NEW: Mugga Ironbark Honey
A Brand New ‘Family Release’ Honey
Pollinate! by Beechworth Honey
A Celebration of Bees, Flowers, & Food
NEW: Creamy Honey 900g
A Beautiful & Generous Gift
Honeybee Pollination Poster
Receive a FREE pollination poster
Wheen Bee Foundation
Advocacy Work & Projects
Did you know?
Two thirds of Australia’s agriculture production benefits from honeybee pollination
Spring epitomises the busyness of beekeeping. Spring signals the ‘start’ of our year as beekeepers. Behind every jar of Beechworth Honey are hard-working Australian beekeeping families who move bees to ‘pollination jobs’. Our bees have already pollinated almonds, and apples and are now back closer to home pollinating kiwi fruit. This all happens without us collecting any honey. In fact, we need to make sure we’ve left plenty of stores of honey on the hives in late Autumn to ensure our bees are strong and healthy to see them through their pollination duties. The bees breed beautifully on the rich pollen they transport from flower to flower and the miracle of nature invisibly unfolds.
Growing up in a beekeeping family we’ve been pollinating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds for as long as I can remember but it’s easy to forget that for some the term pollination is a mystery. I am super excited that our talented team have captured this incredible natural process in a simple one-page poster - our new Honeybee Pollination Guide. It’s amazing to think that in Australia two-thirds of our Agricultural production depends on honeybees for pollination and globally 1 in 3 mouthfuls of food relies on a bee.
After more than 30 passionate years in building Beechworth Honey it’s not surprising really that much of my work now amounts to ‘educating’ people about how important bees are. This takes many forms, from running a ‘Pollinate’ event for November to overseeing a Bee School and working as a Board Member for the Wheen Bee Foundation. I’ve been a volunteer Board Member since 2011 and in all of that time, I’ve been looking for ways to help decision-makers and the
public recognise, support and protect the critical importance of bees.
I am ecstatic that after many hours of work, the Wheen Bee Foundation has been awarded a major grant from the Ian Potter Foundation to develop a National Pollination Strategy. I’ve always been a believer that if you fail to plan then you plan to fail and so for me, the lack of a National Pollination Strategy has been a lifelong worry. It just goes to show that perseverance and hard work does pay off. The time is now right to bring together clever minds from the environment, farming and beekeeping sectors to build a collective strategy that will advocate for pollinator protection (we need all pollinators not just honey bees if we are to produce enough food into the future and protect our environment) and support the development of a pollination industry with the capacity and capability to meet the increasing demand for bees for agriculture and the environment.
In this edition as well as sharing the fun of ‘Pollinate!’, our floral take over of our store and bringing you the very best of practical honey gifting we also take you behind the scenes of the Wheen Bee Foundation where I spend more hours than I care to count. It’s a privilege and an honour to work with talented people to bring all these things together. Spring reminds me of the importance of our beautiful honey in enabling me to do so much more to protect bees and all they bring us.
Jodie Goldsworthy Beechworth Honey Co-founder
Hand selected by Jodie and Steven Goldsworthy, our Family Release Mugga Ironbark Honey is produced by bees exclusively from the Pilliga Forest in central New South Wales.
Mugga Ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon) is a distinctive eucalypt species renowned for its tough, dark bark and elegant blooms that grace the winter landscape.
Mugga Ironbark is a Beechworth Honey family favourite. It is a deliciously thick, pale honey with an indulgent mild buttery flavour. Delicate and sweet with the fresh aroma of beeswax. Enjoy!
‘Pollinate! by Beechworth Honey is back in 2024! Following the success of last year’s event, this year’s month-long celebration of bees, flowers, and food once again spotlights the vital role of honeybees in our ecosystem.
We’re immersing our visitors into the captivating world of our hardest-working pollinators. Through immersive displays, educational opportunities, and an engaging visual overload, ‘Pollinate!’ inspires a deeper appreciation for honeybees.
Inside and outside the store you will find a collection of stunning bee-friendly perennials, all grown locally by our friends at Alpine Perennials, Harrietville. We’re inspiring our customers to plant more bee-friendly flowers in their gardens to help support bees and biodiversity.
Enter the Beechworth Honey Shop beneath a cascade of bee boxes, meticulously crafted and filled with vibrant bee-friendly food and flowers, all intertwined to form an awe-inspiring entryway into the store.
‘Pollinate!’ runs until the 30th November 2024 at the Beechworth Honey Shop, 87 Ford Street, Beechworth VIC. We hope to see you there!
As you pass beneath ‘A Doorway to Bees’, we invite you to be immersed in the world of bees, a sensory experience that celebrates the delicate balance of nature and biodiversity.
Available only for ‘Pollinate!’, our Sparkling Honey Drink Tasting Bar is now open! Sample our Sparkling Honey Drinks infused with delicious bee-pollinated ingredients. Without bees, we wouldn’t have these incredible ingredients.
