Naki unveils the world’s most expensive manuka honey
Naki Honey, a New Zealand manuka apiary company, has crafted what is believed to be the world's most expensive honey.
Apiculture NZ is seeking assurances from authorities that the country’s beekeepers won’t be faced with the same problems that their Auckland colleagues did when that region went into lockdown.
Karin Kos, Apiculture NZ chief executive, says beekeepers in the Auckland region thought because they were classed as an essential industry during the first lockdown that they would have no trouble moving through the police checkpoints. However, this wasn’t the case.
Kos says it turned out that they had to apply for special exemptions from the Ministry of Health to get in or out of Auckland and it took about a week for these permits to materialise. She says the Ministry for Primary Industries was very helpful and managed to facilitate the permits.
“But it did take a week and fair amount of work to get the exemption in place,” Kos told Rural News.
“We had beekeepers who had hives over the border and coming out of winter they needed to check that the bees were okay, well fed and ready for the honey season. They weren’t able to get to them.”
Kos says now that they have worked through the process in Auckland, Apiculture NZ hopes that this will mean that in any future lockdowns there won’t be the same hassles.
New Zealand's diverse cheesemaking talent shone brightly last night as the New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association (NZSCA) crowned the champions of the 2026 New Zealand Cheese Awards.
Tracing has indicated that the source of the first velvetleaf find of the 2025-26 crop season, in Auckland, was likely maize purchased in the Waikato region.
Fish & Game New Zealand has announced its election priorities in its Manifesto 2026.
With the forage maize harvest started in Northland and the Waikato, the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) is telling growers of later crops, or those further south, to start checking their maize crop maturity about three weeks prior to when they think they will start silage harvesting.
Irrigation NZ is warning that the government's Resource Management Act (RMA) reform risks falling short of its objectives unless water use for food production and water storage infrastructure are clearly recognised in the goals at the top of the new system.
More than five million trays, or 18,000 tonnes, of Zespri’s RubyRed Kiwifruit will soon be available for consumers across 16 markets this season.

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