Raw New Forest Wildflower Honey - Needs Ore Nature Reserve, 250g ^Sale

Needs Ore Point sits at the far end of the Beaulieu Estate, where the river opens into the Solent with the Isle of Wight on the horizon. It's a wildflower meadow and coastal wetland, and it carries SSSI status - a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which means it's legally protected for its habitat and wildlife.

Places like this are exactly where we want our bees. The forage is a very diverse mix of meadow flowers plus hawthorn, and it produces a honey with a character quite distinct from anything else in our range.

Limited Harvest

We only take what the colonies can spare from a site like this, and the harvest here is small. When it's gone, that's it until next season - and next season won't taste the same, because no two years on a wild meadow ever do.

Single origin New Forest Honey

Most British honey is pooled. A season's harvest from dozens of sites goes into one tank, gets blended to a consistent flavour and sold as one product. We do the opposite. Every apiary is harvested, extracted and jarred separately, and the label tells you exactly which one you're holding.

It's more work and it means we can never promise two batches taste identical. That's the point. A protected coastal wetland produces something you simply cannot get from a blended jar, and blending it away would throw out the only thing that makes local honey worth buying.

Raw, and what that actually means

Nothing is done to this honey between the hive and the jar except coarse straining to take out bits of wax. It is never heated, never pasteurised, never fine-filtered, never blended with anything. No additives, no syrups, nothing.

That matters because heat and fine filtration strip out the pollen, enzymes and aromatic compounds that give honey its character and its traceability. Honey with the pollen removed can't be traced back to where it was made. Ours can - down to a single meadow on the Solent shore.

Awards

Our single-origin New Forest honey has won multiple Great Taste awards, including a three-star award in 2023 - the only British honey producer to receive one that year. We're also a certified New Forest Marque producer, which means everything is grown, produced and packed within the New Forest.

The details

• 250g glass jar
• Raw, unpasteurised, coarsely strained only
• Single origin: Needs Ore Point, Beaulieu Estate, New Forest
• Site status: SSSI wetland and wildflower meadow nature reserve
• Forage: diverse meadow flowers and hawthorn
• Beekeepers: Simon Noble and Chloe Harvey
  
• Ingredients: honey. Nothing else.

Looking after it

Raw honey crystallises over time. It's a sign the honey hasn't been processed, not a fault - in fact it's one of the easiest ways to tell raw honey from the pasteurised stuff, which is treated specifically to stop it happening. Stand the jar in warm water below 40°C and it will turn runny again. Store at room temperature, out of direct sunlight.