Our Fifteenth Newsletter | Popular LIMITED EDITION Variety is Back in Stock | New Gift Packs and Four Packs Released Today | Organic Gardener Feature | Powerhouse Museum Event | Keeping it 100% Natural | Wild Honey and Beekeeping Updates and more |
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'Bring me..a golden jar.. Let me taste the sweetness there, but honey leave to feed the winter cluster of the bees'
The Bee Carol
Carol Ann Duffy, 2011
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Dear Friends,
What a wet and cold winter we have had here in NSW! The low temperatures mean our beautiful bees are bundled up with their winter stores of Wild Honey, pouring their communal energy into maintaining the cluster through the colder months and venturing out into the world only on the occasional warmer day.
Beekeepers are also busy through the cold season as they hook into their end of season work, attend to administrative processes, and, in our case, also fulfill many orders while fielding enquiries from our wonderful customers, fellow beekeepers and the media about our Natural Beekeeping work.
In addition to all of the above (and occasional writing), Tim has been busy in the shed trying to finish the most important of an Apiarist's winter tasks: bottling the Summer's bounty. As a result we have some more Wild Honey on offer. In particular, we have the second ever batch of one of our popular Limited Edition varieties on offer!
We also have some news and events to report on, so read on for details and for the latest on Tim's work with the bees.
PS. If you didn't see this in our last missive and you’re using an iPhone, there have been a few changes to Apple's Mail app. 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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Limited Edition Gold Label
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Re-Introducing - Mountain Meadow Post Brood Polyflora
‘An extraordinary honey that delivers intensity and vitality…Such an evocative thing to consume’ * |
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We’re thrilled to announce the return of this rare wild honey released under our Gold Label range which features limited edition Wild Honeys. Often only a few hundred jars are available, and once sold out, these rare varieties might not appear again for 5 years!
This pure Australian wild honey is produced from 100% natural comb in bee-friendly Warré apiaries in the high altitude woodlands of the Central Tablelands in NSW. It is a unique honey harvested exclusively from ‘post-brood’ combs that are aged for 3-5 years inside the hive.
Post Brood Wild Honey has a thick, creamy texture, pleasing spicy nuttiness, perfumed aroma and remarkable health benefits (all owing to the propolis and bee bread inherent in the aged combs). |
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In addition to the honey being produced from post brood combs, unique environmental conditions contributed to the flavour profile of the Mountain Meadow honey. In the lead up to the bee season of 2025, the Central Tablelands had suffered through drought, prolonging the growth and budding of Eucalypt tree species.
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). The drought finally broke and the rains that fell on parched ground triggered a flowering of ground flora species that are rarely seen, resulting in a flavour profile quite unlike any of our other honeys . This is only the second time in 15 years we have produced this variety. |
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Our latest limited edition, Mountain Meadow Post Brood
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'An extraordinary honey that delivers intensity and vitality, a true sense of ultimate concentration with layers of aroma and flavour, deeply satisfying richness and yet a levity of spice and lifted freshness after each mouthful. Likewise, this is a honey for texture-seekers, a palate-saturating richness and chewy pucker is inherent. While aromas are understated, there’s plenty to seek out and enjoy with sweet, savoury and spicy all finding equal footing. Such an evocative thing to consume.
Colour: Speckled, rich caramel-gold, hazy-cloudy.
Texture: Creamy, slippery then pleasingly powdery with a lively, lifted finish
Aromas: A quieter perfume with toffee, dried flowers, salted caramel, eucalyptus and dried orange peel
Flavours: Light caramel with sugared almond notes, dried mixed peel, some raw sugar characters and lemon myrtle'
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Our very special Mountain Meadow 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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Pollen Rich Post Brood Varieties Now Available |
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In the recent past we have had some of our Wild Honeys tested to satisfy our curiosity as to whether our methods and hive locations do ensure the bees produce the purest and richest of honeys - and to further validate our decision to prioritise bee health, and honey quality, over yield.
Our Wild Honey contains four key elements - honey, bee bread (pollen), propolis and wax - giving the honey high medicinal activity and incredibly complex flavour profiles.
