Save The Bees Help us to grow local bee numbers by 5 million in the next 3 years. Read on to discover the issues in the bee industry in the UK and information that is usually hidden or not discussed in main stream media. By way of introduction, we are producers, breeders and rearers of bees. We know bees. We are one of only 400 commercial beekeepers in the UK. Did you know the UK only produces 5-10% of honey that is consumed in the UK. The rest 90% is imported from overseas, meaning we are far far from being self sufficient in honey. This coupled with vast imports of bees into the country ..read more

What is Raw Honey The simple definition of raw honey is unprocessed, thus honey in its raw state would be as the bees have left it in the honeycomb but raw honey for many, also means not heat treated. Honey can be cold extracted, this is where the honey is not heated above hive temperature of 34 degrees C and is simply spun out of the wax comb. Heat treated honey is the use of heat to change the sugar structures in honey essentially causing caramelisation, which can also increase toxins including HMF. Heat treatment can prevent honey naturally crystalising, which is seen as an undesirable trai ..read more

How to Deal with Laying Workers Laying Workers Laying workers come about when the colony has been without a queen for some time. The difficulty with laying workers is several: They only lay drone eggs (leading to the demise of the colony) They are not visually different to other workers There are many many laying workers in the colony A laying worker colony more often than not will reject a mated or virgin queen.   Signs of Laying Workers There will be patchy drone brood and importanly multiple eggs in cells. These eggs from laying workers will also be laid randomly, and all over the ..read more

Drone Laying Queen? How to Deal with a Drone Laying Queen In this post we’ll look at how to deal with a drone laying queen. What you need to do depends on the time of year / season.   To get the definitions out of the way a drone laying queen is one that is only laying drone eggs, i.e unfertilised eggs. A colony headed by a drone laying queen is doomed to failure so you must act quickly to avoid the demise of the colony.   What you need to do very much depends on the time of year: Early Spring A drone laying queen discovered in spring has likely been either a failing queen over wint ..read more

Queen Introduction Methods How to Introduce a Mated Queen Queen bee introduction of any sort is never 100% successful, and there are lots of queen introduction methods out there. Therefore this guide is intended to be taken as a guide only for our customers to help with Queen introduction and in no way guarantees success. When introducing a queen bee the first thing to be sure of is that the colony is queenless. A strange point you may say, but often there is the chance of a virgin queen being present in the colony, and despite a mated queen being offered to the colony if a virgin queen is pr ..read more

Effect of Climate Change on Honey Bees Climate Change or Global warming has a significant effect on weather systems all over the world. The biggest concern for beekeepers is the shift in seasons, which has a direct effect on plants but a more passive effect on bees. Spring is a particularly sensitive time for plants and bees alike, growth relies on favourable weather conditions. But what happens if the weather is cold and unfavourable? Plants will remain dormant and the queen bee will not resume egg laying until the weather improves. This is a big problem for a colony of honey bees. The old w ..read more

Why do bees make honey? Honey is used by bees as a food source, but honey bees are the only bees to naturally make an excess of honey.   Honey bees make an excess of honey because honey is stored in the hive to be used when forage is unavailable or the weather is poor meaning flight time for the bees to gather more honey and pollen is reduced.   Honey bees store an excess of honey through winter because unlike other bee species. In other species only the queen bee survives winter, whereas an entire colony of honey bees will live through winter forming a cluster to stay warm. This mea ..read more

What do Bees Eat? We are often asked What do Bees Eat? Put simply, bees eat honey, pollen and royal jelly but the diet of a honey bee is rather complex.   Developing larvae are fed royal jelly for the first few days of life, this royal diet is then changed to bee bread, which is a mixture of honey and pollen. Worker bees feed on bee bread throughout their life but in winter worker bees feed more on honey rather than a mix of honey and pollen. This promotes longevity in the worker bees and allows them to live 4-5 months through winter rather than the usual 6 weeks in summer.   What ..read more