Tuesday 7th April 2020
We know how important pollinators are for farmers, in fact they’re an integral part of growing food for people and for cows. We’ve had hives in the valley for a while now and our bees are very much seen as VIPs on the farm!
We love our bees so much that we want to share the love, so we’ve decided to partner up with Buckley’s Bees to build and manage 10 new beehives and colonies across a number of British organic dairy farms. A father and daughter team based in Cheshire, Buckley’s Bees Beekeepers are registered BBKA members and have been breeding and caring for British Bees for over 50 years, so we know they share our passion for all things bee!
With reductions in wildflower meadows and increased urbanisation, there are now just 270,000 active hives in the UK compared with around 1,000,000 hives in 1900! Over the next two years we hope to provide homes for hundreds of thousands of new British honey bees.
Our partnership with Buckley’s Bees will mean that these hives and bee colonies are looked after and managed throughout the year according to the BBKA and Defra standards, with regular inspections to check on their homes and manage the colony for honey production. One day we may even be able to use some of the honey they produce in our products!
Currently our queen bees are building their colonies and are being looked after by Emma at Buckley’s Bees in their designated apiary in Cheshire. They will be moved to 10 hives across 5 organic dairy farms in the UK as soon as travel restrictions are lifted – homing thousands of new bees over the next year!
Over the coming months, we’ll be updating you with news of our colonies so you can meet our new bees and find out more about the amazing work they do on the farm!
This is great work!. All the plants in our garden are for bees & butterflies.
Well done bees are important
Great News! Maybe Yeo could offer wildflower seed bombs in exchange for yeokens?
Great news for UK bees. Our early flowering raspberry plants are loved by our garden bees.
I have a little bug hotel in my garden, where 2 solitary bees have laid
eggs, i have also done a no mow may to support the bees.
Fantastic. Bees are wonderful fascinating creatures and so important for our planet! 🐝
Thank you Helen for mentioning the solitary bees which many people don’t know about. Only honey bees make honey and use hives. Don’t forget that the bumblebees also are great pollinators. The more flower types we have in the garden and hedgerows, the better it is for all types of bee.
Our garden in Scotland is alive with bees.
We have this year erected a mason bee house but so far there has been no activity around it.
Honey bees are wonderful, but I support other comments saying we must remember the 250 other species of bees in the UK. It’s all about habitat, and availability of biodiverse, native forage plants for them.
Thank you! The bees thank you! It is refreshing to read about a concerned effort to concentrate on a project preserving life that has to do with nature and not pharmaceutical intervention.