Our Twelfth Newsletter | Beeswax, Wild Honey and Wild Honeycomb back in stock! | New Gift and Four Pack Released today | Produce Awards Buzz | Our Wildness in the World | Stock Up For Winter | Honey and Beekeeping Updates and more |
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Later Flowers for the Bees
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'With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees'
To Autumn
John Keats, 1819
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Greetings Friends ,
Winter is well and truly here which means it has been nearly two seasons since our last newsletter was distributed to our lovely subscribers.
We do have good reasons for our tardiness, and as primary producers we can blame the weather for most inconsistencies and surprises in our working year but there were certainly many factors absorbing our every waking minute over the past six months which Tim will elaborate on below.
Like the sun appearing to stand still during the recent winter solstice, our hives currently seem dormant yet the bees are notably busy on the sunny winter days and harvesting has only just stopped with the winter chills finally setting in.
Therefore the customary slowing down of activity for bees and beekeeping work for beekeepers in the winter months has been quite delayed by the warmer Autumn this year.
This Autumn's unseasonal weather has actually been a blessing as it brought about a late honeyflow that filled our stores after a rather unusual summer. Which is good news for our loyal customers as we have some more Wild Honey and Wild Honeycomb again for you. In particular we have two new Wild Honey packs being released today.
We also have some good news to report on the awards front and Tim will weigh in on Varroa destructor working it's way through NSW and how he will manage that sans synthetic chemical treatments if it reaches us. We are still very happy to report we are currently not affected by Varroa in anyway. Our wild bee products are as pure and chemical free as they always have been and we aim to keep them that way.
We will also be sharing some more amazing creations fashioned from our bee produce by our country's finest food artisans, and of course Tim will update you on his long bee season wrapping up.
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2024 delicious. Produce Awards
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National Finalists Announced
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Malfroy's Gold nominated for another delicious. Produce Award (photo © delicious. magazine)
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Judges tasting our Blue Mountains Wild Honey
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We are excited to announce that we were nominated for the delicious. Produce Awards this year by some of Australia’s best chefs.
On the 7th June delicious. advised us that we are one of the eight finalists in their national From the Earth producer category.
As a national finalist we now progress into the national judging phase where Australia’s leading chefs and food industry luminaries determine the winner of each category. |
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"In 2024, the Produce Awards is continuing to shine a light on primary producers and the way they grow, cultivate, harvest and catch the produce they supply to Australia’s leading chefs and establishments. We want to discover the producers who are making waves, changing the conversation, and disrupting the status quo with sustainable food production practices. We want to give recognition to the producers who are making an impact, and who stand out from the crowd for the way they pursue food production, cultivation, harvest or wild-catch practices with a focus on environmental sustainability, provenance, species diversity and preservation, and local community."
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We are so grateful to be included in the 19th annual awards and are overjoyed that our work and produce is recognised at this level and appreciated by such a prestigious judging panel.
Trophy Winners and the Producer of the Year Award will be announced on Thursday, August 22nd by delicious. Magazine.
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Weaving Wildness in the World |
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In addition to harvesting and processing our Wild Honey products (this time from one of the biggest Autumn harvests we’ve ever had), Winter is the time for shed work, research, writing, podcasts, catching up with Chefs, reviewing and editing footage and anything else we couldn’t say yes to during the very long bee season just gone.
While we are busy with all of the above, our friends and food Superstars are also weaving our work into their world - supporting us by using our produce in their beautiful dishes and recipes, hosting events featuring our work, nominating us for awards and other equally noble deeds.
In each missive we share dishes featuring our produce served up by some of the most talented food creatives in Australia and, arguably, the world. For this edition we are focusing on Josh Niland and his team, and a few other guiding lights.
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Josh Niland, dubbed 'one of the most interesting chefs on the planet' by none other than Jamie Oliver, is synonymous with inventive and beautiful seafood cuisine. During his career in the fine dining industry, he has worked around the world in some of the best restaurants and opened a number of his own seafood restaurants in Sydney and Singapore. His incredible journey to culinary stardom was recently featured on ABC's Australian Story (you can read a short article summarising the episode here).
Josh and his team have been very supportive of our work for a while now and incorporate our produce into the incredibly creative and sustainable dishes served in Josh's Sydney restaurants.
