Our Fourteenth Newsletter | Two Favourite Varieties Back in Stock | New Gift Packs and Four Packs Released Today | Our Unique Place in the Beekeeping World | Natural Beekeeping Snapshot | Easter Shipping and Shopping | Honey and Beekeeping Updates and more |
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Hope is the Thing with Diaphanous Wings
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'Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers'
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (12 volumes)
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)
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Dear Friends,
A very belated new year greeting to you all! We hope the start to the year has been kind and that you weren’t too affected by the adverse weather events of late.
It’s been a minute since we last updated you on our beekeeping adventures and Wild Honey wares so we are grateful to you for your patience.
Since our last newsletter in October we have had some ups and mostly downs, and, like many people around the globe at present, are basically running on hope and dreams. Not wanting to bring the mood down so soon we will update you further below as to what is happening in the world of beekeeping that poses many challenges for apiarists in Australia at present.
There is always a silver lining of course and that was our reason to write to you now. In a nutshell, we still have some Wild Honey to share with you, which, given the trials of the season we just experienced, is a miracle in and of itself! Though this year’s yield was much smaller than usual (or non existent at some sites), Tim managed to harvest enough to bottle a few batches of nature's purest bounty.
Read on for more details about what is new and what is back in time for Easter, as well as Tim’s pioneering work with Natural Beekeeping in these uncertain times.
PS If you’re on an iPhone, there have been a few changes to email. If you are using the new "Categories" view in Apple Mail, please open our newsletter email, tap the  (More) button at the top of the message list, then choose "Categorise Sender" to move us to your Primary tab to make sure you keep receiving our newsletters.
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Good Things Come to Those Who Wait |
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New and Returning Wild Honey Wares |
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The beautiful Red Stringybark trees rarely blossom in the Central Tablelands, making their nectar a treasure for bees and beekeepers alike
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We are excited to report that we have a small amount of Red Stringybark Wild Honey back in stock! Our very popular darker variety is a rich, spicy, toffee-like flavoured honey with smoky, earthy undertones - perfect for Autumn!
This harvest is pressed from virgin comb with a sumptuous flavour and thick, creamy texture. A truly epicurean terroir honey. The honey is not only rare but has a very unique flavour profile and an extremely high medicinal activity rating. Our last batch tested at TA39+ ( the highest rating Manuka honey tests at around 20+ to 25+). We have bottled this nectar of the gods in all 3 jar sizes, 200g, 500g and 1kg, and have added a few new gift packs and mixed packs so you can sample this unique honey alongside our other popular varieties.
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Our rare Red Stringybark Wild Honey is back in stock!
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Our popular Yellow Box Wild Honey is also back!
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Despite the season in the Central West being particularly disappointing this summer, some of our higher altitude apiaries provided us with a very small harvest of our delicious and ever popular Yellow Box Wild Honey.
This classic honey is produced from 100% natural comb in bee-friendly Warré hives in the Central Tablelands of NSW at altitudes of 700 to 1000m above sea level. In pure form, this is a delicate yet powerful honey with a hay yellow colour, full body, characteristic sweet floral flavour and lingering clean high notes.
This variety has a rating of TA 25+ (equivalent to UMF 25+ / MGO 1200+). Eating small amounts regularly, straight from the jar should aid general health and wellbeing. Yellow Box also has the lowest GI rating of any Australian honey (35). We have bottled this variety in all 3 sizes as well ( 200g, 500g, and 1kg) so it too is featured in some new Gift packs and our popular mixed packs.
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One of our new Wild Honey gift packs featuring Red Bloodwood and our Blue Mountains Polyflora varieties for the first time together
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Our new Autumn Red 500g Gift Pack - the first time our two red varieties have appeared together - Red Stringybark and Red Bloodwood
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Our 100% pure, chemical free beeswax, produced from virgin comb, is available again in 200g and 1kg blocks
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Tim has been very busy processing the honey we managed to harvest from this year's stormy and unusual season. As a result we have a small amount of beeswax back in stock. It's wonderful to have this clean, chemical free beeswax available again. Be sure to get in fast as there is a limited number of each size available.
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Pointing Bees and Beekeepers in the Right Direction |
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Our beautiful bees working together for the greater good
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The bees do a ‘waggle dance’ to communicate the location of promising sources of food far afield to their nest mates. In fact the colony members communicate in a multitude of different ways, something that has been likened to a form of 'honeybee democracy'.
Having worked with bees our whole lives, it’s hard not to take that as an inspiration for a community minded approach to problem solving. Keen observation of natural phenomena, the sharing of information, reaching a consensus - this is the way forward for bees and humans. |
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Long before we were selling our unique Wild Honey, we were pioneering the use of bee-friendly Warré hives (these hives are the reason we can produce Wild Honey!) and teaching hundreds of students the art and craft of Natural Beekeeping (facilitated by our friends and partners, Milkwood Permaculture). Fuelled by the desire to educate new beekeepers, our modified version of the Warré hive was provided as an ‘open source’ design to beekeepers in the hope they would build their own hives, catch swarms and bypass the entire industrial beekeeping model. |
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Tim beekeeping in one of his Blue Mountains Warré Apiaries, 2015, photo © Eric Tourneret (Eric photographed select beekeepers for his book about Beekeeping around the globe)
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For a number of years we gave talks at bee clubs, farming field days, food festivals, pollinator and permaculture events, spreading the word about this new way of keeping bees that truly represented a paradigm shift in apiculture.
