Tasting Spring

Greetings Emma,

We hope the longer days and occasional burst of sun is warming up your world after one of the gloomier winters we can remember!

Spring has definitely sprung in the lower Blue Mountains and despite the very wet winter and cool start to the season, our bees are flying and gathering their bounty from the wildflowers of the sandstone country, which is covered in a quilt of pastel colours as blossoming begins.

As a result, Tim has to 'spring' into action to keep up with our industrious ladies as they start producing this season's Wild Honey and Honeycomb. Tim has provided updates below on what he is doing and seeing in the Blue Mountains at the moment.

We will also share the fruits of Tim's rare trip to the Big Smoke for food industry related talks and visits last month, which saw the strengthening of some wonderful relationships and the forging of some exciting new ones too.

This edition's biggest news, however, is the release of another rare Wild Honey (our second Post Brood variety) as part of our Limited Edition Gold Label collection! Read on for release information and tasting notes from the inimitable Mike Bennie.

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Limited Edition Gold Label

Mountain Meadow Post Brood Polyflora

‘An extraordinary honey that delivers intensity and vitality…Such an evocative thing to consume’ *

We’re thrilled to introduce our second release in the Gold Label Limited Edition range, and also our second Post Brood Wild Honey variety.

The Post Brood version of our Mountain Meadow honey is produced from 5 year aged combs that have come through the broodnest, giving the honey a pleasing, spicy nuttiness (owing to the propolis and bee bread inherent in the dark post brood combs). It has a perfumed aroma and flavour profile quite unlike any of our other varieties.

In addition to the honey being produced from post brood combs, unique environmental conditions contributed to the flavour profile of the Mountain Meadow honeys.

In the lead up to the bee season of 2019/20, the Central Tablelands (and much of NSW) had suffered through the most extreme drought in recorded history. The drought finally broke and the rains that fell on parched ground triggered a flowering of ground flora species that are rarely seen.

Most honeys in Australia are dominated by the ubiquitous flowering Eucalypts (of which there are over 800 species in nearly all bioregions across the continent). However, the high rainfall resulted in the Eucalypts putting all their energies into regrowing leaves after the stress of the drought, rather than flowering (meaning there is no Eucalypt influence in the honey). Therefore, this honey can be described as a ‘La Niña’ honey - a result of a weather event that occurs once every 10 years or so (lasting 1-3 years).

To have any kind of post brood honey to share is a truly special thing, and something we’re incredibly proud of. To have two varieties is something extraordinary and beyond our wildest beekeeping dreams.

This very special post brood honey is ultra limited and will be popular with chefs and customers alike - be sure to grab some while you can!

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Buzzing

We’re excited to share the news about our feature in the first issue of Swill Mag, the brainchild of Anton Forte (Swill House, responsible for such gems as Restaurant Hubert, Alberto’s Lounge et al) and helmed by the wonderful Myffy Rigby. Anticipation is building around this publication, which promises to be something special.

We were honoured to host journalist David Matthews and photographer Ellen Virgona at one of our upper mountain apiaries and had a lovely day chatting, looking at Warré hives and going for a bushwalk. This can’t be work, surely!? You can read an extract of the article and the feature will appear in the first issue coming out in October, pre-order your copy here.

On a recent visit to Sydney, Tim had the pleasure of dropping in to see his mate Lennox Hastie (Firedoor). Lennox was in the thick of final prep work and menu development for his new Basque inspired venue, Gilda’s, opening close to his renowned Sydney restaurant, Firedoor.

He still made time to have a chat and ask about our new Wild Honey varieties. At that stage Tim had just bottled the first batch of our new Mountain Meadow Post Brood Wild Honey, which Lennox tasted and immediately loved.

A few weeks later and, Voila!, it’s appearing on the menu at the newly opened Gilda’s, which is understandably receiving rave reviews.

Lennox is a whole hearted, talented guy who lives and breathes hospitality. We’re always impressed by his palate when he tastes the honey and his love for great produce, and of course we’re very excited to visit Gilda’s when next in town.

