Latest News

8th October 2022 …
GREAT NEWS !! …. Our delicious summer honey wins FIRST PRIZE at the Surrey County Honey Show.
We entered various categories at the show and won a total of eight awards, but the icing on the cake for us was the First Prize in one of the honey categories.

October 2022 …
Our hives have now been prepared for the winter. We ensure the bees have plenty of food to see them through the cold months when there is little or no pollen or nectar to forage for. If and when the sun shines the bees do fly to collect water and also take cleansing flights.
We keep a constant check on their food stores as there is a strong likelihood of them starving to death if their stores run out.
Mice are a particular hazard at this time of year. They are looking for somewhere warm and dry to shelter during the winter. We place mouse guards at the entrance of the hives. These enable bees to depart and enter the hive but are too small for a mouse to get through. If we didn’t place these guards at the entrance, a mouse would get in and eat honey, pollen, and wax ! resulting in the demise of the colony.

July 2022 ...
Our bees have been working hard to keep the hives cool during the heatwave.
The main nectar flow is almost over so a slow down in honey production.
Spring honey is now all sold but we have just removed our delicious tasting summer crop. We also hope to have honeycomb available by the end of the month.

June 2022..
We now have spring honey available for sale.
On Saturday 2nd July we will have a honey and bee stall at St. John’s Church (Kingston Vale SW15 3PY) Summer Fayre. You will be able to sample and purchase our honey and you will also be able to see a small colony of our honey bees in a special viewing beehive (try and spot the Queen Bee!).
We look forward to seeing you there.

May 2022...
The warm April spell has prompted the bees to start swarming activity. We managed to carry out artificial swarm procedures on some hives, but lost swarms on a couple of others. Swarming will put back any honey crop by a few weeks. See our ‘HONEY’ page for the latest news on when we expect to have honey available for sale.

April 2022 …

Our bees have successfully survived the winter and on warm dry days are out foraging for food to feed the ever growing population of young bees and larvae. Some of the nectar they collect will be turned into honey and if there is surplus to their requirements we will remove it from the hive. Please see our ‘HONEY’ page for the latest news on honey availability.

18 February 2022 ….

Storm Eunice

Our hives are strapped down tightly and anchored to heavy paving slabs making it extremely difficult for them to be tipped over either by animals (badgers / foxes) or strong winds.

However, some of our bees had a very lucky escape during the storm. Four heavy duty six feet fence panels and posts were blown over and landed 1cm from two of our hives. A lucky escape from certain catastrophe. 

February 2022 …
We have observed our bees bringing in pollen on their rear legs. This is a good sign the queen has again started egg laying after a brood less winter. Pollen (protein) is eaten by adult bees and also fed to young larva. With the onset of Spring and an increase in food supplies, the queen will increase her egg laying, building up the size of the colony to 50,000+ bees ready for the peak summer nectar flow.

December 2021 …
SOLD OUT of our 2021 honey. Please see our HONEY page for more details.

26July 2021…
HONEY!……During the recent warm and mostly dry spell, our bees have worked hard to produce a surplus crop of summer honey. See our ‘HONEY’ page for more details.

July 2021….
At long last the bees have been taking advantage of some warm dry weather! Although not every day has been perfect for them and crops/flowers have been slow to produce nectar which the bees need to make honey. We are now more hopeful of a surplus crop of honey.
See our honey page for the latest news on purchasing our honey.

June 2021….
We have managed to catch a few swarms and our colonies are now slowly building up to hopefully become strong colonies, enabling them to bring in nectar for a summer crop of honey. See our honey page for the latest news on this.

April 2021……
We had a very challenging winter where we lost a few colonies. This current cold weather isn’t helping the colonies expand and also it’s restricting their ability to bring in nectar to make honey.
We are unlikely to have any spring honey for sale but are hopeful the bees will build up numbers enough to forage for a summer nectar.

The bees making the most of the sunshine today bringing in plenty of pollen (protein) for the brood. They carry the pollen back to the hive on their rear legs (pollen baskets). See photo below….

A good day for flying……..