Photo: Richard Cornish

Now the Whiteheads look to the summer when the native bush is in full flower. It is the honey from Australian native flowers where they make their money. Some of the tree species they target only flower every other year. Some, every three years. One, ironbark, will only flower if there has been just the right amount of rain the previous November. They are hopeful the stringybark trees at Mudgegonga, a small settlement in the bush 40 kilometres south of Albury, will bloom. It was here that Rod was raised and where he decided to become a beekeeper 47 years ago. The towering stringybarks here produced perhaps the best honey in the nation. In 2009 fires swept through the forest and damaged the trees. "They reckonRichard Cornish

In deep soil these trees can tower to almost 100 metres tall but in poor country they hunch close to the ground. Stringybark honey is made from trees on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, around Tasmania and Victoria into the NSW Southern Tablelands. Depending on the part of the country, they are also called Tasmanian Oak and Messmate. We tried Stringy Bark Honey from Stanley's Honey from western Victoria that was a rich, malty and amber-coloured with caramel notes and a long finish.

Blue Gum

A native to Southern Tasmania, Bass Strait and Southern Victoria but it has also been planted across the globe from Israel to Portugal. Honey from the damp, cool forests in Southern Australia is wonderfully dense and viscous. Walkabout Apiaries produces this smooth and buttery