Producers
Blue Hills Honey
Honey producer · Commercial apiary · Honey extractor and packer · Retail and visitor-experience operator
1858 Mawbanna Road, Mawbanna, Tasmania 7321, Australia
Australian Quality Honey Pty Ltd
Blue Hills Honey is a Charles family business in Mawbanna, north-west Tasmania. It manages mobile hives across wilderness and meadow landscapes, then processes and packs honey at its Mawbanna facility for domestic, export, online, and on-site sales. Leatherwood honey from the Tarkine wilderness is its defining documented honey.
About the Producer
A little history
Reuben and Beryl Charles established honey production in 1955. Robbie Charles began managing the business in 1996. A retail and export packing facility opened in 2004, followed by Tasmanian manuka honey in 2009. In 2019, the business opened a café, interpretation centre, and gift store, along with expanded packing and office facilities. The company claims it was the first Australian firm to export honey to Japan, in 1960.
How They Work
Beekeeping in practice
Blue Hills Honey is a family-operated producer and packer with mobile hives. It moves hives to planned wilderness and meadow locations across north-west Tasmania, harvests frames in the field, and extracts and packs honey at its Mawbanna honey house. It sells bulk and retail honey in domestic and export markets, alongside an on-site shop, interpretation centre, and café.
Mawbanna, Tasmania, Australia
Blue Hills publishes its Mawbanna address for the office, Interpretation Centre, and shop; its official visitor page also locates the business at Mawbanna.
Tarkine wilderness, Tasmania, Australia
Blue Hills says its bees collect leatherwood honey in the Tarkine wilderness and that its leatherwood hives are located there.
North-west Tasmania, Australia
The producer says it moves hives among planned wilderness and meadow locations across north-west Tasmania.
Mawbanna, Tasmania, Australia
Blue Hills operates an Interpretation Centre, shop, gift shop, and Colony Café at its Mawbanna site.
Products & Specimens
What connects to this producer
Products listed by the Producer are kept separate from specimens held in the Collection.
Leatherwood Honey
Floral source: Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida)
Documented origin: Tarkine wilderness, Tasmania, Australia
Origin detail: Region
Blue Hills says its leatherwood hives are located in the Tarkine wilderness and that its Leatherwood Honey is sourced there. The company further says the product is sourced 16–59 km from its extraction and packing facility; this distance does not establish a narrower named harvest locality.
Tasmanian Manuka Honey
Floral source: Manuka bush (Leptospermum scoparium)
Documented origin: Tasmania, Australia
Origin detail: Region
The product page identifies L. scoparium as the floral source and says the bush occurs in remote parts of Tasmania and New Zealand. The product is explicitly presented as Tasmanian Manuka Honey; no narrower collection area is documented on the product page.
Tasmanian Wildflower Honey
Floral source: Wildflowers from coastal heathlands
Documented origin: Tasmania, Australia
Origin detail: Region
The official product listing names this as Tasmanian Wildflower Honey and describes it as a medley of wildflowers from coastal heathlands. It does not name a particular heathland or harvest locality.
Prickly Box Honey
Floral source: Prickly box / sweet bursaria (Bursaria spinosa)
Origin detail: Unknown
The official product page identifies Bursaria spinosa as the botanical source, but does not state a product-specific collection locality.
Manuka Leatherwood Blend
Floral source: Manuka and leatherwood
Documented origin: Tasmania, Australia
Origin detail: Region
The official homepage describes it as a blend of the producer's manuka and leatherwood honeys, harvested by Robert Charles and his team. The page does not establish a narrower collection location for this particular blend.
Blackberry Honey
Floral source: Blackberry
Origin detail: Unknown
Listed in Blue Hills Honey's current honey range; no product-specific origin evidence was resolved in this pass.
Meadow Honey
Floral source: Meadow forage
Origin detail: Unknown
Listed in Blue Hills Honey's current honey range; no product-specific origin evidence was resolved in this pass.
Tarkine Wilderness Honey
Documented origin: Tarkine wilderness, Tasmania, Australia
Origin detail: Region
The honey is listed in the producer's current range under this geographic product name, but a product-specific floral source and narrower harvest location were not resolved in this pass.
People
People connected to the work
- Robbie (Robert) Charles Family beekeeper/apiarist and business manager
- Nicola Charles Business manager; sales and marketing
- Reuben Charles Co-founder
- Beryl Charles Co-founder
Practices
How they work
- Mobile apiary management: hives are transported to planned wilderness and meadow locations in north-west Tasmania according to seasonal flowering and local microclimates.
- Honey is extracted and packed at the producer's Mawbanna honey house; the company describes centrifuging, coarse filtering, overnight settling, bulk drumming, and retail packing.
- The company states that it keeps honey temperature below 45°C during its minimally disruptive processing.
- Blue Hills states that leatherwood honey travels 16–59 km from source to its extraction and packing facilities.