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From back in 2021, Milk Cake, Mango, Malfroy’s Gold Post Brood Honey, Fingerlime and Condensed Buttermilk St Peter in Paddington (photo © @mrniland | Instagram)
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Over the years he and his team have plated up some gems, including the gorgeous madeleines at Petermen served with Wild Honey cream. Nigella Lawson recently dined at Petermen and posted about the experience, mentioning our Wild Honey specifically.
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20 Day Malfroy's Wild Honey Beeswax Aged Yellowfin Tuna Rib Eye Saint Peter photo: © @nrniland | Instagram
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Petermen hosted Nigella Lawson recently and she posted about these gorgeous dishes: 'I love Josh Niland’s obsessively enquiring nature and the food it results in. I’ve waffled on so much .. but must also acknowledge admiringly.. juniper Madeleines, baked in oyster shells, with @malfroys_wild_honey cream.' (photo © @nigellalawson| Instagram)
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We are so grateful to Josh and his team for not only putting our work in the path of some of the world's best palates, but for supporting his fellow sustainably focused artisans by providing Australia with locally and responsibly sourced cuisine.
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Wildflower, Wild Honey and Jersey Cows
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We were pleasantly surprised to hear that Josh Niland's St Peter restaurant also features the inspiring brew, Hive, by our good friend Topher Boehm from Wildflower Brewing. He has been a big supporter of what we do for some years now (we have mentioned his work a few times to you in our missives) and we have a wonderful collaborative relationship with he and his team.
Wildflower have just released a new batch of his world reknowned beer which is refermented with our Wild Honey and is using Red Stringybark combs for the first time.
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Steamed Malfroy's honey and Meyer lemon pudding with Cloud curd from the Gold Street Dairy (photo © @colejwood | Instagram)
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Wildflower's brewery is also home to the new Gold Street Dairy micro cheesery headed by Colin Wood, cheesemaker and former chef at Poly in Surry Hills (who have also used our Wild Honey produce in their dishes over the years). |
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'Wood is part of a whole new school of cheesemakers that are emerging not from dairy farms but from restaurant kitchens. Chefs are staging a quiet revolution, occupying empty restaurants on their days off, sourcing top-quality milk and making cheese on a scale that allows them to push the boundaries of not just flavour but also the very concept of what cheese is.'
Emma Breheny, Good Food
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Gold Street Dairy Jersey Cheese, the spicey one, grilled over coals with Malfroy's Wild Honey and Velencia oranges (photo © @colejwood | Instagram)
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Colin visiting the farm where the Jersey milk is produced which he uses for his sensational cheeses at Gold Street Dairy cheesery (photo © @colejwood | Instagram)
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Colin has been making cheese from local Sydney Jersey milk and combines his beautiful cheese creations with our wild honey in both his cheesery and the fare offered at Wildflower's cellar door.
So if you are ever near Marrickville you should stop by and sample Topher's amazing brew, and the cheese and Wild Honey dishes Colin is plating up to compliment it! |
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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 work with our produce!) |
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Two New Mixed Packs for the Cold Months
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Our latest 500g two jar Yellow Box Gift Pack - including both Yellow Box varieties
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We are releasing two new mixed Wild Honey packs this month featuring our current varieties. First is a 500g Two Jar Gift Pack showcasing the nectar of the Central West's enduring and beautiful tree, the Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora).
Despite the season in the Central West being particularly disappointing this summer, some of our higher altitude apiaries provided us with a small harvest of this delicious Wild Honey. We have included one jar of our ever popular Yellow Box and one jar of our limited edition Yellow Box Post Brood - the latest and second ever Post Brood Wild Honey commercially produced in Australia. |
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Yellow Box blossoms regularly in the Central West and is a much loved variety
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Forests of the Central Tablelands - Yellow Box in the valley and Red Stringybark on the ridges
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Second is a new 500g Four Pack also featuring our two Yellow Box varieties and our most popular Blue Mountains Wild Honeys, Blue Mountains Post Brood and Blue Mountains Polyflora, giving you a taste of the two regions and the chance to compare a post brood and non postbrood version of each variety. Read on for Tim's beekeeping report about the flowering events in the Blue Mountains that ensured we still have these delicious Blue Mountains varieties on offer this winter. |
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One of our beautiful upper Blue Mountains apiaries in Autumn
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Be sure to order some soon as our Wild Honey packs have been very popular this Autumn and Winter and we are nearly sold out of some combinations! |
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Tim has been busy harvesting and bottling the bounty he and the bees produced during the late Autumn honeyflows in the Blue Mountains over the past month. As a result, we now have our old faithfuls appearing in our online store again, ready to sweeten those cold days!
