Bees to Blooms. Honey Farm Tour, morning Tea. Plus Lunch, Guided Walk & Pollinator Tour at Botanic Gardens
Duration:
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Discover the Magic of Pollination in the Southern Highlands
Join us for Bees to Blooms, a relaxed and immersive day exploring the beautiful connection between bees, flowers, food, and the stunning landscape around us. This unique experience follows the journey of pollination from the hive to the garden, and ultimately to our tables, across two gorgeous Bowral locations.
Your Experience Highlights
1. Bowral Honey Farm Tour & Tasting
Your journey begins at the historic Bowral Honey Farm, a working apiary nestled within the heritage grounds of Retford Park. Don a beekeeper’s veil and step alongside the hives with your expert guide to witness bees at work. You will learn about the fascinating life of a honey bee colony, honey production, and their vital role as pollinators.
Afterwards, enjoy a guided tasting of six seasonal honeys on the terrace overlooking the lake. Much like fine wine, each honey reflects the unique flowers and landscape visited by the bees, offering distinct colours, aromas, textures, and flavours. This tasting is accompanied by a delicious morning tea of freshly baked sourdough, tea, and coffee.
2. Picnic Lunch & Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens
Next, make your way to the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens. A catered individual picnic box containing sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and a sweet treat will be waiting for you to enjoy in your favourite spot on the lawns.
Following lunch, join an enthusiastic volunteer guide for a guided garden walk and pollinator talk. Explore how flowering plants and pollinators depend on each other, discover bee-friendly plants, and admire the diversity of this 13.5-hectare cool-climate garden. You will also enjoy exclusive access to the Gardens’ plant nursery, with the opportunity to purchase a plant to take home.
Itinerary & Important Details
- 11:00 am: Experience begins at Bowral Honey Farm (farm tour, bee talk, honey tasting, and morning tea).
- 12:30 pm: Short drive in your own car to the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens for a catered picnic lunch and guided garden tour.
- 2:00 pm: Experience concludes.
- Dietary Requirements: Please advise us of any dietary restrictions once booked.
- Group Size: We require a minimum of 10 guests to proceed with this experience. We will be in touch a few days prior if minimum numbers are not met.
Thanks for your interest in meeting my bees! I look forward to having you along and sharing our enthusiasm for these unique pollinators.
The system will send you all the details, but the workshop is at my apiary in Bowral.
The address is: 1325 Old South Road Bowral NSW 2576. We’re on the grounds of Retford Park, a National Trust property.
Enter through white main gates on Old South Rd and continue until you see our signs and hives (it’s a LONG driveway!). Park in the gravelled area as directed by signage.
This is an outdoors activity, remember to wear appropriate clothing, sun protection etc.
I have hives undercover so we will be able to proceed despite any poor weather.
If you have any questions feel free to call me on 0428294569 or email hamish@bowralhoneyfarm.com
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Our tour guide Phil was very funny and we loved the bee jokes (Game of Combs 😂). We really enjoyed the morning tea and hearing about Hamish’s journey collecting honey.
Thank-you for a really enjoyable experience. I look forward to coming back and doing the harvest experience next time 🍯
The first hour is the same as the Honey Farm Tour and Honey Tasting. We learned so much about bees—the guide shared plenty of fascinating facts in a fun and engaging way. Even our 8-year-old stayed interested the whole time, which says a lot!
After the tour, we tasted six different varieties of honey. Morning tea was thoughtfully provided, with fresh bread, tea and coffee, which made the experience even more enjoyable.
The second hour was the real highlight. During the Hands-On Honey Harvest Experience, we got to scrape fresh honey straight from the frames and watch it slowly flow into the containers. It was incredibly satisfying, and my daughter and my parents absolutely loved getting involved. It was such a unique experience that you simply can't get by buying a jar of honey from a shop.
At the end, everyone took home a small jar of the honey we had harvested ourselves. Seeing all the tiny air bubbles in the freshly bottled honey made it feel even more special—it was as fresh as it gets.
I highly recommend the full two-hour experience rather than just the standard tour. It's well worth the extra time. We'd definitely love to come back and try the Honey & Hive – Open a Hive, Honey Tasting with Morning Tea experience next time.
Thank you! ☺️
Unfortunately, because we visited in winter, there weren’t many bees active, and throughout the workshop we only spotted one bee. I imagine it would be an even better experience in the warmer months.
One suggestion would be to include a replica, interactive demonstration showing how honey is harvested so visitors can still enjoy and understand the harvesting process even if they aren’t joining the harvesting workshop.
Overall, it was a great experience and definitely worth a visit if you’re in Bowral!

















