- Since 2014 -

Ben's Berkshire Bees

Raw and Pure West Berkshire Honey

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What makes West Berkshire Honey so Special?

Our Story

West Berkshire Beekeeping

We are a Beefarm based in West Berkshire, producing high-quality raw and pure honey and wax products from hives across West Berkshire.

We are members of the British Beefarmers' Association.

Our apiaries are located throughout West Berkshire, and at the height of summer, we have over 10 million bees buzzing over Newbury, Thatcham and the surrounding villages. These industrious pollinators work tirelessly, pollinating approximately 200 billion flowers and contributing to the health of our local environment.

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This is a newly established colony we rescued from a compost bin.

After selling out we are restocked with lip balms. We have a natural, vanilla and cherry scent.

Last Sunday we had a lovely time at the Benham Estate's Open Farm Sunday. We had a stall to talk about bees, I got through 3 sheets of stickers for children, as there were so many families. There were tractor rides, talks and demonstrations and stalls Above all there was a lot of big kit!

The blackberry is out in full bloom very early this year. This is always a great source of nectar for our bees.

We've had a busy start to the season for swarm collections. Here is a few of the 12 calls we have responded to so far!

We have a new product available - lipbalm sticks, we have Natural, Vanilla and Cherry.

These will be on the website soon.

This set up is trying to get bees out of an
airbrick in a building. The idea is to trap out the bees from the home they have chosen and persuade them to use a hive I have provided.

This colony we housed after it had formed it's nest in the outer wall of a building. We moved the comb into frames and then the bees followed into the box. We have then relocated them to a new location.

This was a nice swarm collection from yesterday. The tube is from my beevac.

We are in Newbury until 1pm at the @newbury_farmers_market. We have our bees on their first outing of the year!

Producers that are here include: @fermentedbygeorge Green Shed Cider Company Ltd @iowtomatoes Stainswick Farm

Yesterday we collected this swarm from Newbury Town Centre. It was pretty big!

We added a feature to our website to report honey bees swarms. As part of our responsible beekeeping approach we offer free swarm collection within the areas surrounding our apiaries: Newbury, Thatcham and surrounding villages.

I'm really excited to be taking part in the Newbury Artisan Market for the first time in a few weeks hosted by @renartgades. So many local businesses tell me how good the market is. Why not come along and see us. If the temperature is high enough we will bring our bees along!

As the temperatures raise our bees will start to make an appearance on our stall at events. You'll be able to see if you are able to spot the Queen!

The bees are developing well so far this season.

This is a little update of where we will be over the next two months.

Wonderful amounts of Pollen being gathered by the bees at the moment.

Honey Bee Swarms

By the end of April will be into the 2025 Swarming season for the next few months.

Honey Bees swarm when the colony reaches a size where it thinks it can reproduce - half the bees leave with the existing Queen bee to find somewhere else to live, the remaining ones produce a new queen.

Bees generally at the most gentle when they are swarming they are focused on getting to a new home!

If you come across a swarm not need to panic. If you're in West Berkshire you can contact us via our website or give the Newbury and District Beekeepers a call on their swarm line.

www.bensberkshirebees.co.uk/contact-us

The tell tale sign that a little mouse has made its home in this old comb.

Our Mother's Day gift packs have been flying out today. The last day for ordering is Friday 28th.

If this isn't a good omen for an apiary site I'm not sure what is. I use What Three Words to record the locations of apiaries and came across this one this week. I edited the first world a little to maintain the confidentiality of the location, but the actual one was similar.

We have set up a new partnership with Veolia at their Padworth Recycling centre!

https://www.bensberkshirebees.co.uk/post/a-new-padworth-partnership

We have a mailing list to which we send ad hoc offers and news. If you like to join it you can by filling in a simple form on our website.

www.bensberkshirebees.co.uk

We have put together a special Mother's Day bundle. These are available on our website.

I've been in France 🇫🇷 for the last week. The supermarket honey shelves look very different - lots of local varieties on offer and very little from outside of France. The prices are similar to what we charge for our at £7 a jar. It shows it is possible for supermarkets not to sell predominately questionable imports.

