BLOG . . .

This new painting was a delight to paint. I thoroughly loved making such a small beauty so big. 

 

The Mānuka plant is a special one to New Zealand. It is this special little flower that our bees love and makes our honey world famous, mostly because of its medicinal properties. The flowers from which bees collect nectar and pollen are unique because they contain properties not found in any other flower! Wow ... this is transferred into the Honey, so without the Mānuka flower, we wouldn’t have Mānuka Honey.

 

Mānuka has a tiny pink or white flower, so so so small that its beauty can often be overlooked. I noticed this when looking closely at it under a magnifying glass in preparation for my new painting. It is actually quite blousy, more like a rose, with its many frills and ripples and in such a rich hot pink. It is typically an evergreen shrub and when it flowers, the whole bush hums with bee activity, but it's fleeting. During a 2-6 week period of time, at the start of our summer here in NZ, the individual flowers burst into action and may only be open for the short time of 5 days –– making a tiny window for bees to collect nectar from the flowers. Māori had many uses for the whole bush, from using its wood and its leaves but the flower is so fleeting and special and its beauty shouldn't be missed.

 

Did you know that it takes bees nearly 30,000 individual trips to the Mānuka Flowers to collect enough nectar to create approximately a 500g jar of Mānuka Honey!