Local Honey Harrowbarrow

Cornish Black Bee honey from Kings Orchard, a smallholding in Harrowbarrow near Callington, with hives spread across a wide area of the Tamar Valley.

Kings Orchard breeds the Cornish Black Bee, selecting for productivity, good temper and disease resistance, and raises its own queens locally rather than importing them; New Zealand Italian bees in the orchard and meadow apiaries support the breeding programme. The honey is raw and cold-filtered, with a mixed floral and hedgerow flavour, and is bottled apiary by apiary, so it varies with place and season. There is a soft-set honey too, and in limited numbers boxes of honeycomb and frames of capped honey for collection.

Their Black Bee products carry Product of Cornwall certification, and Kings Orchard won Best Farmer Producer at the Royal Cornwall Food and Farming awards in 2019.

Honey is sold in gift packs of two jars through their website – they phone to confirm your order and take payment – and through retail outlets in Cornwall and Devon. Kings Orchard also has a stall at markets and fairs such as the Great Cornish Market in Wadebridge and the Callington Honey Fair.