For millennia, Indigenous Australians have been harvesting honey produced by native stingless bees and enjoying its flavour and medicinal properties.

Native beehives are naturally found in the hollows of trees in tropical and subtropical Australia.

There is a commercial demand for native bee honey, but production is low compared to honeybees’ production and, once a native hive is harvested, the entire colony is destroyed. (Stingless native beehives have been successfully kept in warmer climates in specially designed boxes that allow for moderate harvest without harming the colony.)

Other cultures discovered the joys of honey bee honey, with the earliest record of its use found in Spain about 8000 years ago. Over 200 years ago, the commercial honey industry began with the invention of the modern hive in the US. The honey bee was introduced to Australia in the 1820s.

Much has been written in recent years about honey; the naturally sweet liquid gold from hard-working European honey bees. A report published in Nature in 2018 concluded that honey is one of the most adulterated foods. The study, conducted by a team from Macquarie University, tested 100 commercial honey samples from Australia and 18 other countries. Of those tested, 27 per cent were of questionable authenticity, including one in five of the Australian samples.

The most common ways in which honey is adulterated is through the addition of high-fructose corn syrup, rice syrup or cane sugar, and mislabelling of the geographical location.

Although honey is, or should be, a non-refined natural food, it is a sweetener with minimal nutritional benefits, though it can give fast energy. Some believe that honey, particularly Manuka, has healing properties. Manuka honey is made in Australia and New Zealand from bees that pollinate Leptospermum scoparium (a type of tea tree). Beware of buying mislabelled Manuka honey – about 10 times more than the amount of Manuka honey produced is sold.

The best way to ensure you are getting quality, undiluted honey is to buy from local and small-scale producers. (Find my list here.)

One successful producer of ethical and sustainable honey is Malfroy’s Gold, west of the Blue Mountains. Owners Tim and Emma Malfroy use natural beekeeping that attempts to mimic the natural nest structure of a wild bee colony, as well as Warre hives. The Malfroys recently had their honey tested for chemical additives, which can occur when the bees are exposed to chemicals in the environment, and the results are in... Read more in Tim’s blog.

You can buy Malfroys honey at Flame Tree Co-op in Thirroul from the bulk tub – just bring your own jar.

The impact of the Varroa mite

Varroa mite was first detected in European honey bees in Newcastle in June 2022. It has now been recorded in more than 100 other sites in NSW from as far north as Coffs Harbour, west to Narrabri and south to the Central Coast. NSW Department of Primary Industries is working to eradicate it. In zones identified as having the Varroa mite, all hives must be destroyed. This is a devastating outcome for the local honey industries, not to mention the loss of crucial pollinators for our food industry and the ecosystem.

So far, it appears that the parasite cannot attack native bees directly, but there are indirect effects, such as contamination by the chemicals used to destroy the honey bees in the Red Zone and infestation by other viruses carried by infected honey bees.

Find out more about varroa mite here.

To find out more about keeping native bees, visit this webpage.

If you'd like to support native bees, set up bee hotels.