In this episode, Kirsten sits down with Matthew Pettersson of Madhu Honey, who fell into beekeeping after a chance encounter with a giant jar of honey in a New York City apartment. Fascinated by honey bees and the golden honey they create, he ended up working for a commercial organic beekeeper in Germany, who runs four to six thousand colonies – much larger than one typically thinks about organic beekeeping, envisioning small bucolic apiaries with a beekeeper very much in-tune with their bees.

Hooked, he didn’t want to stop over the winter and so headed to New Zealand in the southern hemisphere to keep working bees. One of his beekeeping buddies offered him four barrels of Manuka honey to sell in Europe. Because he had left a job in logistics, he knew all about imports and exports. And so, he founded Madhu Honey, importing high quality manuka honey to the EU market—a business born from the successful sale of his first imported pallet, sold before it even arrived in the harbor.

Madhu Honey will be available in the USA the winter of 2020-2021.

Additional information:

Contact Matthew directly at: [email protected].

• Madhu Honey: https://madhuhoney.com
• Unique Manuka Factor Honey Assn: https://www.umf.org.nz
• Comparison Between MGO and UMF Manuka Scales: https://www.manukahoneyorganic.com/what-is-umf/
• Asian Giant Honey Updates in Washington State: https://agr.wa.gov/hornets

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Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee’s mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com

Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! 

We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum.

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We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected]

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening! 

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"