Our Seventeenth Newsletter | New Limited Edition Wild Honey Variety | Core Range Varieties back in stock! | Pure Beeswax and Wild Honeycomb Also Back | Tim featured in Aussie Mag | New Gift Packs Released Today for Mother's Day | Beekeeping Updates and more |
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Amber Sunshine, Smoke-Blue Shade |
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'Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade... On the gold of the upland grass... Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist; Hills of tenuous amethyst...'
The Colours Of Light, 1914
Dorothea Mackellar
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Dear Friends ,
We hope our first newsletter for 2026 finds you prospering despite these unusual times!
In today’s missive we have some welcome tidings, product news, fond farewells, Tim’s beekeeping update and a new article hot off the press featuring Malfroy’s Gold!
We thank you for your patience while we compiled this newsletter and harvested this season's bounty from both our golden western woodlands and azure mountain sandstone country.
Our exciting news for this issue is the release of our latest Limited Edition Gold Label Wild Honey! We will have new gift packs and a small number number of single jars available as of today. We have a few other Wild Honey varieties and bee produce from both regions available for purchase in limited numbers as well, so be sure to have a look before they sell out.
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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Yellow Bloodwood
Sweet and Striking Sandstone Country Goodness |
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When spring comes and the days lengthen, the weather warms, wildflowers bloom and our bee colonies start expanding their nests.
The species most emblematic of this time of year in the lower Blue Mountains is the Yellow Bloodwood Corymbia eximia. A close relative of the Eucalypts (in fact, it was originally identified as a Eucalypt), it is as a major contributor to our Blue Mountains Polyflora Wild Honey and Wild Honeycomb when in flower.
Yellow Bloodwood typically has gnarly crooked limbs underneath an attractive olive green canopy. The rough bark is rusty yellow, tessellated and often oozing with kino resin (serving as inspiration for the name Bloodwood). In contrast to its twisted form and textured bark, the tree blossoms are large, delicate, creamy and fragrant.
In certain years, such as 2025, when flowering is particularly impressive and the weather is hot and dry, the bees will produce a pure variety of this rare honey.
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Delicate, creamy Yellow Bloodwood blossoms
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Our Yellow Bloodwood Wild Honey is of a light straw yellow colour, has a dense body, and caramel, citrus and vanilla notes. Sweet and striking, it's a delicate honey yielded from the harshest landscape. A genuine terroir honey of the Blue Mountains wilderness and a very special, limited release. |
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Yellow Is the New Black
Wild Honey, Wild Honeycomb and Beeswax Back in Stock |
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In addition to our beautiful Yellow Bloodwood Wild Honey, we now have some Yellow Box Wild Honey in stock. It is available in limited numbers in single 500g jars and also paired with our Gold label Yellow Bloodwood Wild Honey in our new Yellow 500g gift pack.
Continuing on the Yellow theme, we also have some of our 100% chemical free, golden Beeswax available in 200g and 1kg blocks. Tim is excited to share this latest batch with our customers, whose inspired use of our virgin wax results in some amazing creations.
Finally, we have a small amount of Wild Honeycomb for sale as well - it is prized by award winning chefs and restaurants in Australia so won't last long.
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We are so grateful to have this small harvest to offer you after quite an unusual season. We recommend you purchase now as many customers have been in contact with us directly and are waiting for their favourite varieties to be available again - so this limited harvest will sell quickly! |
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Galah, the Friendship Issue
Tim featured in this beautiful Australian periodical |
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We were incredibly fortunate to have Galah Press contact us to organise a feature piece on Tim and our little honey label.
We were very keen to be part of their beautiful publication, so back when the weather was a little warmer, Lenny Ann Low and Luisa Brimble visited one of our upper Blue Mountains apiaries to discuss beekeeping with Tim and observe a typical apiary visit at the peak of the beekeeping season.
