Martinborough farm worker Jono Hartnell got a real buzz out of mustering sheep at Ruakokopatuna on Wednesday but the find that made his day had nothing to do with woolly animals.
The young shepherd's eye was attracted to a strange, pancake-like accumulation attached to a small branch in a manuka tree.
It was a four-tier wild beehive, complete with the dripping remains of honey that had been stored in the honeycomb, but not a bee was in sight.
Jono, who works for Richard and Karen Kershaw on the farm at Ruakokopatuna, and also at their Moiki Rd property, couldn't bring himself to leave the deserted work-of-art where it was.
''I brought it back so I could show everyone.''
Having carefully extricated the hive, Jono _ who had seen wild hives before but never in that shape in a small tree _ found not only his employers were intrigued. So was his mother, Karen Hartnell, who will take the little gem to St Teresa's School in Featherston, where she teaches, and where it is likely to become a nature-study topic.