After almost ten years, this ‘grass roots’ revolution became somewhat self sustaining, as our students started teaching their own courses and workshops. Another pleasing outcome of our work is that most beekeeping clubs, once resistant to the concept of natural beekeeping, now host Warré and other natural comb hives alongside conventional Langstroth hives.
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Tim teaching a group of students in Sydney during a Milkwood hosted Natural Beekeeping course, 2011
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As we promoted our work with Warré hives, we attracted other aspiring beekeepers from around the globe who wished to visit, learn and exchange ideas. A handful of these visitors stayed for months and even returned for multiple visits, forming a strong and lasting camaraderie. ‘All beekeeping is local’ is a common refrain amongst experienced beekeepers, however, the challenges that modern beekeepers face - from climate change, pests and diseases, chemicals in the environment and habitat destruction, are frighteningly similar across the world. If anything, beekeepers now rely on each other more than ever - a literal ‘hive mind’ focused on solving the problems we face.
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Jaro Bajko, a natural beekeeper who visited us twice from the Czech Republic (Warré hives and natural beekeeping, permaculture, composting and forest garden education) Website | Facebook
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Uli Beckmann - a beekeeper from Germany who visited us a number of times and is now Natural Beekeeping in Berlin (Warré hive honey and education) Website | Instagram
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This dance of knowledge is all the more important now that the devastating Varroa mite, the most serious pest of honeybees, is here in Australia. Therefore, after taking a sabbatical from the education arm of our business (Natural Beekeeping Australia) over the last 5 or 6 years - partly enforced on us by the Covid Pandemic, we’ve decided to once again offer up our services in the coming years to help beekeepers, farmers, the food industry and the wider community understand the issues we will face, and plan for sustainable approaches to managing Varroa.
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Bernhard Koch, Tim Malfroy and Jaro Bajko at Bernhard's workshop in the heart of the Blue Mountains where he builds our customised hives from sustainably sourced timber (photo © Eric Tourneret)
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Tim teaching a student, Lucas Gilardoni, from Argentina about Australian Warré beekeeping
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To begin with, as we've mentioned in a previous newsletter, we’ve been asked to be a part of the Food Producers program run by Powerhouse Museum and are thrilled to share our story at this critical juncture. You can find more about the event held on 25th May here. Currently the event is sold out but you can add your name to a waiting list for last minute cancellations.
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Tim standing among his bees in the Upper Blue Mountains © Powerhouse Museum
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Having grown up in a professional beekeeping family (and now growing our own little beekeeping family), we’ve often had the pleasure of being involved in university research projects, even hosting researchers from overseas. With Varroa spreading throughout NSW, University research departments have again been in touch with a hope to collaborate on exciting projects, particularly investigating the potential of our chemical free techniques to combat Varroa.
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Tim, his sister and his Dad beekeeping in the Central West - mid 1980's
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Tim and our daughter beekeeping in our home apiary
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We have also recently been asked to attend a number of conferences to share our unique experience with the beekeeping industry. We have been approached as we are at the forefront of natural beekeeping in Australia and grew up in a professional beekeeping family. Our insights are relevant to beekeepers from the commercial beekeeping sector and those who are part of the small scale or alternative/natural beekeeping scene.
Recent discussions with our friends Milkwood Permaculture about how best to re-connect with our Natural Beekeeping alumni group have been fruitful. We do hope to offer courses and workshops again in the future, however in efforts to reach as many people as possible, we might offer online Q and A sessions in the short term - stay tuned for more details! |
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Working with university bee researchers at one of their apiaries. In this instance, we were doing field trials of the shook swarming method
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Tim and Emma attended Apimonida, the global beekeeping conference held at the Le Corum in Montpellier in 2009, to research the Warré hive design and European natural beekeeping methods
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We’ve always attempted to communicate directly and transparently with the public as to how we manage our bees and produce our 100% natural bee products. This newsletter has allowed us to involve everyone in our journey as Natural Beekeepers and our website is constantly evolving to reflect the dynamic nature of our work. We hope to also include some video content in the near future with the aim of illustrating the how, where and why of what we do in more detail.
Despite all the challenges ahead, the waggle dancing continues! |
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As mentioned above, Tim has been busy bottling the small amount of Wild Honey produced during our recent and rather changeable spring/summer beekeeping season.
In addition to our almost permanently available varieties, we now have our Red Stringybark and Yellow Box single jars in all 3 sizes available again and a few new gift packs and four packs featuring those varieties as well.
For those looking for a chocolate free Easter, our Wild Honey Gift Packs in 200g and 500g sizes make the perfect gift for any honey connoisseur.