We are super proud of these limited edition version of our honey soaps that are available at the Welford Snowdrops.

🐝 Early bird gets the... nectar! Caught this beautiful moment at our West Berkshire apiary today. Our girls are making the most of these precious early spring flowers.

These snowdrops might look delicate, but they're tough little plants, pushing through the winter soil to provide vital early season food for our bees. Nature really is amazing!

Who else has spotted signs of spring in their garden? 🌱

#BensBerkshireBees #BritishBeekeeper #SaveTheBees #LocalHoney #WestBerkshire #Beekeeping #SpringFlowers #Snowdrops #NaturalBeekeeping #BeeLovers

Hmm, this hive was like an island in a small flood. Not ideal but the bees were still doing OK.

I ventured out of Berkshire yesterday to give a talk in Ramsbury.

Lovely weather for the Newbury Farmera Market this morning. Some great producers there as well including a very well stocked new cheese stall. We'll be back on the first Sunday of March.

We sometimes get asked if we are "treatment free", in our latest post we set out why we don't think this is responsible or sustainable way to keep bees. The idea is that you don't use chemical treatments and breed bees with a tolerance to pests and diseases, since those that don't die out. Whilst in the beekeeping world this is a controversial idea - would you consider a "treatment-free" approach to care for your cat or dog?

https://www.bensberkshirebees.co.uk/post/are-we-treatment-free

Fallen Tree – Honey Bee Rescue!

Last weekend, we were called to rescue a colony of honey bees whose nest was in a tree that had fallen during high winds.

Wild honey bee colonies love to nest in the hollow spaces of trees. As trees age, the inside often begins to rot, creating perfect cavities for bees to build their home. These natural hollows are well-insulated, with small entrances that protect the bees from predators and the weather. Bees line these cavities with propolis—a resin-based material they gather from tree sap—to waterproof the interior before constructing their combs.

Unfortunately, honeycomb, while incredibly strong, is not built to withstand a 10-meter fall. When the tree toppled, it cracked, exposing a significant amount of comb. The damage was extensive, and while most of the colony was lost, a small cluster of bees remained alive. Sadly, I didn’t see the queen, who is often injured or killed in such situations as the comb breaks apart.

To save the remaining bees, I carefully cut the comb to fit the size of standard hive frames, securing it with elastic bands. The bees were then gently shaken into the hive box, where they quickly settled onto the salvaged comb. Thankfully, there was still plenty of honey stored in the comb, which will help sustain them.

While I’m unsure if this colony will be strong enough to survive the rest of the winter, we’re doing everything we can to give them a fighting chance. Fingers crossed!

Review of 2024 and a look to the future for Ben's Berkshire Bees.

New Year is always a good time to look back and reflect on the year and to plan things to come.

🍯 We have sold more honey than ever before. Our super local differentiator of village by village labeling seems to be working well. After some teething issues postal orders from the website seem also to be going smoothly. We have started to supply restaurants including @goatontheroof . We have been regular attendees at the Newbury Farmers Market.

🍯Early in the year we invested in the Bee Mobile after getting stuck in one to many fields. This has made inspecting the bees much quicker throughout the season.

🍯The company received a grant @westberkshirecouncil to improve our honey extraction equipment, which has greatly improved the speed at which we can process honey.

🍯I became an assessor for the BBKA Basic assessment and continued to win prizes at the Berkshire Honey Show and at the National Honey Show.

🍯I have given talks to the Young Farmers, Women's Institutes, pre-schools at Shaw House and as part of the Thatcham Festival.

🍯In terms of our other projects: SIPA Honey Bees - our queen rearing branch had a reasonable year, although the intensity of queen rearing continues to be a step learning curve. The Small Scale Commercial Beekeeping Network we set up has grown into a fantastic community with over 500 members.

In 2025 we are looking to develop further.

🍯Increasing our number outlets - we are considering a regular attendance at the Thatcham Market on Fridays.

🍯We are going to start doing beekeeping experience sessions to help supplement the income the business. A limited number are now available on the website.

🍯We're starting a project with the Padworth recycling center to put hives into conservation land there.

🍯Launching beekeeping training via @thehoneybeeacademyuk - a project we set up a little while ago.

