Heritage Honey

Apiarist Peter Norris has built up the honey enterprise at the Gardens and he now tends 19 hives within a short bee flight of groves of prickly box trees on the Queens Domain as well as in the RTBG. 

The nectar-laden flowers are irresistible to the insects which make a bee-line for the prickly box (bursaria spinosa) over summer. 

Their numbers increase dramatically at the height of the season with up to 70,000 busy bees in each hive. 

Peter and his wife Trisha produce their own honey under the Heritage Honey label but has a soft spot for the RTBG prickly box variety. 

He says it has a lovely butterscotch flavour and is a soft-set style. 

"It has a high glucose content and is a bit difficult to handle," 
he said. 

"We warm it for day and break down the crystals so it does not set hard again." 

Peter started bee keeping as a hobby but now has 220 hives in the leatherwood forests of Tasmania's south west.