From winter dormancy to full production, managing healthy, productive hives requires expertise, patience, and a little reverence for nature. “It’s a flow that’s really unique in the world,” Nicola says of the Leatherwood harvest. “It’s very heavy, it drips out of the trees nearly. There’s a lot behind the scenes as far as physical work, it’s a very manually intensive job, it’s a very skilled job and without skilled beekeepers, you just have nice boxes.” Like winemakers, beekeepers talk about yield, vintages, and varietals, all factors dictated by climate, geography and the flowering cycles of native flora. The level of care and complexity that Blue Hills puts in is something Nicola hopes more Tasmanians will come to appreciate, not just for her own business but for an entire region. “Food on the Northwest is an untapped beauty... we have a number of cellar doors or producer doors, and we need to visit them more and push that, to also support the producers who are doing that and diversifying, doing different things as well. There’s a lot of places that don’t get a lot of people coming to them, and they’ve got some fantastic, world-renowned products.”
Blue Hills Honey has managed to balance heritage and innovation in a way that few agribusinesses can. They’ve stayed true to their Tasmanian origins while seizing opportunities abroad, investing in research, embracing technology, and listening to their customers. Their story is a reminder that sometimes the sweetest success takes decades to mature, and that the buzz of bees from a quiet corner of northwest Tasmania can echo around the globe.
35 Tasmanian Hospitality Review August/September Edition
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