What’s So Special About Manuka Honey?

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Bella Breakdown

Nature’s nectar comes in all flavors and colors, but there is one special kind of honey that is the best of the best, manuka honey. You may have heard about manuka honey but we reveal what makes it unique from other types of honey including the amazing beauty and health benefits.

Manuka honey in its purest form can cost up to $99 for 100 grams which are 100 times more expensive than the price of regular honey. This type of honey is known for the richer, earthier, and more viscous than other types of honey.

This honey is sourced from the nectar of the Leptospermum scoparium (also known as manuka) that is only native in New Zealand that derives from Maori culture. For a bee to crate manuka honey, the bee has to travel up to 6 kilometers and the honey is a representative of the environment of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

The manuka plant is also very rare and manuka honey consists of 1% of all the honey in the world. Harvesting the honey is also rear with a two- to six-week harvesting period with the flowers only in bloom for 12 days.


The weather in New Zealand including the wind and rain can also deter the bees from producing the honey, this means beekeepers are practicing more outlandish measures to secure the honey. Some beekeepers fly their beekeeping houses over the manuka flowers in a helicopter to collect more honey.

Manuka honey can also be found in Australia but the main source of the honey comes from New Zealand, is known for sourcing all of the world’s production. New Zealand exports of manuka honey are worth $204 million and are predicted to quadruple to $800 million by 2028.

The New Zealand manuka honey is protected by the quality standard that safeguards manuka’s special properties as competitors are trying to copy the real thing and sell at cheaper prices.

Author: Karli Wallace

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