Our Blue Mountains Polyflora Wild Honey was again featured in .delicious' curated ‘Produce Box’ which is released around the time of the Produce Awards each year, in partnership with Vic’s Meats. We are incredibly grateful for the support shown to us by Lucy Allon and the .delicious team over the years.

Though .delicious have now stopped selling the produce boxes for this year, you can still purchase our popular Blue Mountains Polyflora Wild Honey in our online store or at select retailers in Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

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Hitting the Town

As mentioned in last month's newsletter, Tim travelled to Sydney for the first time since the Covid pandemic began where he met with our distributors and retailers and was honoured to chat with some of Australia's chefs and eat at their restaurants where our produce is featured. In addition he was invited to speak about our Wild Honey and Natural Beekeeping methods by our friends and good customers, Laura and Grant of Feather and Bone.

The event was a sell out and Tim was received warmly by a keen group of folks interested to hear more about natural beekeeping methods, wild honey production, pollination, agriculture and the issues surrounding the recent Varroa incursion. A big thank you to everyone who came along, and especially to Laura and the Feather and Bone team who made the night a great success.

A few weeks later Tim was back in Sydney for the Two Providores ‘Meet the Producers’ Trade Show. Two Providores are our distributors in Sydney and are critical in the supply chain as they help artisan producers link with chef’s, restaurants, cafes and retail stores. This was an industry only event so we were most grateful to be featured in the TP stable of producers.

It was a busy day, with plenty of opportunities to catch up with some of our chef friends and supporters, discussing menu ideas for the Wild honeys, doing tastings and meeting new customers. We’re always so thankful for the interest and support shown by the Two Providores team and the hospitality sector in Sydney, it puts a spring in our step when we’re out in the apiaries!

It’s been a while since our last trip to Sydney so Tim's recent visits were a chance to catch up with some colleagues who also happen to be good mates.

One of whom is Topher Boehm of Wildflower Brewing, who we've mentioned a few times in our previous newsletters as he uses honeywax as the key ingredient in his popular ‘Hive’ beers.

We’ve managed to press a great deal of Wild honey over the winter months, and have been stockpiling the honeywax from the pressings. So Tim loaded the ute up and delivered a year's worth of honeywax to Topher.

Stay tuned for some exciting releases in the coming months. It's always great to see Topher, he's a wonderful supporter, collaborator and great company; always buzzing with interesting ideas.

Just up the road from Wildflower is the cult wine store PnV Merchants, with the inimitable Mike Bennie housed inside, juggling endless wine judging and travel commitments. In addition to being a world renowned and talented Wine writer and journalist, Mike is also a generous human with a wicked sense of humour.

He’s been a great friend and supporter for years and it was so good to catch up with him briefly and show him some of the new batches of our wild honey. Mike’s incredible tasting notes are featured on our website - a huge thanks to Mike for his continued interest in what we do!

Once every few years we have the pleasure of catching up with everyone at Two Providores HQ. Tim gave a short training and info session about our current Wild Honey range, then was whisked away to visit a few of our most loyal supporters.

It was great catching up with the lovely Penny at Penny’s Cheese Shop, who has been stocking our honey for years and is incredibly knowledgeable about fine food. It also gave Tim an opportunity to see her new shop, resplendent with an incredible array of produce including some of the best cheese in Sydney.

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For more information on Tim Malfroy and Malfroy's Gold in the public eye, visit our Social, Awards, Blogs and Media pages (the latter also includes recipes from some of Australia's finest chefs who champion our produce!)

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Sweetness and Light

Product News

In addition to the new 500g Mountain Meadow Postbrood, we have also created a 500g Wild Honey four pack featuring our two limited edition Wild Honeys.

We still have 1k Beeswax Blocks in stock (for a limited time) and we have on offer our usual bounty of Wild Honey (which is available in 3 jar sizes for most varieties).

Our existing Mixed Wild Honey Four Packs are still available for those who prefer to buy in larger quantities at a reduced price.

As always we have E-Gift vouchers available for a convenient way to send some honey to those you love.