As we have Red Stringbyark and Yellow Box back in stock, quite a few of our existing Mixed Wild Honey Four Packs in 500g and 1kg jars have also been restocked for those who prefer to buy in larger quantities at a reduced price. These numbers are limited so be sure to jump in soon.
As always we have E-Gift vouchers available for a convenient way to give the gift of honey this Easter. |
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Shipping and Housekeeping
(Pre-Easter)
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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 ask our customers to allow another week for goods to be delivered as we live in Regional Australia.
Make sure to take this 2 week turn around time into consideration when finalising any orders.
To increase the chance of your Wild Honey being delivered before Easter, we advise you to place your orders by the 3rd April by 5pm in order for us to meet Australia Post's deadlines.
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~•*•~
This Month's Select Products |
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Wild Honey 1kg
Red Stringybark
Now $79.00
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Wild Honey 500g
Blue Mountains
Two Jar Gift Pack
Now $88.00
90.00
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Wild Honey 500g
Mixed Varieties
Four Pack
Now $158.00
$176.00
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Wild Honey 200g
Mixed Region
Four Jar Gift Pack
Now $92.00
$100.00
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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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Stormy skies over our home apiary in the Central Tablelands, this summer saw some very intense storm cells move across the state
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I always try stay positive but since our last newsletter things have not really turned out as we had hoped this season. In fact, it has been the worst season on record for both bee colony losses and honey production. As always there are silver linings, but let’s go back to a more innocent time (last spring) to give context to the situation.
As is the case every spring in the Blue Mountains there was abundant flowering however this year we had an unwelcome visitor - a plague of visitors actually! The appropriately named Plague Soldier beetle (Chauliognathus lugubris) appeared in epic numbers and whenever they turn up and crowd the nectar laden blossoms the bees stay away. Therefore the important cues we rely on as beekeepers - visual observation of budding and flowering patterns - are rendered useless. The beetles typically hang around for 2-3 months, so the colonies suffered stress from reduced nutrition and lost momentum going into the summer months when colonies are usually at their peak.
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Beautiful mature broodnest from one of our Warré colonies in the Central Tablelands NSW
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Plague soldier beetles feasting on the nectar from Dwarf Apple blossom (Angophera hispida). Unfortunately they repel honeybees
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When summer did arrive, it brought seemingly endless storms and rain. There was very little flowering during this period in the Blue Mountains, and the humidity created the perfect scenario for Small Hive Beetle (Aethina tumida), a serious pest of honeybees, to flourish - causing widespread havoc across the lower Blue Mountains and Sydney basin. Due to the issues above, we were not able to produce any of our Wild Honeycomb wooden sections this season. Fortunately, a small harvest of pollen rich Blue Mountains Polyflora Wild Honey was possible and is now available to buy. |
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A rare selfie in the sunshine, taken in one of our isolated Warré apiaries in the upper Blue Mountains
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Crimson mountain devil flowers sitting beneath a ghost white scribbly gum. Gothic Australiana under stormy mountain skies
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In the Central Tablelands we had a short but severe drought in 2024; nine months with very little rain. This was followed by a stormy humid summer and thankfully we received some rain to break the drought. We then experienced a short window of good conditions over summer which allowed colonies to strengthen and even produce a small surplus yield of our rare Mountain Meadow Wild Honey - which will hopefully be released later this year. This variety is quite different to our others as it is produced exclusively from ground flora, giving it a unique flavour profile. In addition, one of our apiaries was in the vicinity of a localised flowering of Yellow Box and Red Stringybark - so we are thrilled to be able to offer an extremely limited amount of these popular varieties.
Despite building a resilient beekeeping system over the last 15 years, when multiple factors (all of which are out of our control) conspire to negatively effect the bees, it is really challenging. The losses we experienced are simply the result of a ‘domino effect’ of poor foraging conditions weakening hives and multiple pests taking advantage of typically strong wild colonies - a truly chaotic situation. |
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A beautiful wild queen. All of our colonies raise their own queens and they are open mated in the local environment. Bees have survived for millions of years in this manner as they are constantly adapting to the environment
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A towering Warré in the Blue Mountains - thriving despite the poor weather. Natural selection means that we rebuild the apiaries after tough seasons from these strong colonies
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The silver lining from this season is that we have had some colonies continue to thrive despite incredibly challenging conditions. One of the hallmarks of a resilient system is its ability to bounce back after difficult times, so we aim to rebuild from a position of strength from these unique colonies in the coming spring. I will be sharing more technical details about how we plan to do this over the winter months. We’re close to the end of the season now and all we can say is it’s been a tough one and we Thankyou for your continued support. There is always next season!
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 newsletter - your ongoing support of what we do is very much appreciated!
We hope you enjoyed our fourteenth missive and are always happy to hear your thoughts. (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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Lennox Hastie's beautiful Milk and Honey at Firedoor, Surry Hills ~ candied Poorman’s orange and curd, with mead jelly and roast Malfroy’s honey ice cream. Finished with smoked buttermilk granita, and our post brood honeycomb. (Photo © @firedoor_surryhills
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Tim speaking at a Pollinators event hosted by 