We also have new 300g and 750g Wild Honeycomb sections in our ever popular Blue Mountains Polyflora variety available.
Our usual bounty of Wild Honey is available in 2 or 3 jar sizes for the majority of our award winning, medicinal and pure varieties.
Our 200g and 500g Gift packs, including our latest offering, are always a great choice for those wanting to sample a number of varieties or to send as a sweet gift to a loved one. A few of our existing Mixed Wild Honey Four Packs have also been restocked for those who prefer to buy in larger quantities at a reduced price, with our new combo making it's debut today.
Tim has just poured a batch of our 100% pure beeswax so we have some more 200g and 1kg blocks available as well.
We also have E-Gift vouchers on offer to make honey related decision making and gift giving so much easier!
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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 again for goods to be delivered as we live in Regional Australia. Make sure to take this into consideration when finalising any orders.
Thankfully we have not been affected by the mass IT outage that occurred last weekend so customers can rest assured that all orders are being received and processed as usual.
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This Month's Select Products |
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Wild Honey 500g
Yellow Box
Two Jar Gift Pack
Now $84.00
$86.00
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Wild Honey 1kg
Red Stringybark
$75.00
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Wild Honey 500g
Mixed Varieties
Four Pack
Now $150.00
$168.00
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Wild Honey 200g
Mixed Region
Four Jar Gift Pack
Now $88.00
$96.00
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* Please note we are bound by Australian Biosecurity regulations so are not permitted to send honey to TAS, NT or WA |
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Tim's Warré beekeeping adventures in the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands |
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Tim enjoying some Autumn sunshine in one of our Blue Mountains apiaries
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It seems like an age since the last beekeeping report and what a strange season it has been, quite unlike any other I’ve experienced! Beginning in October, a stunning early flow of Yellow Bloodwood (Corymbia eximia) and Angophora (Angophora costata) was followed by prolonged stormy weather, placing the colonies in a ‘holding pattern’ and dampening any hopes for a decent yield before Christmas. Thankfully, Uli from Beckman Urtracht (Berlin, Germany) paid us a visit to lend a helping hand and we accomplished great work preparing all of the colonies for a hopeful return of better conditions later in the season. |
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Warré apiary in the misty upper mountains. The persistent humidity and cooler temperatures in early Summer held back the development of the colonies
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Summer honey flow in the Blue Mountains with colonies ‘bearding’ due to heat and favourable conditions
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In the Blue Mountains, the cool, humid Summer was punctuated by a profuse flowering of Blackthorn (Bursaria spinosa) and Grey Gum (Eucalyptus punctata) in late January. The colonies reached an impressive crescendo on a Red Bloodwood (Corymbia gummifera) honeyflow in late summer, producing a record crop of beautiful Wild Honey in Autumn. Unusually for this time of year, we were able to produce Wild Honeycomb (typically produced in Spring) as well as our Blue Mountains Post Brood and Blue Mountains Polyflora varieties. Some of the colonies were so strong they cast gigantic swarms, which is uncommon this late in the season - swarming is how the colonies reproduce in favourable conditions, whereby the colony naturally splits into two independent units. Considering that the rest of the season was a wash-out, to say we were grateful for this short period of mega abundance is an understatement! The wet weather returned in March which caused some headaches for our harvest, prolonging our work right into late Autumn, meaning we now only have 4-6 weeks to press and bottle a year's worth of Wild Honey before starting the new season. There is no reprieve from work if you are a beekeeper! |
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Dark ‘Post Brood’ combs, aged for up to 5 years in the colony - a rare gift from Nature, distilling the essence of the Blue Mountains and the bee colony superorganism
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Fresh white virgin comb, built by the bees in late summer during a honeyflow. Colonies expand the nest with new comb during times of abundance
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With each passing year it seems the challenge of keeping bees during unstable weather events grows. As we do not migrate colonies we are completely at the mercy of regional climate variables, which is one of the reasons why every harvest is so different and the Wild Honey so precious. Most beekeepers feed their colonies sugar syrup and artificial pollen during times of dearth. Thankfully, as we have selected bees for natural resilience over many years, we have never had to feed our colonies despite the increasing climate fluctuations - an achievement we are very proud of. The natural nest architecture and bee friendly design features of our Warré hives also support the bees' inherent ability to adapt to conditions in their environment and contribute to the overall resilience of the colony. |
