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Tambo Valley Honey Winter Cafe Menu 2024

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Our Story

Nicholson River Soaps was created by myself, Bianca, in 2010 after our family received a diagnosis for my son of Fragile X Syndrome, which is a genetic condition that causes intellectual disability, behavioural and learning challenges, various physical characteristics and many other medical conditions.
It is also the only known genetic cause of autism.

With many different therapy appointments each week needed for my son Cooper and his ongoing immune deficiencies that would cause him to be unwell constantly, it was impossible trying to hold down a 9-5 job whilst having to take time off work, but i wanted to be able to help provide for my family which also includes my two older daughters Michaela and Darci.

So my love of handmade soap began here whilst caring for my son at home...... i researched the benefits of natural handmade soaps to see if it would benefit my sons eczema.

Goatsmilk soap was my starting point...... i started making our own soap using goat milk from our goats on our farm in Nicholson, East Gippsland, Victoria.

I shared these with family and friends who encouraged me to take them to the local markets...... so i did!

From here 'Nicholson River Soaps' evolved.

After many years of attending local and afar markets we took the plunge and opened our store front in Bairnsdale, East Gippsland in June 2019.
After drought, fires and COVID-19 we are still going strong and love all the support our customers show us.
We also specialise in Buffalo Milk and Camel Milk soaps.
Our retail shop also has a bulk refillery of Bath, Body and Cleaning products which you are most welcome to bring in your own bottles and containers to refill.

From my family to yours, we put lots of love and careful attention in each item. We hope you enjoy our work as much as we enjoy bringing it to you.

Visit us at 174 Main Street, Bairnsdale, Vic, 3875
Ph: 0412171450

Normal Open Hours:
Tues - Fri 9am - 2:45pm
Saturday 9am - 12 noon

“Cooking Preserves is what we love to do. Its even more rewarding when we can either grow it ourselves of source it from our region”

Paynesville Pantry is a well-known local preserving business that was established over 20 years.

Originating in Paynesville, then moving to Sarsfield before settling in Ellaswood, just on the outskirts of Bairnsdale.

Its changed hands and evolved into a beautiful boutique business on a small family run hobby farm.

Chooks free range inside the enclosed orchard where over 300 berry canes and bushes grow. Not to mention the dozens or stone fruit, apples , pears, citrus and nuts that were planted long before Rhiannon and her husband took ownership of the business nearly 7 years ago.

With stockist and regular customers in the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors all over the Gippsland region as well as around the state Rhiannon has slowly expanded Paynesville Pantry and its lines of regular products over the years. 

Not forgetting to mention the numerous collaborations with businesses such as restaurants, wineries, corporate gifting and small growers and producers. The most recent has been with friends at Tambo Valley Honey.

“Experimenting with the different honeys has been a lot of fun and really makes a difference when trying to pair with a particular preserve I’m wanting to create’” 

Paying attention to what grows well in the area and also her interest in exploring new flavours the product list is now well over 40 varieties.

You can find Paynesville Pantry products in store at Tambo Valley Honeys base in Bruthen as well as numerous other venues across the state. You can find all the stockists on their website as well as browse their online store.

Limited releases have also recently been added to Paynesville Pantry’s online store. These lines are very small and will change with the seasons, so be sure to keep checking in.

Alfred Cane was born in Ballarat in 1909, the eldest of five children who were orphaned when Alf was 7 years of age. At the age of 10, Alf was sent to a farm near Euroa in Northeast Victoria where he was very poorly treated, going without food, clothes and shoes and attending school only when he had finished his work hand milking cows and cutting scrub.

In 1925 Alf got away from the farm and worked in a local garage until the big depression swept our country.

In 1929 Alf married Catherine Welsh and together they went in search of his younger brothers, and eventually found Bill near Sale in Gippsland on a farm living under much the same conditions that Alf had experienced.

Alf and Bill worked with a beekeeper, Clarence Gell, and then as they both had a keen interest in bees, started cutting wild hives out of trees like many other budding beekeepers, in one year, they cut 80 hives out of trees in the Glenmaggie area. To this day the Cane and Gell families are still great friends with the next generations Alan and Ken.

In 1930 Alf and Catherine settled in the Sale area and raised three children, Audrey, Margaret, and Keith. By the mid 1930’s they had a large enough beekeeping operation of their own to be self-sufficient. Alf’s first major shift was to Beaufort near Ballarat only to have their home and hives destroyed by a bush fire. Alf re-established another beekeeping operation based at Maffra and he used a central extracting plant which was one of the earliest of its kind.

In 1939 the Black Friday fires roared through Victoria causing tremendous damage and once again many hives were burnt including Alf’s hives. Again, Alf set about trying to rebuild new apiaries and trapped rabbits and stripped wattle bark for extra income until he was established again.

In 1948 Alf and his family moved back to Euroa and his son Keith joined his father’s business as he would rather be with the bees than at school. Alf and Keith built an extracting plant on a dog trailer which they could use either as a mobile or central extracting plant. The equipment included two extractors, and a oil-fired boiler with a mechanical water pump. One of the many innovative features of the extracting plant was that it was possible to lower the roof when travelling from site to site, very similar to the pop-top caravans of today, when the roof was extended it had 24 inches of screens all around for ventilation in summer.

In 1949 Alf and Keith grew Canes Honey to where they had to buy honey from other beekeepers, their main markets were Permewan Wright (now known as Payless) and the Australian Army who also bought a lot of honey during that period.

In 1956 Keith married Thelma Martin and their family grew to three boys and a daughter, Max, Ian, Don, and Heather. Thelma and the children also travelled with Keith and Alf, living out of caravans, Thelma was the mainstay of their operation, looking after the children, cooking, washing etc in the bush and home-schooling the children through a correspondence school in Melbourne. It was at this time that the future third generation beekeepers Max, and Ian began their interest in bees while accompanying Alf and Keith every chance they could.

