Manuka Plant: Everything You Need to Know

The Manuka honey it's a particular variety of honey with extraordinary beneficial properties , this honey is produced almost exclusively in New Zealand where it is born and grows Manuka plant.

The Manuka Plant and Where to Find It

The Manuka Plant It is found mainly in New Zealand and in some areas of Australia.

Its official botanical name is Leptospermum scoparium It was given to it by Thomas Cook because of the typical disorderly ramifications of this shrub which recalled brooms.

The Englishman Cook landed on the coast of New Zealand in 1769 and took great care of this plant, especially its leaves, which he appreciated as tea.

Furthermore, the Manuka plant has had numerous uses for therapeutic purposes known since the times of the Maori and then passed down to the English settlers.

The Manuka plant can present itself in various sizes . As a cover crop of about 5 cm up to 15 meter trees.

It usually presents itself as shrub whose height varies from 2 to 5 metres.

It is defined as a “pioneer plant” able to establish itself first in deforested areas.

In New Zealand there are large hilly areas covered with Manuka plants , which give off a fragrant scent and in the flowering season the hills transform into valleys of white flowers.

The Manuka plant offers the habitat suitable for numerous animal species , including bees that from the nectar of this plant obtain a honey with extraordinary properties.

For this reason beekeepers place their hives near these plants in pristine nature to produce Manuka Honey.

Peculiarities of the Manuka plant

New Zealand offers the most various climatic conditions.

The Manuka plant is fast growing and not very demanding on soil quality, but the characteristics of the habitat where it grows determine its quality and its antimicrobial capacity.

There are vast territories in which the Manuka grows without any external intervention.

Indeed, the plant itself is able to produce substances capable of defending it from bacteria, viruses and fungi, for this reason, any use of fertilizers and pesticides to make the plant grow healthily is really useless.

Consequently, even in the absence of the relevant organic certification mark, The resulting Manuka Honey will still be produced in a completely ecological way.

What makes Manuka Honey “active” is still a matter of careful research.

The active ingredient responsible for its antibacterial properties has been discovered, Methylglyoxal , but It is not yet clear what the environmental conditions are which induce the plant to enrich its nectar with this substance.

How Manuka Honey is Harvested

The Manuka plant is hardy and adaptable capable of extending to a large extent into uncontaminated nature.

Beekeepers place their hives near these plants.

The Manuka plant flowers in mid-November approximately and the flowering process lasts 4 weeks.

As soon as the flower opens, the nectar reaches the tip of the flower. The bee that lands on the flower extracts the nectar and takes it with it to the hive.
The flower will fall off but more buds will open up along the Manuka plant, creating lots of regrowth in the bush.
The bee in the hive will regurgitate the nectar and leave the task to the worker bees to process the nectar and transform it into honey which will then be stored in the honeycombs.
Human processing begins where bee processing ends, after bees have stored honey in their combs.

From this plant we obtain an extraordinary product, a honey that owes to Methylglyoxal its powerful antimicrobial effect capable of supporting our defenses and making us stronger.

What is Methylglyoxal?

A team of food chemists from Dresden Technical University led by Thomas Henle he managed to shed light and identify the unique factor of Manuka as the Methylglyoxal.

Methylglyoxal is the active ingredient present in Manuka honey responsible for its powerful antibacterial capacity and which differentiates it from any other honey in the world.

The quantification of Methylglyoxal occurs in absolute terms, in fact today it can be determine exactly the percentage of methylglyoxal in a given dose of honey (e.g. 100 mg of Methylglyoxal in 1 kg of honey).

The power of Manuka Honey comes from the concentration of Methylglyoxal within it.

As we have already said It is not yet clear what the environmental conditions are which induce the plant to enrich its nectar with this substance.

This is still today the subject of numerous studies by many researchers.

It seems that it "stress" of the plant promotes a high content of methylglyoxal in Manuka honey.