Frequently Asked Questions

100% of our honey is Australian. We have never imported honey.
In our history we have twice run out of honey and even voluntarily deleted our products off supermarket shelves as a consequence of only using Australian honey.

Beechworth Honey is 100% pure natural Australian honey with nothing added to it and is sourced from the best honey producing flora across Australia – a pristine environment – much of it from remote eucalypt forests.

Our honey is pure and natural produced by bees gathering nectar from plants, storing in the beehive and allowed to fully ripen and mature by the bees in the hive. It complies fully to the definition of Honey as per the Australian Food Standards Code and does not have anything added or removed to change its natural composition.

All our honey is 100% Australian.

We still keep hives and some of our honey comes from our own hives but we also source honey from across Australia from the very best of Australia’s honey producing families who we know, visit and trust. The majority of our honey comes from the east coast of Australia.

Our stance has always been clear, strong and unwavering – no imported honey for Beechworth Honey. 100% Australian honey … Always!

The back label of all Beechworth Honey product contains a clear Country of Origin label. This shows that our products are 100% Australian honey.

By law all honey sold in Australia must carry this symbol. You can check if the product you are looking at is 100% Australian produced or contains some imported honey. Our suggestion is to only use 100% Australian from a supplier you can trust. These products will either say Product of Australia or Made in Australia from 100% Australian Ingredients – both mean no imported honey is contained inside.

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 of honey. Some honey can be very thick and other types produced in less than favourable conditions can be thinner.

Occasionally we get a customer who does not enjoy the honey that is being produced at the time, however usually after the appreciation that nothing is done to our honey to change it from being as it is produced by nature, people begin to appreciate the natural difference in flavours and viscosity.

Freshly produced honey is always liquid but with time some varieties of honeys are more likely to candy than others. It all depends on the type of honey, the ratio of naturally occurring sugars and temperature conditions. There are a variety of naturally occurring sugars in honey including: glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose. But the main ones are glucose and fructose that give honey its “sweetness”. Glucose is the sugar that influences crystallisation. 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 crystallise 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. Microwaving overheats the honey and doesn’t heat evenly, therefore we do not recommend that method.

Creamed honey or creamy honey is simply liquid honey that has been stirred slowly until it takes on the creamy texture. This is usually done in a cool environment and nothing is added to honey to make it creamy.

Once creamed, it is recommended that the honey is stored at room temperature. Honey is a natural product & spreadability may vary. If honey is too hard to spread, warm gently in hot water. If too soft, refrigerate.

Yes, honey produced in the hive is naturally gluten free. All of our honey products, lollies and drinks are gluten free, with the exception of our Honeycomb Rocky Road.

We always suggest that you check the label or product information to determine if the product is suitable for your individual dietary requirements.

All our plastic containers are made from PET which are all BPA free, numbers are located on the bottom which indicates the type of plastic & recyclability of that particular container.

We also like glass much more than plastic and were really disappointed to be advised by supermarkets that our glass jars were to be deleted (we don’t actually make these choices). The majority of customers wanted the convenience of a squeeze bottle. In addition to the plastic dilemma we also balance the livelihoods of our beekeepers and knowing that if our products were not on the shelf then likely they would be replaced by imported honey also in plastic – so nothing would be achieved. 

We have worked hard as part of our voluntary membership of the National Packaging Covenant to decrease the amount of plastic in our containers (to lightweight them as far as possible to reduce the plastic volume) and to ensure we use quality plastic that can be reclaimed and recycled and to encourage recycling and recycle everything we possibly can internally. Sadly though we must all push for more to happen. Coles stores have recently added our Bee Delicate, Bee Fruity, Bee Warm and Bee Bold in a 350g glass jars and we have a large range of products available in glass through our online stores and Beechworth Honey Shop so they’re still available to passionate glass advocates.

We feel it’s actually about making whatever differences we can, one step at a time.

Beechworth Honey is raw meaning it is not pasteurised. The exception is for honey sent to WA where it is a legal requirement if the honey is produced outside of WA.

Raw honey is not pasteurised or heated to high temperatures. It is warmed just enough to allow it to flow easily into jars while retaining all the natural enzymes, flavours and aromas. Raw honey has minimal processing.

Looking at international honey definitions and references it seems that there is consensus that raw honey and creamed honey are two different things. We would say the honey used to make our creamy honey is raw but the process of creaming gives it a new definition because it is converted to a crystalised state whereas raw honey would be expected to be in a liquid state.

Definitions:

Raw honey: Honey extracted from the combs, settled, and then optionally strained. Raw honey has not been heated to the extent that its original quality parameters are altered.

Creamed honey: Honey in the solid state that has crystallised through a controlled process, to create a finely granulated product with a smooth, creamy texture. Creamed honey, consists of finely crystallised honey and has a smooth consistency. It is prepared by warming honey to liquefy it, then straining it, and ‘seeding’ the honey by adding variable quantities of crystallised honey. The honey is then poured into retail containers and stored in a cool room for several days to ‘set’ or crystallize.

No. Beechworth Honey does not contain antibiotics.

Australian beekeepers are only permitted to use one antibiotic, Oxytetracycline, under very strict veterinary supervision, only when their hives are diagnosed and confirmed to have European Foul Brood disease. Antibiotics are required in this case to stop the bees from dying. If a beekeeper has treated a hive with antibiotics, they must declare this to the honey packer, who will test the honey to ensure that there are no traces of antibiotics in the honey. Good beekeeping practices and strong, healthy bees mean that beekeepers only rarely need to seek permission to use antibiotics.