Shipping

As mentioned last newsletter, the $60 minimum order and $15 flat shipping rate is in place and should be fixed at those rates for the foreseeable future.

Please note when ordering that it can take us up to a week to process orders as everything is done in house, from the production of the goods all the way through to the packaging and posting of your order.

We generally allow another week for goods to be delivered as we live in Regional Australia.

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This Month's Select Products

* Please note we are bound by Australian Biosecurity regulations so are not permitted to send honey to TAS, NT or WA

Social Insects

Tim's Warré beekeeping adventures in the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands

Spring is a strange time of year for us when it comes to beekeeping work. Our apiaries are spread across three different regions: lower Blue Mountains, upper Blue Mountains and the Central Tablelands. The weather, flowering events and bee activity vary remarkably across the regions at this time of year.

It is quite possible to be experiencing a blizzard of snow or an icy frost in the morning in the Central Tablelands, and a few hours later be enjoying a warm sunny day in the lower Blue Mountains where the bees are busy foraging on spring wildflowers.

Therefore, at this time of year our focus is exclusively on the lower mountains apiaries - checking their health and making sure they have enough space once they start to build comb. Warré beekeeping employs a unique bee-friendly technique for this expansion, called Nadiring; additional empty boxes are added beneath the expanding broodnest, giving bees space without chilling the brood or disturbing the cluster.

The season has been slow to start this year due to the persistently cool, rainy weather, so the nadiring technique allows bees to expand at their own rate. In fact, all of our bee-friendly techniques aim to give bees their own agency, in the acknowledgment that wild honeybee colonies are an ancient, wild species with millions of years of evolution on their side.

Despite the poor weather, so far the signs are good - with around 50% of colonies inspected, losses have been almost non-existent and the colonies are starting to expand their populations and nest size, as the days lengthen, weather warms and flowering increases. We look forward to sharing more updates in the next newsletter; by then, most of our apiaries will be active and we’ll be working 7 days a week across the 3 regions.

If you enjoy reading these newsletters you can view archived copies of them here, as well as articles that I’ve written which I hope to add to over the years.

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Tim will continue to fill your feed with updates from the field about the ever changing and unique flora of the regions, bee biology, our wild honey produce and other interesting things - all bee related - follow along below!

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Part of Our Hive

Sunny and Ross Lusted are well known names in the Australian restaurant and food industries and have been ongoing supporters of our Wild Honey and Honeycomb for some years now.

Not only do they use our produce as key ingredients in their restaurant, they often create an entire dish around the unique flavours of these special products.

In addition, they also named of one the prestigious dining rooms at their Woodcut restaurant after our Yellow Box Wild Honey - to say we are honoured would be an understatement!

When Tim was in Sydney recently, he had the pleasure to finally visit Woodcut, briefly catch up with Sunny and Ross and then give the Woodcut team a rundown on what we do - the history, the methods, the landscapes, and the honeys. It’s such a busy kitchen so to have the entire team sit down to hear Tim speak was a privilege.

A big Thankyou to Sunny, Ross, the Woodcut team, as well as Sally and the Two Providores team for arranging the information session, and for the dinner which was a truly unforgettable experience for this beekeeper. From the honey cocktails, to the cheese platter and petit fours, our Wild honey is featured throughout the menu.

Woodcut is a special place, a unique vision where all the elements - food, design, hospitality come together in a harmonious way. We’re honoured to be involved in a small way.

View more inspiring creations by some of Australia's (and the world's) top chefs using our bee produce on our Awards and Recognition page.

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We hope you are finding the content in our newsletters of interest and appreciate you taking the time to subscribe and read our updates.

For anyone who couldn't access our website, emails etc this month, our sincerest apologies for any delays or inconvenience that caused. It has now been remedied so everything is back up and running as smoothly as ever.

Thank you to those of you who managed to find our online shop in it's temporary location and still order Wild Honey from us during that "fun" time!

We hope you enjoyed our seventh newsletter and are always grateful for any feedback or suggestions. (As always, If you missed our last newsletter and would like to read it you can do so here.)

Singing off for another month,
Tim, Emma and the Daughters of Light