‘From the Hives’ Floral Sculptures
We couldn’t do it all! Four incredible local florists have put forth their interpretation of ‘bees, flowers, and food’ in a series of captivating in-store installations that are truly stunning. Stop by and vote for your favourite!
Made from 100% Australian honey, creamed honey is a favourite for honey lovers who like a spread over a drizzle. Once you try our delicately smooth creamed honey, there’s no going back.
Our new 900g Creamy Honey jar makes a perfect, beautiful and generous gift! One of our most popular honeys means your lucky recipient will love it!
The Wheen Bee Foundation is an Australian not-for-profit charity that promotes awareness of the importance of bees for food security, and raises funds for research that addresses the national and global threats to bees.
Since its foundation in 2009, the Wheen Bee Foundation has established itself as Australia’s premier, not-for-profit organisation supporting honey bee research and development.
Its founder, Gretchen Wheen, was a well-known commercial beekeeper specialising in the supply of quality queen bees for local and overseas markets.
Wheen recognised the fundamental link between honey bees and food security and was concerned about the growing threats to the beekeeping industry. Before she died she donated her farm and other resources to establish the Wheen Bee Foundation, with the aim of supporting and developing research, innovation, training and communication to ensure a viable beekeeping industry and protect our food supply.
The Wheen Bee Foundation funds vital strategic research and education initiatives that strengthen bees, improve pollination efficiency and increase food security and ecosystem health.
1. Create a fundraising activity and donate to the Wheen Bee Foundation directly.
2. Beechworth Honey donates 1% of the revenue from the Beechworth Honey Bee Cause products to our charity partners that support bees, and the Wheen Bee Foundation is our biggest recipient. So retailers from the biggest to the smallest that buy Bee Cause Honey are supporting the wonderful work of the Wheen Bee Foundation.
To learn more visit wheenbeefoundation.org.au
Q: What’s your unique perspective?
What we recognised through our long family heritage in beekeeping was that we had a really unique perspectives on the industry. We understood beekeeping deeply from the ground up, we understood bees, and we understood that most people within the market and the public were indifferent to just how critically important bees are. We also realised that with the business we’d built we could actually do more to help manage the threats to bees and beekeeping and so we set out to do just that.
Q: How did you get involved with the Wheen Bee Foundation?
I became aware that an elderly queen bee breeder, Gretchen Wheen was in the process of setting up a bee charity. I called Gretchen and went to see her at her property in Richmond just outside Sydney. I’ll never forget that day. It was a day where two women from different generations shared their vision on how to help bees. We spent the day talking, about the problems bees and beekeepers were facing and shared our separate but the same visions. Soon after two of Gretchen’s lifelong friends and fellow Board members asked me to join the Board and help set up the Wheen Bee Foundation.
Q: What has your time with the Wheen Bee Foundation been like?
The Wheen Bee Foundation was a start-up charity. Although there was a modest amount of money left to set up the foundation after Gretchen passed away, we quickly resolved to ensure that we built a legacy for the future. We’ve frugally and resourcefully saved, fundraised and strategised to ensure that we created programs with impact. Initially, we were a small board of four and there was much work to recruit the right CEO, Fiona Chambers, who has worked so hard to build the foundation with the Board and Chairman Dr Max Whitten. Fair to say most things have been handson and the collective enthusiasm and dedication of
my fellow board members, (now numbering 8), under the wise counsel of Chairman Dr Max Whitten has been an honour. It’s incredible what can be achieved when you’re harnessing the power of a collective vision and passion.
Q: What does the future hold for bees and beekeepers?
There will always be a bucket load of challenges. It’s really exciting that today people are beginning to understand how important bees are and there is now a newfound appreciation and fascination for them. There are now many people who understand that bees are more than honey and so from that we can build a future that can lead to more sustainable opportunities for beekeepers to keep on keeping bees. Through the leadership of the likes of the Wheen Bee Foundation, there are avenues where support and energy can be channeled to solve the complex, cumulative and interrelated threats. It’s so fabulous to now see the Board of the Wheen Bee Foundation include horticulturalists, bankers, beekeepers, scientists and business leaders. To get out of a problem you need different thinking and the incoming Chairman Peter Knoblanche, who formerly headed up Rabobank Australia for more than 20 years, is an example of fresh thinking that will lead the Wheen Bee Foundation to its next phase.
The Wheen Bee Foundation has been awarded a major grant from the Ian Potter Foundation to develop a National Pollination Strategy. I’ve always been a believer that if you fail to plan then you plan to fail and so for me, the lack of a National Pollination Strategy has been a lifelong worry. The time is now right to bring together clever minds from the environment, farming and beekeeping sectors to build a collective strategy that will advocate for pollinator protection and support the development of a pollination industry with the capacity and capability to produce enough food into the future and protect our environment.
