This season Kai Iwi Honey has four fulltime staff and two part-timers. It has 1500 hives, with more being built. They are spread from Whanganui across to Patea.
Later in the season they will be moved farther out - between Apiti and New Plymouth, with some in Rotorua.
There's a lot more competition for good hive sites now, Mr Valentine says. And with the Government trying to crack down on cowboy operators, there are annual registration costs to pay and more paperwork to do.
Prices are holding firm, but Mr Valentine is still hoping the industry isn't headed for a crash, like the goat industry experienced, or a price drop, like the dairy industry suffered.
"You kind of want it to stay in the middle and tick over, not like these goldrush people who think they can make millions over a couple of seasons."
Last year apiarists paid twice to almost three times the going rate for marginal land with lots of mānuka, Whanganui rural land specialist Knud Bukholt says.
This year those wanting to sell it may have already sold.
HIVE OF INDUSTRY: Manuka honey is the new liquid gold, with each beehive worth up to $1000 each. PHOTO/Duncan Brown
Not much land of that type is for sale but any land with beekeeping potential is in demand.
Now he's noticing better land with scattered mānuka selling to partnerships between beekeepers and sheep and beef farmers - with the extra income from bees needed to make the purchase worthwhile.
That could be a good thing, he says, because the partnerships would allow eroding gullies to revert to native bush.
The big four bee firms in the Whanganui region are Comvita/Kiwi Bee, Tweeddale Apiaries, Watson & Son and Henry Matthews' Settlers Honey, he says.
