On the music festival Bluesfest site near Byron Bay in northern New South Wales some of the world’s finest honey is being produced.

On the former tea tree plantation there are 50 bee hives owned and tended to by beekeeper Michael Howes from Tyagarah Apiaries.

“We’ve had the bees here at this site coming on 10 years now,” he said.

While the hives are tucked away at the back of the property, the honey does make an appearance come Bluesfest time, Australia’s largest festival of blues and roots music.

“We provide honey for some of the artists,” Mr Howes said.

“Some of them have said that the honey is really good for their voices and it makes it easier to sing.”

Mr Howes said that Bluesfest had done a great job looking after the reserve section of the property.

“There’s a huge variety of trees; pink bloodwoods, tea trees, brush box, wattles, banksias, mahoganys,” he said.

“It’s a great place for the bees.”

The honey is then processed in a factory run entirely by solar power at the nearby Byron Eco Park.

“There are banks of solar panels that feed into a massive battery and computerised systems to store that and we can run totally off the grid,” Mr Howes said.

In total Mr Howes has 400 hives spread along the north coast and into south-east Queensland.

He said that this year had been a really good season.

Source:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2015-04-06/green-honey-with-bluesfest/6367552