Manuka Honey Origin
Manuka honey is a kind of honey claimed to have anti-bacterial properties. It has been known to benefit humans by healing wounds and injuries but causes no damage to cells. It is made by bees in New Zealand that frequent the manuka bush, Leptospermum scoparium.
Manuka honey is gathered in New Zealand from bees feeding on the manuka bush, Leptospermum scoparium, which grows uncultivated throughout the country and has antibacterial properties. However, its antimicrobial activity varies with origin and processing. A survey of 345 samples of New Zealand honeys from 26 different floral sources found a large number with low activity (36% of the samples had activity near or below the level of detection in an agar diffusion assay), the activity of the rest being distributed over a 30-fold range of activity. An unpublished survey of 340 samples of Australian honeys from 78 different floral sources found 68.5% of the samples had activity below the level of detection in an agar diffusion assay.