Lenny has written a wonderfully evocative piece, perfectly capturing the beautiful landscape Tim calls his office and his affinity for the Australian Bush and his bees, as well as explaining some of the ins and outs of the natural beekeeping process.
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The front cover of Galah Issue 14
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Some of Luisa's images of Tim at work
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'A pioneer of the natural beekeeping movement, Tim Malfroy spends his days alone in the bush, as busy as his bees... Malfroy regards beekeeping as almost a Zen process, a way to focus and connect with creatures that have their own world happening. "If you're going to be doing this with the rest of your life, you want to be able to rest easy at night," he says, "letting the bees do what they've done for millions of years."'
Excerpt from the article on Tim Malfroy in Galah Issue 14 (March 2026) |
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Be sure to grab a copy if you are interested in what Tim does and want to explore the magazine's other insights into regional Australian life such as book reviews, creative gardening, features on Australian artists and glorious food pieces! |
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Detail from a beautiful tea towel gifted to us by Topher and the crew at Wildflower
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You may recall over the years our mentioning Topher and his incredible brewery in Marrickville, Wildflower Brewing and Blending. To jog the collective memory, in an industry first, Topher experimented with fermenting our Post Brood honeywax to create a new kind of beer, and the result was their very popular brew, Hive: Post Brood.
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When Topher announced recently that he’d made the difficult decision to gradually re-locate the brewery from Marrickville to a rural setting we were obviously a little sad as it means a pause on this project for a few years, and Tim no longer dropping in to the brewery to deliver the honeywax personally where he enjoyed a catch up with the wonderful folks there.
We are excited to see where Topher goes with the new iteration of his impressive business and can’t wait to get started on the collaboration again when Wildflower re-opens in the next few years.
As part of the winding down, a special Producers event was held at the brewery recently. Tim was honoured to be included and enjoyed catching up with some of the industry's finest who gathered for a final hurrah and to celebrate everything that Topher and his amazing Wildflower team have achieved.
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Topher and Mike Bennie (wine journalist extraordinaire) celebrating during the Producers event at Wildflower - both great humans and huge supporters of our work
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Wildflower's ‘Hive’ Beer and our Blue Mountains Post Brood Wild Honey - a match made in heaven
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Our collaboration with Topher is one we are incredibly proud of and it has been a joy for Tim to work with Topher. He’s one of those rare individuals who is not only great to hang out with but also has a tremendous work ethic and really 'walks the talk' when it comes to sustainable sourcing of ingredients and in-house processes.
We wish Topher and his family all the best and thank them for their friendship and support over the years. |
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Two of the World's Finest bid Sydney Adieu |
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A collection of dishes featuring our produce at Clare Smyth and Peter Gilmore's Sydney establishments along with some great experiences with the people themselves
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The fine food dining scene in Sydney has recently seen some upheaval, most notably the departure of two of the world's finest chefs and closure of some of their establishments.
Both Clare Smyth and Peter Gilmore have helmed some of the best restaurants in Sydney, and arguably the world, so it is a huge loss for our fair city - and particularly for Malfroy's Gold as these culinary visionaries have championed our produce in their restaurants and even on television from time to time! |
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Peter Gilmore has been a big supporter of Australian Produce and our work with the bees for a long time now, being one of the first of Sydney's fine dining figure heads to incorporate our Wild Honey and Honeycomb on their menus - most notably at his renowned restaurants Bennelong (in the Sydney Opera House) and Quay (in the Overseas Passenger Terminal at the Rocks). A lover of bees and honey, he was also part of a beekeeping program on the ABC where he challenged amateur beekeepers to produce honey of the same callibre as our unique Blue Mountains Post Brood Wild Honey, which he was using in a signature tart at Quay at the time. It is an honour to have our produce selected by Peter, not only in his dishes, but to be used as a benchmark of quality and individuality on national television. Tim has also had the pleasure of hosting Peter and his good friend and world famous chef, Lennox Hastie, at one of our Blue Mountains apiaries in the past - both of whom have nominated us for .delicious Produce awards as well.