After our pause for Chirstmas our online shop is now open again. Honey can be collected from Thatcham or dispatched via the Royal Mail. Happy New Year everyone!

Sunday 15th December is our last day for orders for delivery or collection via our website. We have added some of the products we have had on our market stall to the website. We will take all the stock we have left after tomorrow to the Thatcham market on the 22nd December.

We've been testing different types of packaging for the increasing number of postal orders we have been getting. This is what I think is working best in terms of padding for the honey and presentation.

What do you think?

We have 12 of the larger gift and 10 of the smaller ones left. They can be purchased on our website.

After having sold out, we are now back in stock of our popular lip balms. They can be purchased on our website for delivery or collection.

www.bensberkshirebees.co.uk

We have just two more events left this year both in our home town of Thatcham. We will be at the Christmas Lights Switch on next Friday and then just before Christmas we will bring our remaining stock to the Thatcham Christmas Market - perfect for any last minute Christmas presents.

We had a busy time @shawhouse1581 , nice to see some regular customers and attendees from talks throughout the year. It was also good to catch up with some of the many stallholders we see regularly,

In the mean time you can order via the website - the Christmas gift sets in particular have been flying out the door.

Today we will be at Shaw House from 11am to 3pm. This is always a lovely Christmas Market.

It's Black Friday. We are a very small business and our bees work really hard to make our produce so they don't really want to offer a discount. We were thinking that given everyone will be saving money on their purchases it would be the perfect time to treat yourself to some of our honey or honey soaps.

The Christmas gift set we launched a few days ago has been flying out the door. We only have a limited number of the bags we have launched a second version, this one contains honey, lip balm and a honey server and is available for £11 on our website. These will be available for collection from Thursday 5th December.

www.bensberkshirebee.co.uk

In the run up to Christmas we have launched a Christmas Gift set with each of our most popular products, West Berkshire Honey, Honey Soap and a lip balm, all presented in a reusable gift bag. These are priced at £16 with limited numbers available on our website. They can be collected locally from Thatcham or sent out in the post with postage of £4.

#Christmasgift #honey #westberkshire #berkshire

We've been getting more and more postal orders from across the country so have spent some time upgrading our postal process. We will now be sending our product protected in this appropriately named honey comb paper and only using recorded delivery. Orders made in the next few weeks will arrive before Christmas.

We took a trip to our local supermarket to see where the honey was from? Can you guess where these honeys were from by the labels? #buylocal

From our bees in West Berkshire, Ben's Berkshire Bees products make perfect stocking fillers. We have honey soaps, lip balms and beeswax candles available.

Why does are campaign for honey labelling by country matter? Well, many jars of honey in the supermarket including "premium" brands are labelled with "A blend of EU and Non-EU Honeys". Where is that likely to be from? (It's China by the way).

The law requires a country of origin but the labeling used is a cope out - basically saying what is in the jar could be from anywhere on the earth. Even clothing has better labelling - I have never seen a T-shirt labelled as made in "an EU or Non-EU Country".

When packers import honey they are required to register the import and provide certification. The chart below shows the source by country. 72% of honey imported to the UK comes from China, the next largest country is Mexico at 4.1%.

Given how much comes from China it should be relatively easy for honey packers to be able to know where the source was. It should, therefore, be easy to label products with an actual source of origin. In our letter to @lrjdillon (our MP) we called for a change to the Honey Regulations to require the specific country of origin rather than essentially "anywhere".

@britishbeekeepers

#beekeeping #beekeepers #britishbeekeeping

We are backing family farmers! Whilst wellies are part of the beekeeping uniform, today we will wearing them supporting the British Farmers. Today our family farmers are headed to London to lobby the Government on the changes to the tax rules which have thrown generation planning into chaos. Farmers plan over the long term and the budget changes have cut across plans for maintaining farms in the long term.

Bee farmers work with small farmers up and down the country on space for apiaries and pollinators.

We believe that needs to consider alternatives ways to tax the "wealth generation" of land increases which can't be realized without the sale of land. For example high capital gains charges when farm land is converted for development.

We hope the farmers have a good day getting their message across.

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