a special type of bee involved, that is not the case. It is all about the particular plant and flowers that the bees visit.

If you place a hive of bees in an average field, or general forest area, the bees visit lots of different types of flowers and will produce a multifloral honey - which is the most commonly available style. If instead the hive is placed in a particular location surrounded by a large amount of a particular plant, and at the time of year when it is mostly that plant flowering, then they will produce a mono-floral honey, i.e reflecting that predominant flower.

Thus if the hive is in the lavender fields during its flowering season you get lavender honey. Likewise from an area of many Acacia trees when they are flowering producers acacia honey.

No natural jar of honey will be 100% of a single type, as obviously there will be some other flowers about that the bees do visit, but it should be predominantly so.

It is the same with Manuka. Manuka is a plant, that is native to New Zealand (and hence this particular type of honey does only come from New Zealand). Some refer to it as a bush, others as a tree, but the Manuka plant - Leptospermum Scoparium - mostly grows wild naturally throughout much of the North Island of New Zealand.

There are a number of sub-species of Manuka, which is known to affect the properties within the honey, but we'll touch on that more in a later post.

The Manuka bush only has a short flowering period - approximately 6 weeks, and so there is only a small 'production' period each year.

In the early 1980's scientists from the Waikato University in New Zealand confirmed that some strains of Manuka honey contained an additional, unique property not found in any other type of honey. This extra, naturally present, very stable and powerful non-peroxide antibacterial property is what subsequent research has found to provide many benefits over and above other honeys. It is this extra property that only some manuka honey contains that have earned its positive reputation.

As a natural product, you get natural variation. Which is why credible testing of the honey is important proving which batches do contain the additional property and which do not.

All honey is active to some degree, and can contain hydrogen peroxide activity (which isn't so stable). The unique antibacterial property Manuka's reputation and the supporting research is based on is over and above the normal active properties found in all honey. This extra non-peroxide property is also not found in all manuka honey.