Honey Bee Hero - help save the bees

You may or may not know that in the past couple of years, around the world but particularly in the USA and Europe, honey bees have been suffering from massive loss in numbers. This is not just about honey, it is a serious problem that could easily affect everyone if not addressed. The bees' work as natural pollinators is still very vital for a lot of the food we all rely on, as well as maintaining the wider diversity of plants on the planet.

While there are some people taking good steps to help where they can in simple things like keeping a variety of flowers in their garden for bees to visit, and more people are starting to keep hives in urban areas, more still needs to be done.

In the UK, an 8 year old is doing their part to try and get British politicians to treat the issue more seriously.

They have set up their own blog, Honey Bee Hero, to gain support to show to their MP (Member of Parliament).

You can visit the blog here to add your support: http://honeybeehero.blogspot.com

Comvita Broccoli Extract Now Available

For all of you who struggle to eat your greens, we now have our first stock of the new Comvita Broccoli Extract.

Yes, broccoli in a pill, kind of. Capsules of broccoli extract taken from seeds that provides a guaranteed level of Glucoraphanin, a powerful antioxidant that kick starts your body's own defence system.

OK, so what are we doing stocking a non-honey, non-bee product? Well, it fits two main criteria, being a quality new product that is good for you, and as we are specialists in the Comvita range of honeys, we continue offering you their full range of natural health products.

Comvita Broccoli Extract coming soon

For all of you who have struggled to eat your greens, but realise that they actually do contain things that are good for you, we're about to have a great new product for you - broccoli extract.

Comvita Broccoli Extract gives you a guaranteed level of Glucoraphanin, one of the important good things in broccoli - equivalent up to an average half-head of fresh broccoli.

This antioxidant booster will be able to last for up to 72 hours.

And with the use of vegicaps, it will be suitable for vegetarians too.

More information to follow once we have this new product in stock.

Comvita founder turns 99

Aspirational found of Comvita Claude Strafford turns 99 this week - living proof of the value of bee related health products.

From having his first beehive in 1921, his lifelong commitment to products of good quality and purity remain a cornerstone of the Comvita philosophy now. And even though he 'retired' at age 95, he still keeps some involvement today. Not bad for someone who spent his childhood in and out of hospital, but was able to greatly improve his health by his discovery of products from the hive.

Read more of this story here: New Zealand Honey Shop news.

Forum added

Here at The New Zealand Honey Shop, we've just added a forum to our main website.

This is aimed as an area where people can ask questions, share tips with others, and provide feedback.

As a company forum, there will be moderation of posts and threads with the aim of keeping them useful to our customers in relation the products we offer (there are plenty of other forums available for discussing other topics and other products).

It is also an area where we can provide useful notices and updates about products, and keep you up to date.

There is an area for customer service comments and feedback, where you are welcome to make constructive criticisms, or post suggestions. For specific customer service issues though please contact us directly by phone or email so that we may get it dealt with.

The forums can now be viewed here:
The New Zealand Honey Shop Forums

More Comvita products re-branded as Medihoney

As part of its strategy of aligning their main wound care products under the Medihoney brand, Comvita are making some changes to a few of their existing products.

This will see what were previously called Comvita Apinate Dressings now re-branded as Medihoney Apinate Dressings. These will also be in a larger pack of 5 (versus the previous 3 pack).

These will sit alongside the Derma Cream and Medihoney Wound Gel. Although the existing Comvita ManukaCare 18+ is expected to keep its same name for the UK market.

The New Zealand Honey Shop will keep listing many of these items under both categories - Manuka Honey and Medihoney - for the time being. And of course please feel free to give us a call, or send an email, with any questions you have over any of these name changes.

You can see the range of Medihoney branded products here.

Using the ManukaCare 18+

One of our most popular products is the Comvita ManukaCare 18+ - a tube of sterilised manuka honey for external wound use.

A few people contact us afterwards to complain that when they opened the tube, quite a lot of the honey gushed out of the tube, catching them by surprise.

This is actually a function of the packaging. It is a specially designed tube, called a positive flow tube. It is to enable the honey to come out easier, so you can concentrate on where you are putting it, now on squeezing so much. The downside is that there can be an initial spurt of the honey when the tube is first opened, and this does catch out a few people.

There has been a warning added to the packaging, on the end of the carton (where you open it), however this is still missed by some.

So just be a little prepared when you come to open a new tube, and don't try squeezing it at all (or holding too firmly) at the start.

It may be a little messy sometimes, but this sterilised ManukaCare 18+ is great for your wound, leg ulcer, and burn use.

There is also around 10-15% of people experience a stinging sensation when first applying it, but this generally subsides.