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January, our busy quietest month!

Well Christmas seems a long time ago now! It’s been a busy month considering its January which is normally a quieter month on the bee farm. We’ve had the builders in and knocked a couple of walls down allowing us access in to a much larger space that is our new warehouse. In total once fully racked we are hoping to be able to fit over 200 pallets in there! The main issue up to now has been the lack of space so it’s feeling a bit strange that we suddenly don’t need to worry about it. 

As part of the warehouse we have built a new honey warmer that will be able to warm about 6 tons of honey at a time, our current honey warmers along with most standard honey warmers have heaters at the top but the issue is the top of the honey drums heat up but the bottom of the drums don’t, this one has ducting in the floor to pump hot air under the pallets and hopefully speed up warming and use less power too. It’s not operational yet but I can’t wait until it is! 

The honey packing side of the business remains busy and I’m proud to say in 2024 we filled a record 247,000 jars! A number I just couldn’t have imagined a couple of years ago! They went out for lot’s of different brands into retailers all around the UK and even abroad to places like Spain, America and Saudi Arabia. 

Out with the bees we’ve been busy treating them for Varroa. Varroa is an invasive mite that lives on honeybees. We trickle a mixture of sugar syrup and Oxalic acid over the bees during the winter. The bees consume the mixture without any issues but it burns the mite which helps keep our bees in peak condition for the spring. When we go around we also add fondant which is sugar to help any hives that look a little short on food. 

In mild weather the bees are more active and so eat more food. Over the next few weeks we will go back around and check if they have eaten their fondant and if we need to top it up again. 

One of the other jobs we’ve done this month is planning this coming season. We’ve decided to stick with hive numbers around 150. That seems to be a good amount for us to produce enough honey for our own sales. We’ve decided to make up some splits (small hives) early in the year, through May and June and then recombine some later in the season to make sure they’re really strong ready for the summer honey flow.  

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Thank you so much for reading our blog, your support as always really helps our small business as we try and build our own honey sales!

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

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Hap-bee New Year!

Happy New Year! What a year 2024 was! It seems to have absolutely flown by. This time last year we were just starting our biggest ever order of 100,000 1oz jars not knowing quite how we would do it, in the end it was all fine and we learnt a lot from it! 

Throughout this year we’ve been busy growing and re-investing in the business which means that as I sit here writing this today we have filled over 3x the amount of jars as we did in 2023 . We’ve got big plans for this year too with lots of new developments and a massive 200 pallet warehouse being converted from one of the old farm building as we speak! 

The order fulfilment side of the business also came in to its own this year with Shara who works in our mini warehouse sending over 200 parcels in one day during the run up to Christmas for all of the different brands we work with.

Aside from all of the other brands we work with our Holt Hall Apiary brand has undergone a refresh which seems to have gone down well so far! During 2025 we really want to bring some of the focus back to our own brand which I think is unique in the fact we are actually beekeepers not just some large brand buying and selling honey with now actual connection to the bees! 

During this year we also continued our hugely popular beekeeping experiences and did a couple of beginner beekeeping days too. 

For those who haven’t come across them before we offer hands on beekeeping experiences for those who just have an interest in bees. You don’t need any experience or kit you just book your slot and we have about 45 minutes chatting about the bees and the ‘theory’ side of beekeeping before we get you suited up and head out beekeeping, where you really do the beekeeping yourself (with a little guidance).

The full day course is much more in-depth, the morning is spent going over the theory of beekeeping along with all of the equipment you need and what you’ll be looking for at certain times of the year. Then after a light lunch we head out for a couple of hours of beekeeping where you’ll get to go through lots of hives and learn loads!!

Finally I just want to say thank you to all of you, our customers and supporters. I’m now going into my 8th year as a beekeeper and it’s amazing to see how quickly we have grown over the past few years. That couldn’t be done without all of you, sharing our social media post, recommending us to friends and family and of course enjoying our honey. 

I hope you all have a wonderful 2025 and keep up with us throughout 


Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

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There’s a chill in the air!