In one suite of tests our two Post Brood varieties were tested for pollen concentration. Pollen richness is a key marker of the ‘rawness’ of a honey and contributes to its health benefits as bee pollen has anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant, anti-allergic and anti-cancer properties when transformed into ‘bee bread’ by the colony. The typical pollen concentration found in conventional honey is between 2,000 - 10,000 grains per gram. |
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Limited Edition Mountain Meadow Post Brood Polyflora and our Award Winning Blue Mountains Post Brood Polyflora - two extraordinary, rare Wild Honeys with a very high pollen concentration now available in a 500g 2 Jar Gift Pack!
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Our Mountain Meadow Post Brood Wild Honey was found to have 1.75 million grains per gram - this is up to 875 times the amount found in conventional honey and almost 100 times the amount found in certified organic raw honey.
Our Blue Mountains Post Brood Wild Honey was found to have an even higher concentration with a result of 2.6 million grains per gram!
For more information on these test results please see our article The Proof is in the Pollen.
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After a rainy winter and spring, it was a pleasure to see wildflowers burst into bloom in the Central Tablelands
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Tim hopes to have more testing done, write more articles and comment on any relevant papers released in beekeeping and scientific circles when he gets a spare minute, so we will keep you posted in future newsletters and on Instagram. |
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Food Power: Powerhouse Parramatta's Food Producers Program |
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A stunning location for the Powerhouse Food Producer event with Tim
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As we've mentioned in previous newsletters, Tim was asked to be part of the Food Producers program run by the Powerhouse Museum. The event was held late in May and we are happy to report it was an informative and positive collaboration.
The gorgeous Stix farm, run by chef David Allison and situated on the recently inundated Hawkesbury river, made for a stunning backdrop to Tim's impassioned words of wisdom on the highs and lows of keeping bees naturally in the modern world. He discussed the principles of natural and sustainable beekeeping, wild honey production and the importance of bees and pollination to food production in Western Sydney. |
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The audience were invited to inspect hiveware and comb samples, and then sample some of our Wild Honeys. The reaction to the event and produce was incredibly positive, and David's delectable homegrown pork and Hawkesbury river prawn curry certainly helped keep the fire going in everyone's bellies as the day wound up.
Kev (aka @SydneyFoodBoy) was among the attendees and has posted a great video summing up the day - here are a few of his words:
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'This is honey like it’s supposed to be: thick, liquid gold... Commercially, natural beekeeping can’t be scaled because to produce honey like this takes up to 5 years instead of only a few weeks like your every day honey - but it’s sustainable, it allows the bees to work how they are supposed to instead of being pumped for honey production like livestock (Tim’s words). The end result is a honey so rich in pollen and propolis it could cure anything'
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We are so grateful to David, Xinyi and the Powerhouse crew for organising the event. The Powerhouse's support of small farmers in Western Sydney through this program and their future kitchen at the new museum in Parramatta will play an important part in maintaining public awareness of food security in the region. |
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People Power: Meet the Producers |
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Tim will be part of Meet the Producers: The Two Providores Annual Tradeshow (photo © Two Providores)
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The brilliant folks at Two Providores consistently ensure our wild bee produce makes it to Australia's illustrious kitchens, so naturally Tim is very excited to travel to Sydney this month to be part of the annual Two Providores trade show.
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Tim among the select producers for 2025 (photo © Two Providores)
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Tim manning his stand at the 2023 event (photo © Two Providores)
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It’s an amazing day engaging with good friends and artisan producers, putting a spring in our step at the start of the bee season and reminding us of the great people that support and respect our work and the wonderful things that come from those relationships - particularly the edible variety! |
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Fire Power: Firedoor's 10th Birthday Bash |
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One of Lennox's amazing desserts featuring Wild Honey in the honeycomb - this dish was included in the top 10 Firedoor Dishes to date (image © Broadsheet Sydney)
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Tim was honoured to be invited to Firedoor's 10th birthday celebration back in May, which was hosted by Lennox Hastie in his two restaurants in Surry Hills. |
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Tim and Lennox at Firedoor
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Lennox kicking off the night at Gilda's
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Lennox has been a huge supporter of Tim and our bee produce for many years now, nominating us for awards and using our produce in his daily changing, creative menus so Tim was especially keen to head back to the big smoke to help celebrate this amazing establishment hitting double digits. |
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'Tim Malfroy is the bee whisperer, passionately producing world-class honey that captures the true terroir of the Blue Mountains; full of integrity and the most incredible flavour.'
