Peter Norris has been involved in beekeeping for 35 years. Whilst living in London he took up beekeeping as a hobby and attended Merrist Wood Agricultural College to gain enough knowledge to keep his bees properly.

Two years later his hobby had grown to 150 hives, but when varroa struck in the UK in 1992, 80% of the bees in the south of the UK were lost and Peter’s hobby crashed to 25 hives.

When he returned to Tassie in 1999, he had no intention of becoming commercial in beekeeping, but got involved in the political fight to save the leatherwood resource from the clearfell, burn and sow practices of Forestry Tasmania (now Sustainable Timber Tasmania). He gradually became more involved in the bees and now runs 800+ hives with wife Trisha and two employees Lionel and Theresa at Heritage Honey in Moonah. Peter has always been an early adopter and recently trialled the poly-styrene hives from Finland. He was so impressed with the benefits the extra insulation brought to the bees that he is changing the whole operation over to these hives.

He is currently President of the Southern Tasmanian Beekeepers Association and Vice President of the Tasmanian Beekeepers Association.