Well I didn’t quite forget to write the blog… But I am writing it on the morning it gets published! After opening the door to trick or treaters every couple of minutes last night it may have escaped my mind! 

Over the last month and going forward for the next few days we’ve been getting our bees ready for winter. Any hives that hadn’t produced enough to get themselves through winter have been fed syrup to bulk them up ready for the long winter. It’s due to cool off now over the coming week or two and that means the end of syrup feeding as it becomes too cold for the bees to consume it, that means one of the final beekeeping jobs of the year is nearly upon us. Over the next week we will be going around removing the feeders and adding something called a mouse guard, a metal plate with holes that the bees can get through but that stops mice getting in. We will also tidy up our apiaries removing any empty hives and changing over any damaged lids that might let water in. Once that’s done we won’t be doing much with them until January time. 

One thing we’ve been very happy about this autumn is the lack of wasps, normally they cause our bees some real problems because they fight their way in to the hives to eat the honey the bees have collected. This year however they just haven’t really got going which has been brilliant for our bees!

Over the winter we are busy jarring honey, over the past 18 months our business has changed quite a bit and we are now jarring honey for a large number of other brands which keeps us very busy. I think since January we have filled about 200,000 jars!!! A long way from my first 9 jars done in the kitchen when I started 7 years ago! We help these other brands with all things honey, from finding specific ones from other British bee farmers to helping with label design and printing. We all still enjoy getting suited up and checking on our bees though! 

 

Sorry this month is only a short update, we’ve got some expansion plans over the coming months so hopefully we can update you all with that in December and January.

Thank you very much for reading our blog and supporting our small business
Matthew Ingram

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Harvest 2024 over and out!

Well September has flown by! We’ve been busy getting our bees back down off the moors and sorting out our cut comb. 

Due to Heather beetle damage we’ve really struggled to produce as much Heather honey as we have done in previous years. The picture below (or right) is the trailer returning from the moors. At about 4am I headed up the M1 to our site near Sheffield. I had already strapped the hives so when I arrived I closed up the hives and loaded them on to the trailer. We can easily stack 30 hives on the trailer which is an ideal amount. I now always put a net over the trailer just in case there are any issues. 

I was back down from the moors with the bees and unloaded by 8:30am which was great. I must admit to having a slightly earlier finish that day as it’s always a tiring, but rewarding job.

Back with the bees that didn’t go up to the moors, all of them have been treated for Varroa Mite which is an invasive mite species that live on honey bees. We’ve been seeing quite a bit of varroa damage in our hives over the past month so we were please to get treatments on. 

We’ve also started feeding bees, the ones not strong enough to get through winter. They have a strong sugar syrup and will need a total of about 25kg of food to get through winter. 

Over the next few weeks we will continue feeding once a week and then we will go around and take the feeders off before the end of October.

I’m really excited to say our new branding is slowly being rolled out with cut comb having the new labels. Over the next month hopefully we will roll out a few more. I think the new branding really shows that we are a genuine producer that cares about our bees and of course how delicious our honey is!

Summer 2024 has been a great crop for us which is a massive relief after an awful spring. If you’re buying our runny honey it will be this seasons which is a fantastic light golden honey and probably one of my favourites for the past few years. The changing taste of honey because of what that season’s flowers and weather have provided is truly special. 

Thank you very much for reading our blog once again. Your support is so much appreciated 

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

 

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Summer Honey Harvesting

…and just like that summer is nearly over! Extraction is well underway and very nearly finished. 

The harvesting process has remained largely unchanged for a very long time. My Grandpa can remember his Grandpa spinning honey in the garage to the farmhouse. Now our equipment is much larger but the process is the same.

First we go out and put clearing boards on the hives, they’re kind of line one way valves, the bees leave the supers and can’t get back in. The next day we go and collect the supers which are stacked on pallets. 

When we get back we forklift them in to the honey room and begin extracting. The part of the process is to remove the wax cappings. Historically that was done with a knife but due to the number of frames we have we now have a machine that has serrated knives that go back and forth as the frame is pushed between them. 