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Lennox doing what he does best!
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We as producers are so fortunate that chefs treat our products with such reverence, Lennox being particularly invested in passing on the stories of the produce he incorporates into his incredible dishes. Thank you again for making our story part of your culinary journey Lennox! |
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'Hope. It’s like a drop of honey'
Tahereh Maf |
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Varroa has taken its toll on our colonies in the Lower Blue Mountains. We select comb to re-use for bait hives in spring - offering a new home for potentially resistant wild colonies when they swarm
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We have experienced a number of events over the past few years that have massively challenged us - from record breaking droughts, fires, and floods to the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest challenge is the arrival of the parasitic Varroa mite to our shores a few years ago. I’ve posted before about the situation but as it sweeps through the state and starts causing havoc, I thought it best to provide another update.
For our Wild Honey customers: Nothing changes for you thankfully - we can still produce our world class Wild honey without synthetic chemical treatments. In fact one of the key reasons we adopted the Warré hive and pioneered Natural Beekeeping in Australia over 15 years ago was to prepare and adapt in advance of Varroa’s arrival. You can be assured that we will continue to be transparent about our practices and that we will provide more detailed information soon about our innovation in this space.
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Our survivor bees are already showing signs of Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH), a rare but key trait in developing colonies resistant to Varroa
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Varroa resistant genetics are important, but bee friendly management techniques such as shook swarming can also drastically reduce the Varroa load
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Unfortunately, much of the honey and wax being produced in NSW, and around Australia in the future, will be tainted by chemical residues, as most beekeepers will resort to in-hive synthetic chemical treatments to control the mite. I will write an article about the changes to the wider industry and honey quality soon.
For our natural beekeeping students and aspiring natural beekeepers: We are conducting various field trials behind the scenes using our natural beekeeping methods and will provide information in due course. Some exciting preliminary results have given us a glimmer of hope - so please stay tuned!
We are also working on how best to provide educational content to help other natural beekeepers in this paradigm shift. Please be patient! We do not want to provide false hope, so we have to make sure that the methods we are using will work in the Australian context across multiple seasons. We’ve been made aware of many products and techniques being recommended that amount to little more than snake oil - so to all beekeepers out there - Caveat Emptor (buyer beware!)
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We’ve always taken a holistic approach to keeping bees. We don’t just focus on the specifics of what we are doing in our work, we always try to incorporate the bigger picture as that’s where positive change can be made.
Bees and their impact on the world is a fascinating subject - they are not only remarkable creatures but are the thread that links food production, pollination, conservation, biodiversity and many other areas of study.
With that in mind, we’re making an effort to engage with the community in a number of different ways about the broader issues affecting bees and what people can do to help - from in person events like the Powerhouse Museum's Food Producers program, to the recent interview with Tim featured in Organic Gardener magazine.
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Tim is excited to be part of this great edition
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Tim discussses his Wild Honey, Natural Beekeeping and the challenges currently affecting beekeepers
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'When we started with Warré hives our focus was on increasing the health and resilience of the colonies, not honey production. After about five years, when the colonies were established and we were able to harvest a genuine surplus of honey, we discovered it was vastly different to conventional honey. It looked different, it tasted different and we realised that it was actually a different product. We had to invent a term to describe it, so we came up with ‘post-brood’…. In regards to Varroa, we’ve been planning for its arrival for 20 years. We’ll stick to our natural beekeeping principles which means working with the colonies to help them develop natural resistance over time and using bee-friendly management techniques..instead of chemical treatments’'
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A number of events, interviews and articles are in the pipeline at any given time - so please stay tuned for more details.
Thank you as always for your support of our bee friendly endeavours!
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Shipping and Housekeeping |
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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.