During this time, they were migratory with their hives, often travelling large distances across Victoria, South Australia and NSW. In the winter of 1957 while working Banksia in the Big Desert, Alf, who always took his false teeth out to sleep woke to find them frozen solid in the glass of water as the nights were so cold and the frosts so heavy. In those days before anti-freeze was available, every winter’s night the radiators of all the vehicles had to be drained and taps had to be covered to stop the frost bursting them.

This migratory travelling also led to the making of many family friends whose knowledge and properties have been handed down through the generations and now are handed down to the new owners of Canes Honey, Tambo Valley Honey.

After Keith’s father Alf passed away in an accident, the bees were sold, and Keith worked outside of the beekeeping industry for a short period before being appointed an Apiary Inspector for Western Victoria.

After returning to Bruthen in 1985 he continued to work bees with Thelma travelling all over Victoria until 2020.

Ian’s fascination with the forest and the environment started from a young age as he spent his youth beekeeping with his brother Max, father Keith and grandfather Alf. This started a lifelong passion advocating for the management of Public Assets so that all values and uses are recognised in perpetuity, ensuring that the forests can be enjoyed for generations to come, and our forests are something that our grandchildren can be proud of. Over the years he also has built a great understanding and knowledge of forests and ecosystems over Victoria, as a result of this knowledge Ian has made a significant contribution to the beekeeping industry and continues to do so today.

Ian had hives from an early age and when he left school, he completed his apprenticeship as a Carpenter and Joiner in Ararat and by the time he was 20 had approximately 150 hives.

In 1980 Ian married Robyn Krautz and shifted to Bruthen where they had two children, Ben, and Jessica. As commercial beekeepers, Ian, and Robyn managed 1000 to 1200 hives most of their business lives and during this time they worked bees across Victoria and NSW making lifelong friends and accumulating bee sites from all areas that they worked.

Ian’s brother Max also had hives from an early age and become a full-time commercial beekeeper in 1997, and Ian and Max worked closely together in the Mallee region and Western Victoria for many years sharing bee sites and information until Ian retired, Ben utilises many of these bee sites and information today. Max and Ian have spent countless hours developing innovative options to continuously improve their businesses.

Ian’s first truck was an old International, everything was manually loaded, it was hard work with poor honey prices and high interest rates, and then when honey prices improved, he replaced it with an Isuzu truck and built a crane loader which was better than loading bees manually. Ian later went on to build a 4-wheel drive forklift with an extendable arm which allowed their beehives to become palletized.

Bees with good genetic traits are important, and Ian has developed a program over many years to ensure the bees were efficient as possible, a role he still does for Ben today.

Ian also had started a succession plan from his early days to make sure this intergenerational knowledge was not lost, employing many young adults from around East Gippsland.

Ben and Stacey Murphy were a part of that succession plan and are today the proud owners of the Canes Honey business that they have developed into Tambo Valley Honey.

THE BUTCHER, BAKER AND CANDLESTICK MAKER

From growing up and working in family-owned and run bakeries I was destined to be a 5^th generation baker! So, I spiced things up a bit, dropped out of school in year 10 and went on to do a butcher’s apprenticeship in my hometown of Bruthen. After nearly 7 years working as a butcher, I thought it would be time for me to explore either running my own shop or learning a new skill in life. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would end up in such a niche, unpredictable yet weirdly addictive job!

THE TAMBO VALLEY HONEY STORY

Like all good stories, ours began in our local Mexican restaurant (OZ Mex) over a few beers with a mate of mine who was moving to Canada. He had been working part time for Ian and Robyn Cane (as a beekeeper) and now the position needed to be filled-. I still remember sitting on a bar stool in the dimly lit dining area drinking a Corona stubby (with lemon and lime in it) and thinking that this random job might just suit me and my personality.

One month later (March 2012) I was a beekeeper! It took 3 days for me to get my first ever bee sting and it didn’t look like things were going to last real long. I got stung on my right hand it swelled right up past my elbow, much to the concern of my wife Stacey, who made sure that we outlined the swollen area every few hours so we could keep track of how bad it was getting. In hindsight, I think we just did this to trick ourselves into thinking that we were doing the right thing! Luckily things got a little better from that first ever sting.

Over the next 6 years I crafted my skills under Ian Cane, who is a 3^rd generation apiarist and has a vast amount of knowledge about the bees and the forest. Working away from home and travelling around the state was something that I was unaware the beekeepers did. Breeding queen bees was something I would have never thought existed and getting stung dozens of times a day, I thought would leave anyone in hospital. This is where it gets weirdly addictive. I wanted more!

Apart from the extensive bee knowledge that I gained in this period, I was surprised at how much more this job would offer. Keep in my mind that my background was in baking and butchering, so my handyman skills were poor at best. I learnt how to cut all the pine for the bee boxes and all the other bee related gear, how to build it and a few little trade secrets that ensure that we get the maximum amount of life out of all the bee gear that we build. During the quiet period I would help landscape Ian and Robyn’s garden where I learnt how to concrete, pave and use earthmoving equipment among other things. All these little life skills I learnt through being a beekeeper would go on to be very helpful and assist me to appreciate a good tradesperson and I am very grateful to Ian for teaching me this.

After beekeeping for 5 and a half years working under Ian it was time for me to once again explore the option of running my own business or learn a new skill in life. I approached Ian and Robyn about the possibility of buying the business off them, 6 months later (July 2018) Tambo Valley Honey was born!

A lot has happened since July 2018.