Local Honey Blairgowrie

Raw Scottish heather and blossom honey from Heather Hills Farm, a family-run honey farm at Bridge of Cally, near Blairgowrie in Perthshire.

The farm was founded by Athole Kirkwood, who got his first hive in 1945 and brought his bees to Blairgowrie ten years later; it is now run by brothers Mark and Bernard Noonan. Today around 1,300 hives are moved seasonally around Perthshire and Deeside – loaded onto Land Rovers at night and taken to new crops and, in late summer, up to the heather moors. The Scottish range includes raw heather honey, raw blossom honey, heather comb honey and heather honey with whisky. The honey is never heated above hive temperature: blossom honey settles in an unheated tank, and the thicker heather honey is spun through a fine mesh filter.

Heather Hills also sells a 'Connoisseur' range of raw single-flower honeys from other countries – including Manuka, Tasmanian leatherwood, Spanish orange blossom and lavender, New Zealand clover and Bulgarian lime – so not every jar is from its own hives. It makes preserves from Perthshire fruit, including a marmalade with heather honey, and sells beeswax blocks and candles.

The range can be ordered online, and Heather Hills products are stocked by delis, farm shops, garden centres and visitor centres across Scotland, as well as by Scottish branches of several supermarkets.