Improving the world, One bee at a time

When I was twelve year old  I went to the new forest show and saw an observation hive for the first time. I was hooked !

A chance meeting with a retired commercial beekeeper just a few weeks after that lead to me getting

my first hive. I worked weekends and school holidays with a commercial beekeeper in Dorset gaining as much experience as

I could.

Upon  finishing school at 16 I applied for a job in New Zealand with Waitomo honey in the King Country. In October of that year

set of for the first time of what was to be six seasons  working for Waitomo honey.

Waitomo honeys operation covered three aspects of beekeeping

1. Manuka honey production

2. Queen breeding and cell raising

3. Pollination of apples, kiwi fruit and blueberries

The first two seasons in New Zealand were spent mainly on the honey production side with the main focus on producing Manuka honey. Although the third year I was put in charge of queen production. My job was to create and maintain 1000 nucleus colonies and 200 drone producing hives. The nucleus colonies were run for the production of queens for sale and to re-queen honey producing colonies. I continued to do this aspect of the job for the next 4 seasons also helping out grafting and cell raising.

During the New Zealand off season I would fly back to the UK. having split my time seven months in

New Zealand and five months in the UK. Whilst in the UK I worked for a commercial beekeeper ( Field honey

farms) who had hives in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. I worked for field honey farms for 3 seasons. After

which I decided to set up my own commercial beekeeping enterprise based in the new forest called Young’s New forest honey.

Young’s new forest honey started with 12 hives and after three years I had increased my hive numbers to

150. During the start up of this business I worked as a Seasonal Bee disease Inspector for the food and

environment research agency. This involved checking hives within Hampshire for bee disease, advising

local Beekeepers on good husbandry and taking samples for scientific analyses.

I have since sold my honey production business due to relocating from Hampshire to Carmarthenshire however i 

continued to keep some hives as a hobby. Having recently moved to Wiltshire and started a new beekeeping venture called Green Mead Bees.

 I currently have in excess of 80  hives located on my farm.

From Spring 2022 we are happy to announce that we will offer complete  Bee Colonies ready to go. Order ahead of time to ensure you are not disappointed !