The hives sit above Carlingford Lough, in the foothills of the Cooley Mountains, on the peninsula that gives this honey its name.
Niamh Begley has been keeping bees here at Mullabane for years. The bees do not travel. They forage the bell heather on the mountain slopes, the wildflowers in the hedgerows, the ivy along the walls, and the spring blossom in the fields below. What they find in a season goes into the jar.
That is the whole operation.
In 2019, Peninsula Honey took the Most Points shield at the Louth Honey Show. At the County Dublin Beekeepers Association Honey Show in 2021, it came home with two firsts, a second and two thirds.
These are not marketing awards. They are judged by experienced beekeepers on taste, clarity, set and a range of technical criteria. You cannot buy your way onto the trophy table. You have to actually make something worth tasting.
Nothing except honey.
Every jar is raw, unblended and unheated. It is extracted from the frames and goes straight into the jar. The batch number and harvest date on the label tell you exactly when it was made.
If your ivy honey has set hard and pale, that is not a fault. That is what pure ivy honey does. If your honey has gone cloudy, it is crystallising naturally. These are the signs you have the genuine article, not a processed blend heated and fine-filtered to look uniform on a shelf.
Open heather moorland at altitude, sheltered hedgerow fields below, the lough to the south. Each habitat sends something different back to the hive. The landscape is in the jar.
Peninsula Honey is available for local collection at Mullabane, Carlingford, and at markets in the Carlingford area.