Peter says he is not looking to retire but may be moving down south to his Tasmanian property where he is keen to work in his kitchen garden and recharge his creative juices. We will definitely miss him and the incredible work he does to promote Australian produce and are ever grateful for his support.
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Peter Gilmore personally attending to his patrons at Quay restaurant at the Rocks in Sydney which has recently closed its doors (photo @wanderlust_baconko|Instagram)
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Peter, Tim and Lennox Hastie enjoying a sunny day out in one of our Blue Mountains apiaries
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Clare Smyth is a world famous chef and champion of fine produce, managing numerous hatted restaurants around the globe, appearing on Masterchef and other food programs in a number of countries, and even catering Harry and Megan's private wedding reception. To say Sydney was blessed when she decided to bring her refined culinary vision to Sydney's Crown Casino would be an understatement. For Malfroy's Gold, her support and interest in our produce was such an amazing boon and our gratitude to Clare and her team at Oncore is beyond measure. Not only did she include our Wild Honey in dishes served as part of her fine dining experience high above Sydney Harbour, but she selected our Wild Honey as the focus ingredient in a service challenge on the Australian Masterchef program after she and her team visited Tim at one of our Blue Mountains Apiaries to learn more about what we do. She even popped into a producer event in Sydney to personally see Tim and grab a jar of our Wild Honey to take back to the UK with her after one of her whirlwind trips to Australia. Now that Oncore has officially closed it's doors it feels like quite a loss for our little business, but more so for the Australian fine food scene. Clare has mentioned she is keen to continue her culinary work in Australia in future so we will cross all of our fingers and toes that eventuates! |
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Clare Smyth and Tim during her visit to our upper mountains apiary where she experienced fresh Wild Honey in the Wild!
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Clare at her world famous fine dining establishment, Oncore, formerly situated in Crown Casino, Sydney (photo © Oncore I Clare Smyth
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In some happier food industry news, our produce has recently been incorporated into the menu at Yiaga Restaurant in Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens and Hugh Allen and his team are doing some beautiful things with it (see photo at the bottom of this newsletter)! 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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As mentioned above, we are so excited to have some bee produce back in stock! Yellow Box wild Honey, Pure Beeswax and Wild Honeycomb is back - just in time for Mother's Day!
Our new Yellow Bloodwood Limited Edition Wild Honey is available in single 500g jars and we also have some mixed gift packs featuring our new variety in 500g jars.
As always we have E-Gift vouchers on offer so you can give the gift of sweetness to the amazing ladies in the family! |
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Shipping and Housekeeping
(Mother's Day) |
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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 guarantee delivery by Mother's Day we advise you to place your orders by 5pm on the 28 April 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 500g Limited Edition
Yellow Bloodwood
$47.00
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Wild Honey 500g Polyflora
Two Jar 'Yellow' Gift Pack
Now $94.00
$96.00
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Beeswax Block 1kg
100% Pure, clean wax
from Virgin Comb
$82.00
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Wild Honeycomb 300g
Blue Mountains Polyflora
$49.00
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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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Gorgeous, fragrant blooms of the iconic Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora)
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In our last missive, I went into detail about the calamitous situation regarding Varroa mite and our long term Natural Beekeeping approach to the problem. In short, we lost 90% of our colonies during the ‘first phase’ of Varroa and started rebuilding the apiaries from the rare survivor colonies in spring. This approach is the only one of its kind in Australia, as other beekeepers either lost all of their colonies or treated hives with synthetic chemicals.
Remarkably, the mites have already developed resistance to the synthetic chemicals, proving our chemical-free and bee friendly approach could be a more sustainable solution.
