The Beekeepers Club Inc.

Q3-2009 Newsletter (by John Kennedy)

ROWSE IS INNOVATOR IN UK HONEY MARKET
While I was in the UK recently I took the opportunity to do some ‘honey market research’ especially in the aisles of the major Tesco and Waitrose supermarkets!

The first observation I can make is the retail dominance of the London based company Rowse Honey which seems to provide a very extensive choice of honey varieties, increasingly labelled as organic, as well as packaging innovations.

Rowse claims to have at least a third of the UK market and sources honey from all around the world which it packages and releases under its own brand name.

The company was founded from the beekeeping hobby activities of Tony Rowse in 1938 and from the 1960s onwards began importing honey from Australia, Mexico and many other places that it still does today.

The business since taken over by Wellness Foods an organic food group makes a significant contribution to industry support.

Quite recently Rowse announced a £100,000 grant to support the UK’s only Professor of Apiculture Professor Francis Ratnieks at the University of Surrey.

His research project is to investigate breeding strains of ‘hygienic bees’ who remove infected larvae so reducing the spread of disease within the hive.

One of the Rowse innovations is a dripless, squeezable pack containing about 385 grams of honey which I developed a fond affection for in squeezing the contents on to my morning slices of toast.

But honey doesn’t come cheaply in UK supermarkets.

The photo attached showing the honeys on display in a Tesco supermarket with the squeezable packs at £2.49.

At the time of my visit the exchange rate was roughly $A2 to the pound so the indicative cost in $A is almost $5 for the seemingly most commonly purchased honey pack size at the retail level.

Then again the Manuka honeys on offer are priced at a very significant premium which I calculate works out to well over $A25 a kilo.

The Rowse Honey website www.rowsehoney.co.uk contains a lot of interesting information about bees, beekeeping and honey and is worth a look.

Another UK one I found similarly interesting is www.littlecoveapiaries.com

A WORLD WIDE NETWORK OF BEEKEEPERS
Bee hives are kept in some remarkable places.

On top of the Paris Opera House, on the roof of the premium Fortnum & Mason Department Store in central London, while in New York bees have been listed since 1999 as one of 100 wild animals (also including vultures, iguanas, ferrets and whales), which it is illegal to keep within the City limits.

Notwithstanding this, in recent years a New York City Beekeepers Association has formed and is experiencing the growing popularity of beekeeping.

It is also working with Just Food a group focussed on hunger issues and the two groups recently held a Pollinator Week as well as making the case for legalised beekeeping in New York.

The ban against beekeeping is enforced by the City’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene but it acts against bee keepers only after a complaint is lodged.

About 50 complaints have been recorded so far this year but only four summonses have been issued suggesting that the tide may be turning to make hobby beekeeping legal within the City.

Most beekeepers keep their single hives on rooftops and prominent buildings and the active Association provides education and support.


SOUTH AUSSIES CHASE HONG KONG MARKET
Buzz Honey, the Adelaide Hills based group, is confident that it can grow its business by 30 percent over the next twelve months with Hong Kong the focus for its growth.

Buzz Honey has about 700 hives and produces about eight different honeys with the Riverland, the Limestone Coast and the Murray Mallee the regions where it sites its hives.

The producer already exports to Singapore and other Asian countries and has its honeys stocked in over 200 outlets locally.

Buzz recently shipped samples to high level supermarkets in Hong Kong with the support of a SA Government Export promotion.

Buzz Honey’s founders Jude and Tim Crowe say their target is to create interest in both Hong Kong and China for honeys with distinctive flavours.


DOES ANYONE REMEMBER FROST’S HONEY?
An article in a recent edition of the Weekly Times asked if anyone remembered Frost’s Honey a business which began about 1890 and continued at least until the 1950s in Wangaratta.
Said in its day to have been the largest apiary in Victoria its hallmark was an avenue of trees which when viewed from the air or aircraft, spelt out the business name.

Frost’s Honey was sold in 27kg tins and was transported all across Victoria in the heyday.

A descendant of the original family Bruce Frost is today a commercial beekeeper at Narooma on the NSW south coast.

But little else seems to have survived about the original business.


SYDNEY RESEARCH ON HONEY THERAPY
The University of Sydney’s School of Molecular & Microbial Sciences headed by Professor Dee Carter is assessing the curative powers of various types of honey, and is working towards a range of honey-based products which could replace antibiotic and antiseptic creams.

The work has apparently shown that Manuka honey from NZ or local ‘jelly bush honey’ has killed every bacteria or pathogen it has been tested on.

A compound known as methylglyoxal which while toxic itself combines in unknown ways with other unidentified compounds in the honey to cause ‘multi system failure’ in bacteria.

A paper on the research work is to be published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases shortly.


HIVE THEFT INCREASES IN THE U.K.
The theft of hives is a not uncommon experience event in Victoria but in the U.K hive theft has increased significantly recently. Aspersions have been cast upon other beekeepers as moving a hive is a specialist skill, considered beyond the skill of a common thief.

The British Beekeepers Association has expressed its alarm at the trend especially with the additional pressure that two wet summers in a row and varroa mite outbreaks have created.

Thefts of up to 100hives have been reported and Police being powerless to stop the practice have suggested it might be time to attached satellite tracking devices to the hives


AND THE U.K’S MOST EXPENSIVE HONEY
At the recent Chelsea Flower Show visitors were invited to try the most expensive honey produced in the U.K with an asking price of £5 a table spoon.

The Tregothnan Manuka infusion honey is produced from the flowers of Manuka (leptospermum) bushes grown on the Tregothnan estate in Cornwall which is on the most southerly point in the U.K.

It is also considered the first time that Manuka honey has been produced outside New Zealand.

The Tregothnan Estate has been held by one family since 1335 and is a historic garden filled with rare trees and plants.

Honey from the estate has long been prized for its heather flavours while it is also home to the U.K’s first tea plantation.


MORNINGTON’S BUSY BEES OFFERS UNIQUE PROJECT
At the July monthly meeting members of the Club were offered a very informative and entertaining account of the unique honey operation conducted by brothers Lindsay and Martyn Wilson on the Mornington Peninsula.

The brothers have a network of 54 hives spread around the Peninsula’s backyards from which they produce Busy Bee’s Honey which they sell at the weekly Mornington Market.

The proceeds after the packaging costs are devoted to the support of a range of charitable projects mainly in third world countries.

From a very modest beginning the project will have raised a net ‘profit’ of the order of $10,000 over the last twelve months which will be applied in support of a range of projects.

Members learned in an entertaining way how the Wilson brothers have created their own inexpensive honey ‘creamer’, as well as the trials and tribulations of establishing a network of hives in local backyards and a central processing site within Lindsay’s home garage.

Also on show was a rudimentary plywood Top Box Hive which is designed for countries like Ethiopia where they are traditionally hoisted up into trees to provide a home where the local bees can create their own hive.

Another Club member Jim Lecornu also related his experience in creating a simple hive for the native bees of East Timor.

The project aims to enable poor women in the community to create a small business enterprise which they can run and earn a small income from the sale of the honey produced.
Both projects are providing a simple inexpensive hive structure where the bees can create their own foundation which can be easily harvested.

Photo Caption
Lindsay Wilson with one of the rudimentary plywood Top Box Hives which are being built to enable third world business enterprises to be created by simply harvesting the production of the native bees.