Next the uncapped frame goes in to the extractor where it spins for about 8 minutes sometimes more and times less depending on the consistency of the honey. 

The honey drains out and it goes into a tank where it settles overnight to allow the beeswax to float up and mean only a small amount of straining is required to make it ready for jarring. 

The wax from the cappings goes through a press to make sure any remaining honey is collected and the wax is rendered down and traded in for something called foundation which is used to fill our new frames. 

We’ve been busy jarring honey as well as extracting it this month. Since our expansion back in May we have two separate rooms for extraction and bottling as extraction makes such a mess with beeswax everywhere!

Since January we have bottled over 40 ton of honey which is considerably more than last year and a real sign of our small business growing. We have already got plans for our next phase of expansion due to happen in early Jan 2025 with a new warehouse area being renovated to allow us to store hopefully upward of 200 pallets. Storage has become the largest bottle neck as we’ve taken on more and more own label customers that all have their own bottles, honey, labels etc and we need somewhere to store the.

I’m really happy to say that our brand has had a bit of change which you’ll have already noticed. We decided that our brand hadn’t had anything done to it for years and maybe it was time we started to do a bit more with it. I’m really happy to say our online sales have gone well so I want to thank you all for that.

Our 3 jar pack still remains our best seller along with the 1KG jars of our delicious runny honey. Our Runny honey 227g is already the new season honey and the 1kg will be moving to new season honey in about 2 weeks.

Thank you so much for reading our blog, your support is so much appreciated. As a small business your support sharing our social media content and buying our honey online or through our fantastic stockists. 
This Saturday the 7th we are at Planters Garden Centre for the Open Air Country Fair please do come along and support lots of great small businesses

Thank you
Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

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Finally some sunshine

Well what a difference a month makes! This time a few weeks ago most bee farmers around the UK were worrying that the weather was never going to pick up and it was going to be one of the worst summer harvests in a long time. The continual rain and cold was making everything behind, you can really see that with other insect life. There hasn’t been many butterflies, bumble bees or even wasps (we’re glad about that one!) yet this year which really shows the impact of the terrible spring. 

Anyhow… the sun is shining now and the bees have produced what looks to be a reasonable crop of honey in the past couple of weeks but only time will tell really! 

Just this morning (31st July) I took my first drive up to the Heather moors to assess how far off flowering they are and get the site (called a heather stance traditionally) sorted. 

I was pleased to find the heather just in bud but not yet open, the photo above or left is of the most forward section. Our bees will be moved in the early hours of Monday morning before the they are out flying. Hopefully they will be super productive as Cut Comb is one of our best sellers and currently out of stock. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Back in the honey room its been a busy month preparing for our annual SALSA audit which always comes at our busiest time. I’m very happy to say all of our prep paid off and we had everything ready for a very successful audit resulting in just one minor action point and no improvements which is our best audit thus far. 

Sticking with auditing today we have also had a visit by the soil association to do an Organic Audit as one of our packing customers purchases organic honey from Spain.

I must say when I started with a few hives 7 years ago I didn’t expect it to turn in to my job let alone in to a growing business processing honey from all around the World. 

I should also mention that to keep up with demand Shara has recently joined us to help with order packing and Doug started just this week to help with the processing side of the business. A very exciting time indeed!!

Many of you will have noticed we are doing far fewer markets than before. Unfortunatley we are struggling to make them work along side a busy Monday – Friday of beekeeping and processing and beekeeping experience every couple of weekends. 

I’m very lucky that my Mum, Christine who most of you will know has been out at a couple of events and we will be out this weekend at Staunton Harold Artisan Market which was a great event last year with some very high quality traders. If you are around it’s well worth a visit if for nothing else but a beautiful setting. 

You can of course always buy online or though many of great stockists which can all be found – HERE

Thank you all for reading, next time i’ll make sure we have plenty of photos of the bees on the Heather as that is always beautiful. If you ever have any beekeeping questions then drop me an email at info@holthallapiary.co.uk and I will make sure it’s answered in our blog!

Thank you
Matthew Ingram

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July Already!

