Frequently Asked Questions Bee knowledgeable.

There are over 700 honey varieties known in Australia and Beechworth Honey produces around 40 different eucalyptus and floral varietal honeys. When you taste our range, you will observe that the different honeys all have their own unique flavour, appealing to the many different taste preferences of our customers.

All plants and trees flower at different times of the year and the beekeepers place their hives across different locations depending on the time of the year.

Our honey does vary. We package different varieties according to what has been produced by the bees. We do not blend for a consistent colour or flavour. Differing weather conditions and types of flowers produce different consistencies and flavours of honey

Occasionally you may find that you do not enjoy the honey that is being produced at a particular time &/or season, however being as it is produced by nature, we hope you can begin to appreciate the natural difference in flavours and viscosity.

The wax cappings are removed with a sharp blade before the honeycomb is placed in to an extractor.

The honeycomb is then placed in revolving baskets where the spinning movement throws out the honey by centrifugal force.

Organic honey is overseen by a set of guidelines that covers not only the origin of the bees but also the siting of the apiaries. These guidelines are different depending on which certification agency oversees individual beekeepers.

All our honey is completely pure and natural sourced from Australia’s pristine environment.

At this stage there is no 100% conclusive scientific evidence to indicate that honey labelled as “organic” is any different or better for you than 100% pure natural Beechworth Honey.

There is a time / temperature relationship where heating of honey is concerned.

There is evidence that when honey is heated over 45 degrees and held for long periods of time (over 24 hours) then there can be a deterioration of the naturally occurring enzymes in the honey and also a darkening of colour.

All major Australian honey packers are well aware of these facts and have designed their systems to take this into consideration. Our warming system is thermostatically controlled so as to not allow the honey to get too warm and is all on timers.

To us “raw” is unpasteurised – this means it hasn’t been heated to high temperatures (over 45-degrees C) for periods greater than 8 hours, as research about heating honey tells us that over these temperatures and times the natural enzymes in honey, diastase and invertase decrease in number.

All our honey sold in all states of Australia is unpasteurised, we keep heat to a minimum, only gently warming it to allow it to flow. We do however have to pasteurised honey we send into WA using a completely different heating process to ensure we meet strict quarantine restrictions for selling honey into that state – this is to protect the local bees in that state that don’t have some bee diseases which can be transported in unpasteurised or raw honey.

To us raw is not ultra-filtered – Ultra-filtration is common in honey sold in places like America where the honey is passed through a very fine filter and then a vacuum extraction process that strips the honey of virtually everything including tiny pollen grains, air bubbles and even colour. It’s done to prevent the honey from naturally crystallising and “polishes” the honey to give it a golden almost oil like sheen.

Ultra-filtration is also used by ‘Honey Fraudsters’ to remove pollen which can be used to tell the true origin of where the honey was produced.

In contrast, we do not ultra-filter any of our honey. We simply pass the honey through very coarse filters that take out unsightly lumps of beeswax and hive debris. Our honey will eventually crystallise as a result of not being ultra filtered.

So is our honey raw? We think so, but your definition may be even more pure or specialised than ours. That’s OK, there is no legal or agreed definition of raw.

If you want honey totally untouched by human hands then we do this too – it’s available in chunks of honeycomb cut straight out of the frames and sealed still in the beeswax put there by the bees. Where our products contain honey sealed in honeycomb we do refer to this as our “Bee Raw” range of honey. This is the rawest of raw honey for those who want raw this raw.

There are a variety of naturally occurring sugars in honey including:
glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose.

The main ones are glucose
and fructose that give honey its “sweetness”. Glucose is the sugar that
influences crystalisation. The more glucose in the honey, the sooner
your honey will candy.

Some pure varieties such as stringy bark and yellow box take years to candy and if kept completely pure, without
a hint of any other type of honey are said to never crystalise at all.

Candy honey is a completely natural process that does not alter the taste or nutrition of the honey in any way.

It’s fairly simple to turn your honey back into a liquid again by gently warming it. The best way to do this is to
place your honey in a bowl of warm water and let it slowly warm up.
Note: Microwaving overheats the honey and doesn’t heat evenly, therefore we do not recommend that method.

We package different varieties according to what has been produced by the bees.

Creamed Honey is begun by adding a small amount of candied honey to a variety of honey that is known to be naturally fast granulating with a fine crystal.

It is then stirred slowly with a whipping motion in a cool environment.

European Foulbrood is a disease which kills bees. Infected bees can’t fly across the interior of the continent
because the journey’s too far and too harsh, however the disease could reach Western Australia as spores in
untreated honey.

These spores wouldn’t harm you if you ate them, but if a jar with a small amount of remaining honey gets thrown away in Western Australia and the bees found it, they would take the spores back to the hive causing the hive to become infected.

As disease can spread from hive to hive, it wouldn’t just be honey production that would be affected. Bees pollinate a large amount of plants and crops that we rely on for food.

Honey, honeycomb, beeswax, pollen, hives and used hive equipment are prohibited from entering the state.

Born and bred in Beechworth, Steven and Jodie Goldsworthy purchased their own bees in 1992 and developed the Beechworth Honey label soon after.

In 1999 they formed the prestigious and highly awarded company of today.

The site is convenient for beekeepers from across the huge Australian honey gathering network to deliver honey into a highly accessible location and for our transport network to access the large Supermarket Distribution networks in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

How is it made?
Mead is made when honey is diluted with water and allowed to ferment. Fermentation is then stopped to retain the sweetness. With multiple fermentations we build more complexity and flavour.

Mead can take between 3 months and 5 years or more to make depending on its style.

Mead is Gluten Free – it does not contain wheat or grain based yeasts.

What does it taste like?
The perception of mead is that it will taste very sweet or spicy. However Beechworth Honey Mead is not what you expect it to be!

Honey Mead is a much subtler and more refined flavour that breaks from tradition.

All our skin care ingredients are nature derived or naturally occurring, except for the safe synthetic preservatives Phenoxyethanol and Ethyhexylglycerin, and Carbomer which helps keep oil and liquid components from separating.

These synthetic ingredients make up less than 3% of ingredients in our skin care range.