There may be a slightly longer time between orders being placed and being shipped for the next week as Tim will be away for the Trade Show mentioned above. We will do our very best to ensure orders are sent out in the usual 5 working day turn around period where possible.
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This Month's Select Products |
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Wild Honey 500g Limited Edition
Mountain Meadow
Post Brood Polyflora
Now $44.00
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Wild Honey 500g
Post Brood
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 500g
Blue Mountains
Post Brood Polyflora
Now $44.00
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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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The collapse and recovery of wild living honeybee colonies is occurring in bushland around Australia, a Darwinian process of evolution and co-adaptation that our wild colonies are part of
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For beekeepers around the world, the cooler winter months are a time to reflect and recuperate after a long, punishing summer and concentrate on the winter jobs at hand - ‘wintering’ bees, pressing and bottling honey, melting and pouring beeswax, making and repairing beehives. It’s actually quite a busy time come to think of it!
‘Wintering’ hives is the last beekeeping task of the season. Essentially it’s a term used to describe the ways beekeepers ensure the colonies have their best chance of surviving the winter months - from removing unused comb to checking cluster strength and honey stores.
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Autumn work in the apiary - ‘wintering’ colonies requires thoroughly checking the health and food stores for each and every hive
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Banksia is a very useful source of nectar and protein-rich pollen for bees, typically flowering in autumn and winter. This beautiful species is Hairpin Banksia (Banksia spinulosa)
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In our natural Warré hives, which mimic a tree hollow, colonies cluster tightly and retreat into the nest, moving upwards into the warm dome of wild honey, rich with bee bread. This situation is more thermally efficient and in the shrinking process the bees leave behind their comb building efforts from the season just gone in the lower boxes. These surplus combs can either be left over winter for the bees to occupy again as they expand in spring, or are removed and used as lures for new swarms. They are a symbol of the ingenuity of the bee superorganism and the aesthetic beauty of this style of natural beekeeping.
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Glorious natural comb, built entirely by the bees - a symbol of bee colony superorgansim intelligence and the aesthetic joy of natural beekeeping
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Grading surplus natural comb is an end of season job - some combs are melted down for wax, others can be used for bait hives in spring
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After the bees are ‘wintered’, we turn our attention to the harvested combs. Taken from the top of the nest, we only harvest combs when there is an abundant surplus as we prefer to never feed our bees. Unfortunately yields were incredibly low this year, but we’re thankful to have a small amount of beautiful Post Brood and Polyflora honey from the Blue Mountains and some amazing Mountain Meadow Post Brood Wild Honey from the Central Tablelands. Most of the core winter months have been spent carefully and methodically pressing and bottling this precious harvest. |
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As the days grow longer after the winter solstice thoughts turn to the upcoming season. This year has an added stressor - the ongoing effects of the parasitic Varroa mite on bee colonies. We’ve spent 20 years preparing for this gargantuan threat, but nothing can really prepare you for how the first wave of Varroa will play out.
So in between the typical winter work, we’ve been writing, researching and connecting with our colleagues overseas about how to deal with the mite using bee friendly and chemical free approaches, and also how best to engage with the beekeeping community when we decide to share our work and offer advice. I mentioned the early stages of that plan in the Varroa section above.
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5 year aged post brood combs are a dark purple hue from embedded propolis as the bees clean the combs over time. We are the only commercial producers of this incredibly rare and medicinal honey in Australia
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Once the post brood combs are crushed and strained, the honey is decanted into stainless steel tanks before bottling. You can see the fragments of bee bread (pollen) and propolis in the rich, thick coffee coloured wild honey - the rarest of its kind in the world
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Finally, and despite all of the above, the conditions for honey production look much better this coming season so we’re excited to possibly produce some world class Wild Honey and Wild Honeycomb for our loyal customers. The wattles have already started blooming; a sign that the first swarm of the season is not far away.
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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We hope you are finding the content in our newsletters of interest and appreciate you taking the time to subscribe and read our updates.
We also hope you enjoyed our fifteenth 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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Tim with Xinyi Lim from the Powerhouse Museum who coordinated the event (photo 