Well… Firstly I need to apologise, where did the June 1st blog go… well I totally forgot! I’ve been writing this blog for at least the past 5 years and I’ve never totally missed a month, I’ve been late once or twice but never totally missed a month. So, sorry about that! 

Any how on to our month. For at least the first half of the month things were looking awful. Beekeepers often talk about a June gap where the spring flowers have gone over and the summer flowers aren’t ready yet. Well this year because of the awful wet weather it seemed like the June gap would never end. We even had to feed our bees to keep them alive which isn’t something we normally need to do in June. 

Tides turned around the 3rd week in June though with the hot weather starting and the bees were pouring nectar in! Hives that had been close to starving if they weren’t being managed were full to bursting within a few days and we then had to rush around putting supers on. 

Although it’s gone a bit cooler now the bees are still working well and bringing in more honey than they up until now. 

The warm weather coincided with our second beginners course of the year which was a great success, but very warm in the suits. Luckily we had air conditioning in the class room which just about managed to keep it cool enough.

You can tell I’m happy with the honey that’s come in from the photo (right or below) with my cheesy grin!

The site above/ left is one of our favourite sites. It has done well for the past two years and as you can tell from how stacked up the boxes are it’s still doing well now! 

We’ve also been busy making more hives to make sure we have plenty for producing honey next year as well because demand for our honey is certainly on the rise, Thank you!

Our most popular honey online is the 1kg jar which for the first time ever we had to put out of stock while we caught up with jarring. They’re back in stock now though!

For those of you with beekeeping experience vouchers, now’s the time to book on. We have good availability in August so find your timeslot now – here 

Over the next month we will be busy jarring honey as we always are and getting our bees ready for the move to the heather in early August. It’s always something I look forward to even with the extra work getting the hives up to the peak district! I really can’t believe how quickly this year is going!

 

Thank you as always for reading and supporting!

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

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Finally some Sun.. Just about!

Well…firstly the keen readers will have noticed that it’s not the 1st May but instead the 3rd… I may… possibility… have forgotten about the blog this month! What can I say, there’s a first for everything!

It’s been a busy month with construction of honey room 3.0 under way and the bees finally moved out to Oil Seed Rape sites. Despite the flowers being out for well over a month now the bees have been having a hard time foraging. The weather has been so cold and wet that the National Bee Unit (DEFRA) has issued a starvation warning to beekeepers which means they are seeing colonies dying of starvation and the beekeeper should check their hives and feed asap if required. 

Over the past week though we have finally seen an improvement in the weather, not a vast improvement but at least heading in the right direction

On the hives doing better we have been adding supers, the boxes the bees use to store the honey that we will eventually (hopefully) harvest. The boxes to the right are two of the fantastic boxes we had painted during COVID. Whenever I see these boxes going out they make me smile, thinking of all the families and schools that had great fun decorating their beehives. 

As far as I know all of the boxes that were painted are still in circulation which is fantastic and add some real colour to our hives. 

Just last week myself and Misha attended a zoom meeting to join a Knowledge Exchange Group (KEG) with the Bee Farmers Association. We will be part of this scheme for a few years with the aim of sharing data between our group and improving our honey production businesses which all vary greatly. I think it’s going to be a really interesting group to be a part of and hopefully will help to grow our business. 

Talking of business growth, our honey room expansion has been going well. The room is very nearly finished with the plumbers finishing up this week. 

Then its just lots of cleaning and paperwork and we are ready to go! The new room is going to be used for extracting honey from the comb as well as having a room for the production of our infused honeys which includes hot honey (like sweet chilli sauce) which we produce for a number of brands.

Next month I will have a complete series of photos showing the transformation of our new honey room and possibly even some photos of it in use! For those wanting to come and meet us and our bees we have one market this month which is at Planter Garden Centre on the 4th and 5th May 10am – 3pm .
As always that you so much for reading our blog and supporting our small business!