Australian honey has been subjected to antibiotics testing for more than 35 years as part of the Australian Government’s National Residue Surve,y which is required to satisfy strict requirements for the sale of safe Australian honey. The survey test is not only for Oxytetracycline but many other antibiotics found in overseas-produced honey, even though beekeepers cannot access these chemicals. The results of the National Residue Survey demonstrate Australia’s perfect record for freedom from antibiotics both currently and historically. The samples for this survey are randomly selected from producers, packers and the retail market by Australian government officials, and these results are supplied to overseas trading countries and scrutinised by the European Union and other trading partners. Beechworth Honey has been regularly subjected to testing as part of this program over many years.

Beechworth Honey is certified to the Global Food Standard, which contains monitoring and verification for all food safety risks. As part of this rigorous quality assurance and food safety program, which is independently audited, we monitor the risk of antibiotics in our products and have never had a contravention as part of our testing regime. Australia’s food safety system is underpinned by a rigorous government food safety oversight body, FSANZ, and Beechworth Honey fully complies with the Food Safety Standards Code as set out by FSANZ. FSANZ does not allow any pesticide residues in honey in Australia.

Beechworth Honey’s honey is 100% Australian and is sourced from the best honey-producing flora across Australia. Through our decision not to import honey from overseas honey-producing countries, where most honey is produced under conditions and environments very different from Australia, we ensure we manage risks like antibiotic contamination with the highest degree of confidence. We will never compromise our quality and will always put the safety of our family and other families across Australia and internationally first.

Our bees collect nectar from eucalypt trees or ground flora that are flowering in order to produce honey. Nectar is the best source of nutrition for bees and beekeepers always try to ensure that they are either on a nectar flow or that they have left enough stored honey on the hives to ensure the bees have sufficient stores of food until the next source of flowers.

Rarely, if there has not been enough flowers or if a honey / nectar flow has failed due to poor weather and the bees have been highly active consuming their stores of honey, a beekeeper may find it necessary to supplementary feed their hives to ensure they don’t starve. They will use a sugar syrup simply made with dissolved white sugar and water but this is only fed in small quantities that the bees can consume and and not store. Bees are only fed in emergencies when there is not a nectar flow or honey crop. The bees consume the sugar syrup well before the next honey flow so it never ends up in our honey. Sugar is expensive and beekeepers first choice is to manage their bees environment so that they don’t have to supplementary feed. The diet of natural nectar is always the preferred option and better for the bees.

As part of our quality assurance system we regularly monitor the natural sugar composition of honey as this is required as part of the Australian food standards code and have never had any issues.

We choose the best of the best beekeepers by having four generations of knowledge of good beekeeping practices. Great beekeepers know that the very best diet for keeping bees happy and healthy is honey produced by the hive.

For this reason our beekeepers work really hard to ensure they leave enough honey stores on the hive for the hive to eat. This is the primary job of the beekeeper to only take excess honey that the hive does not need. In periods of drought where there is a failure of the next honey crop it may be necessary for a beekeeper to prevent the hive from starving to death by supplementary feeding the hive with small amounts of sugar syrup. Beekeepers don’t like to do this, its inferior nutritionally, costly and time consuming and is only done as a last resort when mother nature lets us down! This syrup is fully consumed by the bees and does not make it into the next honey flow.

Accounts can be created when you place an online order. You can not create an account before placing an order.

To create an account you need put products in your Shopping Cart and click on Proceed to Check-out. You will then see a box that is ticked saying ‘Create Beechworth Honey shopping account. Untick to proceed as guest’. To create an account leave this box ticked and continue with your order. Once you have paid, your account will be created allowing you to store your payment details securely, see past orders, change delivery address etc.

When you create an account you are not automatically subscribed to our email list for updates and company news. This is a separate sign-up which you can find in the footer of our website.

Make sure you have signed up to become an online customer. This is different from being on our email list. If you have provided us with your email address you may have received emails and newsletters from us but never ordered with us online, so now you need to sign up to become an online customer.

Make sure your password has a combination of letters and numbers it will state if it’s a strong password.

Please give us a call on (02) 6033 2322 or email sales@beechworthhoney.com.au and we can reset your account.

We accept Mastercard, Visa Card, Paypal and Apple Pay.

Once the order has been completed and is ready for dispatch you will receive an email advising your order is being dispatched. Once it is scanned by the courier/Post Office you will then receive tracking information from Shippit. They are an external company that organise the shipping of your order.

However if you have any queries about delivery please call us on 02 6033 2322 or email sales@beechworthhoney.com.au

Please give us a call on (02) 6033 2322 or email sales@beechworthhoney.com.au and we can help you.

We are experts in sending online orders we carefully wrap in eco friendly packaging and pack to ensure nothing is damaged.

Once your order has been picked up or scanned by the courier, tracking information will be sent via email with further updates along the way.

All couriers will leave a card to advise they have tried to deliver your parcel and instructions about how to redeliver or collect your parcel.

Yes we can organise a personalised message to be included when you order online. At the Payment Page you will be asked ‘Is this a gift?’ Tick the box and write the gift note in the box provided.

In just three simple steps you can create your own custom Honey Hamper:

1. Add your selection of products to your cart (maximum 7 items)
2. Add the Create Your Own Hamper box to your cart
3. At the Payment Page you will be asked ‘Is this a gift?’ Tick the box and write the gift note in the box provided.