About the Honey

Honey

We’re really proud of this very special honey.

As there’s such a variety of forage for the bees, our honey is very floral and fragrant. Depending what nectar the bees collect, it tastes different from year to year and from season to season.

We produce clear honey, chunk honey (honey with a chunk of honeycomb added) and honey comb. The clear honey naturally sets in a couple of months, but can be clarified again by sitting it in a dish of hot water. There will be tiny specks of pollen in the honey - some people say local pollen helps their hay fever.

Honey is a seasonal product and is dependent on the weather and the success of the bee colonies, so it’s in short supply. The bees don’t make honey over the winter but there’s a fresh batch every summer. It lasts indefinitely (edible honey was found in the pyramids!) - we recommend eating it within 3 years, but we doubt it will last that long.

Honey production is a labour of love. To make each jar of honey takes 4 to 5 hours’ of beekeeping time, 55,000 bee miles, and the nectar from 2 million flowers. We hope you can taste the difference.

How we produce our honey

We take the honey supers off the hives at the end of the summer, leaving enough for the bees to eat through the winter.

We carefully remove the wax layer that the bees have sealed the honey with, and spin the frames in an extractor – a bit like an old fashioned washing machine. Centrifugal force makes the honey fly out. Once it’s settled, we cold filter it slowly and carefully, twice, let it settle again to allow the tiny air bubbles to rise to the surface and then pour it into jars. That’s all. It’s a simple process but one you can’t hurry. Honey moves at its own pace.

Then we hand apply the labels and write the lot number on, which means we can even tell you which hive each jar is from.