Our Story

We are located in the beautiful Marlborough Sounds where our family beekeeping business has successfully extracted honey under the Sherrington brand since 2006. But we have been beekeeping for more than 30 years.

Raw Marlborough Sounds honey from our hives to your home

At Sherrington Honey we take care of the complete process from nectar collection through to harvesting, processing and packing the honey directly into jars for your home use at the kitchen table.

Our bees produce the highest quality possible in the untouched, remote locations of the pristine Marlborough Sounds. Our dedicated team of expert beekeepers provides the best possible care to our healthy, fit and productive bees. We follow the latest food safety requirements which means that our honey can be exported to almost any country, and our extraction team uses state of the art machinery to produce the best quality honey from our wonderful Marlborough region with minimal intervention.

Our beehives are spread over a large area of isolated farms in beautiful locations, mostly in the Marlborough Sounds. We are very grateful to the landowners who allow us to place hives on their properties.

If you have a property in the Marlborough Sounds and would like to host some of our beehives, please contact us to discuss your options.

How it all started

Sherrington Honey founder, Robert, grew up on a marginal sheep farm in the Mahau Sound and started keeping bees from the young age of 12. Equipped with two empty beehives inherited from his grandfather and a book about bees from his mother, Robert set out to catch a swarm of bees on the family property. After several attempts and after reading a few more beekeeping books, Robert and his siblings invested their pocket money into 30 hives. While making every mistake possible, Robert steadily developed his beekeeping skills and knowledge. Thirty years later he has grown this knowledge into a successful business running around 2000 hives.

From hobby to full time

What started as a hobby turned into a serious venture after Robert stopped working on dairy farms and in the building industry. Robert was advised to change occupation for health reasons.

His knowledge of bees and the location in the Marlborough Sounds provided the perfect starting point to expand his beehives. Surrounded by native bush, Robert didn’t have to look far to be amidst native Manuka bush, famous for its Manuka honey. And even though the 19th century Sherrington homestead was gone, the location in the Mahau Sound, where it had all begun, was perfect.

The name Sherrington is reminiscent of a simple life, in a beautiful location by the sea surrounded by native bush which provides this valuable honey.

The Honey House

Soon it wasn't profitable enough to get honey boxes extracted through other beekeeper outfits, having to transport the honey boxes all the way into town and back, so Robert started sourcing equipment all over the country and made plans for a honey house. When Robert met Sabine in 2005, Rob had just started building his own extraction facility. Given the isolated location, they stumbled upon several challenges including essential services like power supply (the honey house had to be run on a generator), infrastructure and more. A good dose of practical skills and a pinch of the number 8 wire mentality was an essential skill, as well as a can-do attitude and plenty of resilience.