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Natural beekeeping at its peak - a gigantic swarm from one of our own hives in the Blue Mountains. A sign of health and abundance, natural beekeepers use swarms to populate new hives
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A wild virgin queen has recently emerged from this natural queen cell. We do not breed or purchase queens from breeders - preferring to let the colonies choose their best genetics which are locally adapted to the area
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However, despite our best efforts, there is no escaping the fact that conditions this season in the Central Tablelands were incredibly poor. We had to leave most of the Wild Honey in the hives for the sake of the bees' health and wellbeing, and to guarantee their food reserves for the winter months. A few of the higher altitude apiaries did provide a small surplus yield and we have recently bottled a very beautiful batch of Yellow Box Wild Honey. We not only had to contend with storm clouds all season but also the metaphorical storm cloud of impending Varroa mite spread. I wrote in detail about the situation last newsletter and as I write now the Varroa mite is wreaking havoc on bee colonies along the east coast of NSW, with beekeepers scrambling to keep their colonies alive. It won’t be long until it appears in the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands as it has already been reported in surrounding areas and the movement of colonies by beekeepers this coming spring will surely accelerate the spread. |
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Fresh virgin comb and nectar from a Yellow Box honeyflow (Central Tablelands). Thankfully, a small harvest of this special honey was achieved in a few of our high tablelands apiaries over summer
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Grateful to have Uli from Beckman Urtracht lend a hand this season. Uli works with Warré hives in Berlin and was happy to escape his cold winter for some Aussie bee action
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The vast majority of beekeepers will most likely resort to using regular synthetic chemical treatments in the hope of keeping their colonies alive, as they have done in every other country around the world. Unfortunately, these treatments can harm the bees, contaminate both the honey and the beeswax and can result in chemical resistant mites, with beekeepers forced onto the equivalent of a ‘chemical treadmill’ involving an ever growing diversity of synthetic chemical inputs just to keep the mites in check.
We’re happy to guarantee that we will not be using any synthetic chemicals in our practices. We prefer to stay true to our natural beekeeping principles, relying on the inherent strength of our wild bees, preventative bee-friendly measures, and the occasional judicious use of approved organic and biodynamic treatments (which do not taint the honey or harm the bees) during this first wave of Varroa (which I have dubbed the ‘chaos phase’ and predict will last at least 3 to 5 years).
In the long term, we hope that a ‘Darwinian’/Natural selection approach, as has been proposed and recommended by leading bee scientists and academics around the world, will offer a pathway forward.
For those interested, I aim to write in more detail about the natural beekeeping techniques we will employ and the biodynamic approved treatments available in a future article, so stay tuned.
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A wild queen, naturally raised by the bees themselves and mated in the local area, resulting in healthy resilient colonies. This natural approach will form the foundation of our Varroa strategy in the coming years
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Autumn sunset in one of our apiaries in the Blue Mountains. Beekeeping is back breaking and intense work, but being in Nature is always a joy and something to be grateful for
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It goes without saying that we are immensely grateful for your support during this time and in the challenging years ahead. The most important point to note at this stage is that we guarantee our wild honey will remain completely pure and natural, and we will continue to engage 3rd party laboratories to test our honey to prove it!
Purchasing our Wild Honey and Honeycomb is the best way to support our work and is a vote for bee-friendly natural beekeeping.
If you enjoy reading our newsletters you can view archived copies of them here, as well as articles that I’ve written which I hope to add to when there is a spare minute.
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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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Once again, thank you to everyone who contacted us or purchased items after reading our previous newsletters, particularly those of you who took the time to let us know how much you enjoyed our Wild Honey. Your ongoing support of what we do is very much appreciated!
We are grateful to everyone for their patience between updates and we hope you enjoyed our twelfth newsletter. (If you missed our last newsletter and would like to read it you can do so here.)
Thank you for reading,
Tim, Emma and the Daughters of Light
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Charlie Hutton's Cumquat Jam Filled Madeleines with Polyflora Wild Honey Cream (Photo © Petermen Dining) |
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