Why Our Honey Has Names

We could just call them Jarrah, Marri and Wildflower. But that would only tell you half the story.

People sometimes ask why our honeys have names.

Why Sweet Carolyn? Why The Swagman? Why The Bushranger? Why Ruby the Fifth?

There is a reason.

And it begins with something that's surprisingly difficult to explain to someone who hasn't spent much time with bees.

Beehives have personalities.

Not individual bees, necessarily, but the colony as a whole.

Spend enough time working bees and you learn this very quickly. You know which hive is going to greet you the moment you arrive. You know which colony will quietly let you get on with your work. You know the ones that are curious, the ones that are calm and the ones that are going to make it extremely clear that your presence is neither required nor appreciated.

There are hives you can work almost peacefully.

And there are hives that will attack you.

We have respect for both.

The queen and the genetics she carries have an enormous influence on the temperament of her colony, and when a queen changes, the character of a hive can change with her.

But she's only one personality involved, every apiary has personality too.

Honey Belongs to a Place

Our bees live in some extraordinary corners of Western Australia.

Some are on family properties. Some sit amongst orchards. Some are surrounded by old bushland that has somehow survived while suburbia has grown around it. Others are taken deep into the Jarrah forests, where there are no houses, no property owners coming out to see how they're getting on and very little human interaction at all.

But wherever we put bees, we become connected to that place.

On private properties, that connection often begins with the people who have asked us to bring the bees there.

And people who love having bees on their land tend to really love having bees on their land.

They ask about them. They watch them. They notice when the flowers begin. They see what happens in their orchards and gardens when thousands of pollinators suddenly become part of the landscape.

They're grateful for the bees, and boy are we grateful for them.

Without people willing to make room for our hives and care about what happens to the country around them, many of these honeys simply wouldn't exist.

Then there are the bees we take into the State forests.

There isn't a landowner waiting for us there, instead, there is the bush.

The bush has a way of reminding you very quickly that you're a visitor.

There are kangaroos, birds, pigs, insects and whatever else happens to be sharing that patch of country with you that day. There are tracks that change, weather that turns, trees that flower, when they feel like it, and plenty of occasions when things don't go remotely according to plan.

We've had beautiful experiences as a beekeepers.

We've had fascinating ones.

We've had heart-pounding ones.

And we've had some genuinely dangerous ones.

The bush doesn't particularly care what you had planned for the day.

It will always be wild.

And there is something wonderfully grounding about that (sigh).

So What Does That Have to Do With Naming Honey?

Everything.

Because when we eventually take honey from those hives, we don't see it simply as Jarrah Honey or Marri Honey.

We remember where it came from.

We remember the bees.

We remember the people.

We remember what was flowering, what the season was doing and what happened while we were tending those hives.

Sometimes we remember the animals that seemed determined to supervise the entire operation.

A jar can contain the nectar of a particular flower, but the story of that honey is much bigger than its floral source.

And that's incredibly difficult to put on a label.

So we give it a name.

The name gives the honey a personality, and the story behind it gives you a small glimpse into everything that came together to create it.

That's why Sweet Carolyn isn't simply Blue Jarrah Honey.

The honey came from a particular place in Roleystone, from land cared for by people who welcomed our bees and loved the country they lived on. We can no longer put our bees there. That honey belongs to a place and a moment we can't recreate.

So she became Sweet Carolyn.

The Bushranger came from something completely different; wild bee colonies living in old tree hollows, carrying extraordinarily dark Wandoo honey with them when they were rescued. Dark, elusive and unpredictable, it needed a name that felt like the honey and the country it came from.

And The Swagman belongs out in the Jarrah forest. Long tracks, remote apiaries, wild country and that feeling familiar to anyone who has spent enough time travelling through the Australian bush.

They're all honey.

But they're certainly not the same story.

And Then There Is Fifth Generation

These are perhaps the most personal names of all.

Five generations of our family have now called Bedfordale home.

My great-great-grandparents arrived without generations of Australian knowledge behind them. Their history was elsewhere, in Europe. They had to learn this country for themselves.

The generations that followed walked these bushlands.

They cleared land. They worked it. They left it. They returned to it. They raised families amongst its orchards and forests and gradually came to understand the country around them.

Our great-grandparents knew this place.

Our grandparents knew it.

Our family knows it.

And now our bees do too.

When we put hives on country where those generations lived and worked, and those bees fly into the same Jarrah forest that surrounded our grandparents, that connection means something to us.

That's where Fifth Generation comes from.

It isn't simply a range of honey.

It's an acknowledgement that we are one small part of a story that began long before these particular bees arrived and, hopefully, will continue long after us.

And now a sixth generation is beginning.

Honey Is More Than What's in the Jar

Perhaps this is why we've never been particularly satisfied with giving honey only a traditional name.

Calling something Jarrah Honey is useful. It tells you what it is, but it doesn't tell you who welcomed the bees.

It doesn't tell you about the hive that chased you back to the ute.

It doesn't tell you about the dogs sitting beneath a tree watching over an orchard, the kangaroos wandering through a surviving patch of Jandakot bush, or the long drive down a forest track to see whether the Jarrah has finally decided to flower.

It doesn't tell you about the beekeeper standing there thinking, I cannot believe this is my job.

And it doesn't tell you about the generations of people who walked through that same country before you.

Those things matter to us.

Because honey doesn't begin in a jar.

It begins with bees, certainly.

But it also begins with flowers and rain and soil and seasons. With people willing to share their land. With forests that remain wild. With animals that were there long before the hives arrived and will hopefully still be there long after we've taken them away.

And with us beekeepers who get the extraordinary privilege of standing somewhere in the middle of all of it.

So yes, we could just call our honeys Jarrah, Marri and Wildflower.

And sometimes, technically, that's exactly what they are.

But that would only tell you what the honey is.

The name tells you where it belongs.

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