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A wild survivor drone - the colour and hairs reveal a completely different type of bee to those commercially reared
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A wild queen bee from a survivor colony - carrying the deep genetics that arise from Darwinian / natural selection processes
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The rebuilding phase began in September and our efforts were bolstered by a magnificent flowering of wild species in the Blue Mountains, followed by a truly epic flowering of Yellow Bloodwood (Corymbia eximia), a favourite of honeybees and a personal favourite of mine. The yellow tessellated bark is striking as are the large creamy white blossoms with a vanilla perfumed aroma. Such a delicate honey produced in hard sandstone rock country. |
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Fresh wild honeycomb, built entirely by survivor bee colonies in the Blue Mountains wilderness
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A Yellow Bloodwood tree in bloom in one of our bee friendly Warre hive apiaries in the lower Blue Mountains
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The survivor colonies expanded rapidly and we were amazed to see swarms again - a sign of abundance and health. We even caught some genuine survivor colonies in our bait hives - these colonies are rare as hen’s teeth and therefore critical in the rebuilding process by means of establishing apiaries with locally varroa tolerant genetics.
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Classic ‘varroa sensitive hygienic’ behaviour - some bees have developed the ability to detect Varroa mites beneath the cell capping - they uncap the larvae at ‘purple eye’ stage to disrupt the mites breeding
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A solid comb of capped bee brood from a survivor colony showing incredible results after a three year natural selection process
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It’s hard to capture how relieved we were to see colonies thriving again after the devastation of the previous two seasons. However, despite the silver linings there is always plenty of cloud - and this season was incredibly challenging for a number of different reasons.
The spring in the Central Tablelands was extremely windy and dry and the colonies were struggling to maintain their health amidst a dearth of nectar and pollen. Varroa was also discovered in the apiaries.
In contrast, the late summer in the Blue Mountains went from extreme heat (45ºC) to oppressively cloudy, wet and humid conditions that allow small hive beetle - a serious pest of honeybees - to thrive and cause colonies to collapse, particularly when combined with Varroa.
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Late summer in the mountains proved to be frustratingly cloudy and wet. The constant rain made life difficult for the bees (and the beekeeper!)
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In contrast, the tablelands region was hot and dry - perfect for Yellow Box which loves these conditions when flowering
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Unfortunately we did suffer additional losses during this period, and also during the ‘first wave’ of Varroa as it made its way through the upper Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands apiaries.
Thankfully, the tableland bees were significantly bolstered by a very late and impressive honey flow from Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) and the rainy summer in the mountains eventually abated and the colonies are now in recovery mode - making the most of the current warm and dry autumn weather to re-establish the strength of their nests before the weather cools.
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Beautiful fresh wild comb being built by the bees on an impressive honey flow of Yellow Box during late summer
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Yellow Box Post Brood combs - aged for 3 to 5 years in the hive - ready for pressing and bottling over the winter months
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In summary, this season was like a rollercoaster - plenty of elated highs and terrifying lows. We’re just glad to have some survivor colonies to work with for next season and to have plenty of gorgeous wild honey to offer. In terms of our Wild Honey, what was already incredibly rare will become increasingly so, as producing it becomes more challenging and the rest of the industry sprints head first into an industrial beekeeping model that relies on chemicals, sugar and bulk diesel supply.
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Over winter I hope to share more detailed insights into the work we’ve been pioneering with our natural beekeeping approach to Varroa in the Australian context. Next season is critical as we will be building on the important foundations that were laid this season - we can’t wait to share the journey with you here.
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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A big thank you to our readers for your patience as we work through tough seasons and smaller harvests than usual - and especially for your kind words of support which keep our spirits up.
We hope our seventeenth newsletter provided you with some inspiration and food for thought! (If you missed our last newsletter and would like to read it you can
so here.)
Thank you for your ongoing interest,
Tim, Emma and the Daughters of Light
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Hugh Allen's Gumnuts - a mousse made with Victorian-grown sencha and Malfroy's native flower honey from the Blue Mountains - available at Yiaga in Melbourne (Photo @yiaga
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