Love of the Land Enterprising Rural Women Award Entrants

Get to know the 2014 Enterprising Rural Women Awards entrants in the Love of the Land category, sponsored by Agrisea.

If you haven’t already, you can view a bit on all of the contestants by watching our video.

Renee De Luca

Putake Honey is a commercial apiary on the outskirts of Blenheim was started in 2011 with 150 hives. Renee co-founded the business and until mid 2014 did all the beekeeping and day to day operations, with husband Dale, who works full time in Wellington, taking over during weekends. With growth of the business, they now employ two full time staff, including a bee-keeper. They are shareholders in Betta Bees Research Ltd, supporting research through a common goal. They have also developed their own Bee App tool, using IT to optimise the management of the hives, plant and people. They are in the beta testing phase at present and hope to have a subscription based service for sale at the International Beekeeping conference in September 2015. They have also developed a joint venture with a scientific research based team in Wellington to develop hive products (honey, pollen, propolis and venom) leveraging the unique characteristics of NZ’s native flora and fauna. Putake honey is raw and not blended, which has won gold, silver and bronze medals at the NZ Honey Show in its second vintage.