Grandad Ray put twelve hives on the hill in 1974. We still light his smoker every morning.
Ray was a dairy farmer who traded a heifer for his first hives. He sold honey from a table at the gate with an honesty box and a jam jar for change.
His daughter Jo runs the hives now, about 400 of them spread across neighbours' farms in Maungakaramea and Tangiteroria. She moves them by hand to follow the flowers.
Jo's daughter Ana started the online shop in 2019 so people who found us at the market could keep ordering. Every jar still gets a batch number written on the lid, by one of us.