Matthew Ingram

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RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!! – April 2024

Well March has flown by and been extremely busy as normal! We are all amazed how quickly the Oil seed rape has come out and because of the awful wet weather we have only managed one move so far. To get the 20 hives on to their new spring site involved getting bogged down 3 times and having to be towed. You can see from the photos just how wet it is on the fields. Unfortunately we’ve had to delay moving any more hives for a week or two in the hope it dries up.

Our other worry with the OSR being in flower so early is that it will go over while it’s too cold for the bees to make use of which would be a real shame. We use honey from Oil Seed Rape to make most of our infusions so we like plenty of it! 

While we are talking about other honeys I thought I would just mention our Borage honey. It’s an amazing honey that is incredibly light but with a very strong floral flavour. It isn’t a honey we can produce ourselves as we don’t have access to acres of Borage fields but when a bee farming friend, Neil, asked if we would like to try some I jumped at the chance to be able to offer this really special honey to our customers from a beekeeper who I know I can trust to provide a high quality honey that has been cared for as much as we care for our own honeys. 

We are seeing more an more people hearing about the (probable) adulteration of honeys in the supermarket and trying to find Raw honey as natural as possible. I just wanted to assure all of our customers that although we don’t label our honey as raw it is totally unpasteurised and has only been lightly warmed and passed through a sieve to remove any bits of beeswax.

The image in the header is of a cut out we did during the month. A farmer called us saying a tree had fallen down and could we come and save the bees which were exposed to the elements. We went along and got them in a hive. There’s a brief video of the process on our social media if you’re interested

Construction work has started yet again here at Holt Hall Apiary, we are busy making honey room number 3!

We’ve taken an old wall out and the levelling has been done ready to create a new room just a few metres from our current room. We have run out of space to extract our honey during the season because we’re so busy jarring honey all year around. I’m going to share photos of the whole process next month when hopefully it is nearly done! For now here’s two showing the lean-to and old brick wall being taken out and the new opening being levelled!

Thank you so much as ever for reading, it’s very exciting times here at HHA. Please do follow us on social media if you don’t already to see more regular updates. Also thank you for the continued orders both through us and our stockists. It really does mean a lot to me and our tiny team!

If you want to ready any of our older blogs you may have missed take a look below.

Thank you again
Matthew Ingram

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Spring is finally in the air!

We’ve had a great month getting back to normal. We’ve been busy jarring lots of honey as well as checking on our bees. 

We even had our first Live stream on TIKTOK after Katie joined our small team to help with marketing. The live stream was really successful with lots of people joining to see us cutting comb and making chunk honey. We are planning to do lots more so if you have TIKTOK do give us a follow!

If there’s anything you’d like to know or learn about honey or beekeeping just message us or email us and we will make sure it gets answered. 

One of the big developments this month was the arrival of our new bulk tank. When honey comes to us in barrels for our packing customers we need to warm it up. Up until now we have warmed it in the barrels and then pumped it through a strainer and in to the jarring machine. The problem is you need to try and mix the honey to get it to clear well enough.

Now with this new tank we warm the barrels slightly just enough to get it to be able to pump and then pump it in to the tank which has a water tank around it (Called a double jacket) which heats up. A stirrer mixes the 800kg of honey once an hour for 5 minutes for about 24 hours which then means the honey is clear enough to be strained and jarred with much less warming which is better for the honey. 

We can jar about 1 ton of honey a day so this tank is going to be a big leap forward for us. Although at the moment our own brand isn’t actually big enough to make full use of this tank our packing customers are and it means when our brand grows we will have the equipment set up ready to go. 

We have lots more plans moving forward including a new processing room so keep an eye out on our social media for all the updates!

Out with the bees we’ve been busy making sure they have enough food. So far we’ve been happy with how the bees are doing. The warmer than normal winter has meant the queens have continued laying and the bees are eating a lot of food. I have heard reports higher than normal losses around the UK which will be due to the bees running out of food. Every two weeks we go around and add fondant, which is bakers fondant often used in cakes, to any hives that need it. 

Over the next few weeks we will do a little video showing the process and how we decide which ones need food.

As always thank you so much for taking the time to read our short blog, your support means a lot to our small business

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary