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June and the year is flying!

Well what a difference a month makes. Back at the start of May I was busy moaning about an awful spring, wettest on record and so cold. Saying how the bees had produced no spring crop and wondering what the plan was.

Fast forward to now and the honey crop is looking amazing, the bees are firing on all cylinders and we’ve gone from worrying they have too little food to worrying we can’t keep up with giving them enough space to store it all.

We’ve been really busy producing the first queens of the year. The process involves moving day old larvae from the selected breeding colony, one that we think has great qualities like calmness, disease resistance and of course, good honey production. The larvae is then placed in a colony with no queen and through natural instincts they produce queens cells which later hatch as queens.

Through this process we can produce up to about 30 queens a week which is more than enough for us to make the increase in hives that we want.

Currently while I’m sat writing this I’m just outside York having finished my first day training for a scheme called DASH – Disease Assurance Scheme for Honeybees run by The National Bee Unit part of DEFRA. This should mean I am able to manage notifiable diseases that impact honey bees in the UK as well as manage the treatment of the hive if they are found. It’s a course that I think will be really helpful to ensure our bees are as healthy and well looked after as possible while also reducing the amount of checks we have from the National
Bee Unit each year.

 

Thank you for reading our blog again this month, it’s a little shorter as i’ve been so busy but hope to do a longer one in the next few months!

We will be at The Open Air Country Fair on the 3rd and 4th June so please do come along and support lots of great local businesses.

Thank you

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

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Hooray it’s May!

Well April certainly lived up to the saying, April showers! It’s been another cold and damp month making us wonder when spring will actually arrive! Fingers crossed it’s going to change this month!

The bees have been building up nicely despite the weather but very little honey has been produced yet, unlike last year which was much earlier. We are hoping with the bees poised and ready as soon as we get some good weather they will be really busy foraging on all the plants now in flower. Oil seed rape is looking fantastic and the fruit trees are starting to look a picture. Even the humble dandelion seems to be out in force this year proving plenty of food for the bees on the occasional warm day!

All of our bees our now out on their spring sites, many right next to fields of Oil Seed Rape which will go towards producing our delicious soft set honey and make up part of our infused honey range. 

We have just started producing the first new queens of 2023 but with the weather as it is we’re not expecting them to be ready to lay for another few weeks yet.

One of the exciting things to happen in the past few days was finding out there had been an article published in the Farmers Guardian (A national farming magazine) focussing on our small business and my roles in Young Farmers an organisation that means a lot to me! 

During the middle of April I went for a day trip over to Norfolk to collect an Ezyloader, a crane designed to attach to the back of a trailer to lift beehives on and off which will make our lives so much easier and importantly save our poor backs. It’s in rather a state so will need a bit of work but it’s a project my girlfriend’s dad is very keen to take on which is great news! I’ll take plenty of pictures and keep you all updated on how it’s going 

During May we have a couple of Markets and shows so please do come and visit, these small events are a great way to help support small local businesses

13th & 14th May – Spring Fest, Curborough countryside centre (WS13 8EA)
28th May – Market Bosworth Farmers Market 
28th May – Blabers Hall Vineyard Open Day (CV7 8EP)

Thank you all for reading and supporting, remember if you’ve not already signed up to the newsletter you can do that below and get 10% off your first website order as well as getting a monthly offer on one of our honeys

Matthew Ingram

 

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The New Season is nearly here!!

Well where did March go…? It seems only 5 minutes ago it was February and the winter was feeling long and then suddenly we are in April starting to move bees to their spring sites and seeing the first of the Blackthorn out in full bloom and the Oil Seed Rape just starting to show off it’s yellow flowers. Give it another two weeks of fairly warm weather and the bees will making the most of these flowers and hopefully bringing in lots of pollen and nectar.

Oil seed rape is what we use to make our creamy soft set honey and a lot of our infused honeys too!

Back in the honey room as we’ve been super busy jarring our honey and jarring honey for other brands too. Many people don’t realise that we actually process honey for quite a few different brands all around the UK due to our accredited production facility. 

In the photo above Misha is learning how to make the perfect sized but comb from our amazing heather honey. Each slice is cut by hand, weighed and labelled to make sure they’re all perfect. If you’ve not had cut comb its well worth a try and is the most traditional way of eating honey. – CUT COMB

Many of you may have come across and article this month in many newspapers claiming that in an EU study all UK honey tested showed signs of adulteration – https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/mar/26/uk-honey-fails-authenticity-test

I just wanted to bring this up because all of those samples are from large producers importing honey from overseas and mainly China. Honey produced by British beekeepers is extremely good and trustworthy. Here at Holt Hall Apiary we are able to trace every single jar of honey we produce back to the site it was harvested from, the day we harvested it, the day it was jarred and we keep all of this so that we can be 100% we are only providing our customers with the best product possible.  

 

Thank you so much for reading our blog and supporting us it really does mean so much.

We are out at a couple of markets this month:
Market Bosworth – 23rd April 9am – 1:30pm 
Planters Garden Centre Open Air Country Fair – 29th – 30th April 

Thank you again
Matthew Ingram

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A Fantastic Feb!

Well it’s this time again, blog writing time. What a month we have had! The whole month seems to have been busier than ever which is both good and scary considering our beekeeping season hasn’t started yet.

Much of this month has revolved around jobs in the workshop making sure all of our equipment is ready for the start of the season which really is now only a few weeks away and with each warm day the bees show us just how busy they can be!

We still have a long way to go with a couple of thousand frames (the wooden parts that slide into the hives and the bees build their comb into) As well as around 60 hive floors and 60 hive roofs… a busy few weeks ahead.

The bees are looking good, we have been doing two weekly checks on the hives, we use a method called “Hefting” which is the ‘art’, and I say art because its based solely on judgement with taking any actual measurements, of lifting one side of the hive and deciding if the hive has enough food. We are finding most do have enough food but at least half have had fondant added either because they need it or because we think in the next two weeks they will. As the weather warms up and the bees become more active they consume far more food so we have to be very careful, the worst feeling is to lose a hive so close to the spring blooms.

The rest of the time not spent in the workshop or with the bees has been spent jarring honey, as well as processing honey for our own brand we also process and pack other peoples honey and that side of the business has been growing very well over the past 6 month or so and finger crossed will continue to grow throughout 2023 and onwards.

Now I can’t get through this blog without mentioning a very special award! As many who follow us on social media are likely to know I am an active member of Young Farmer, a fantastic youth charity aimed at bringing people between the ages of 10 and 28 in rural communities together. The national federation of Young Farmers has been going for a very long time and even my grandparents were in the same club that I am in all these years on. I was very kindly nominated as the National Young Farmers Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 (Awarded in 2023) We attended a fantastic black tie awards ceremony and I was lucky enough to WIN! This is a massive achievement for me and its wonderful to have Holt Hall Apiary acknowledged alongside more traditional farming enterprises as bee farming only makes up a small, but important part of the UKs agricultural industry.

Looking into March we have plenty more jarring work to do and also we will begin moving our hives to their spring sites ahead of the Oil Seed Rape coming into flower, we will update you next time.

Thank you as always for your support reading our blog, sharing our social media and purchasing our honey, it really is appreciated

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Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

 

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Winter jobs well underway.. roll on the spring!

When I start back to the beginning of January it seems so long ago but in many ways it’s flown by, we seem to have been very busy throughout which is great… and slightly scary as this is supposed to be the quiet part of the year!

One of the highlights was going to a Midlands and Northern Bee Farmers Association meeting at Thornes, a beekeeping shop near Grimsby. It was great to catch up with other bee farmers and compare plans for the coming season. Going to Thornes also gave me the opportunity to get the beeswax foundation  (Thin beeswax sheets that the bees use to start their comb off) and the frames that slot into the hive. One of the big jobs now is assembling all 2,500 of them and building the hive boxes that the frames will go in to! 

Misha

The most exciting part of January was without doubt welcoming Misha to our small team! Misha has joined us through the Bee Farmers Apprenticeship scheme aimed at bringing younger people into the beekeeping industry. 

At this time of year most of our jobs are indoor be it jarring honey or doing the woodworking but any chance to get out with the bees Misha takes and we’ve been able to do a few checks on the hives to make sure they have enough food and add fondant (basically like fondant icing) which is an emergency feed which should keep the bees going until the first flowers start in the Spring.

I’m hoping I can persuade Misha to write a little piece in the blog in the coming months as I think many readers will be interested in learning about routes into bee farming!

Valentines day is fast approaching so I just want to mention a couple of gifts we have. First is the Valentines day Hamper which contains a heart shaped jar of honey, a honey and oatmeal Goats Milk Soap (With label that can be planted and grows wildflower seeds!) a honey dipper and a full packet of wildflower seeds, all neatly packaged ready for gifting! 

If you’re after just something a little quirky for a bee enthusiast why not adopt a bee for just £1.90 and get an adoption certificate to download and gift!

Thank you as ever for your support by reading our blog, liking and sharing us on social media, ordering from our website or buying from our stockists. As a small business we really do appreciate all of the support especially during difficult times.

We aren’t going to be attending any markets in February but orders can be placed online and sent out. We will be back at our normal markets in March!

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

Please do consider joining our mailing list if you haven’t already. We don’t bombard you with emails there’s normally two per month. One to tell you our latest blog has been released and the other to send you our honey of the month, a honey we have chosen to give 10% off as an exclusive offer to our mailing list members, it’s a different honey each month. You also get 10% off your first order when you join!

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Hap-bee New Year

Happy New Year! It’s been lovely to have a few days off over Christmas and I hope you have all had a great time relaxing with friends and family. 

We are back to work this week with our main job being building hives. As soon as the season starts we won’t have time to build extra equipment so we want to get it done before April time so that we can expand rapidly when the weather improves. 

Alongside the woodworking we are also busy in the honey room processing lots of honey for ourselves and for other people as well. Just before Christmas we had our record processing day, managing to fill, label and pack 1,542 bottles of honey for another brand in just one day!!

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Back with the hives the bees are remaining active due to the mild weather. The metal grid on the hive to left(above on mobile) is a mouse guard, we add these too all of our hives to make sure mice don’t get into the hives looking for food and damaging the bees. 

We have done some early checks for food and added fondant which is basically solid sugar which provides emergency food to the bees who need to do very little processing to make it edible to them.

Next month I will be able to show you how we treat our bees for Varroa Mite which is really important to bees health. 

I’m going to leave this blog a bit shorter this month but rest assured we are still busy and if you have any questions about what we are up to or anything about our bees just get in touch!

I feel I ought to mention for those suffering with a cough or cold the NHS now recommends honey and honey and lemon (Link Here) so don’t forget all of our honey is naturally produced with Runny, Soft Set, Heather, Cut Comb and Chunk have absolutely nothing added and is exactly how the bees made it! You could try our Lemon Infused Honey too which has lemon zest and juice added to the honey.

We will be at Market Bosworth Farmers Market on the 22nd January 

Thank you as always for your support
Matthew Ingram

Join our mailing list for 10% off your first purchase and access to our honey of the month emails which offer 10% off one selected honey each month.

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November.. where has the time gone?!

I can’t believe i’m writing this already. Each month I seem to think the blog comes around faster than the month before. At the start of November I managed to get away for a weeks holiday and had a great relax, but as soon as I was back I was back onto all of our jobs!

Over the past few years by November all of our ‘bee jobs’ (the jobs that require working with the hives themselves) have been finished but this year because of the mild weather and lots of other jobs getting the way i’ve found myself in my beesuit throughout the month and even have one or two small jobs left to do in December.

Winter is the most nerve wracking time of year for me as a beekeeper, I just have to trust that all we have done getting the bees ready for winter has been enough to ensure the bees are as healthy and well fed as possible. 

So far the mild weather has allowed them to move around easily so we have had no issues but I do worry that if the mild weather continues they will consume far more stores as they will remain active which will create problems come March and April when the hives need a lot of food to grow stronger for the season ahead. Bees in cold weather cluster together very tightly and need to consume only a small amount of food to survive.

 

Away from the bees we have had a busy month on the markets which have been really well supported so a massive thank you to all our customers. Christine (Mum) has worked hard on our Christmas display managing to persuade me to carry a live Christmas tree to our larger events to be covered in bee related items.

We have a few markets in December so if you’re still on the hunt for gifts please do come along to local markets you’re sure to find some great gift ideas. 

3rd & 4th December – Ashby Food Gusto (Ashby – de – la- Zouch) 10am- 5pm
3rd December –  Quinney Hall (B75 5SD) 10am – 4pm 
4th December – Pinwall Feeds Christmas Fayre (CV9 2NH) 9am – 4pm 
13th & 14th December – Astley Book Farm (CV12 0NE) 5:30pm – 9pm 
18th December – Market Bosworth Farmers Market 9am – 1:30pm

A very exciting new development this month has been opening applications for our first bee farmers apprentice. This is a great opportunity for someone aged between 16 and 24 to take on a 3 year course to work with us learning about bee farming while working full time in the industry. It’s a fantastic course and more details can be found here – https://beefarmers.co.uk/about-bee-farming/rowsebfa-apprenticeships

If you are interested in applying or want more information please email us on info@holthallapiary.co.uk

Get your gifts in time for Christmas!

Due to the strikes going on and the potential disruption we are going to stop taking orders slightly earlier this year to avoid disappointment by late delivery 

2nd Class and courier option cut off will be 23:59 18th December
1st Class Cut off will be 23:59 19th December
Collections from Planters can be made any time up to the 22nd 

Thank you all for your support throughout 2022 it means the world to me that my business is being supported by local people. Hopefully 2023 will be another good year for Holt Hall Apiary and in the next blog I will try and write a bit about what we have achieved through 2022 and our goals for 2023!

Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary

Join our newsletter and get 10% off your first order as well has 10% off a honey of the month each month

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October… Its been an interesting month!

Well October went a little differently than planned! It started as normal and the bees that needed it were being fed with syrup to make sure they’re in top condition for the winter.

Unfortunately however part way through the month things went down hill. Those that know me know I’m rarely ill and also that I don’t do things by halves so.. I managed to get quite a nasty case of Glandular Fever and ended up spending two days in Hospital! 

I’m much better now but couldn’t have got everything done without the help from my Mum who many that read this blog will already know does a lot for me as well as several other people who all helped get our backlog of honey to process down! 

The bees are back on track thanks to Dad helping feed the bees when I wasn’t allowed to do any heavy lifting. So I think we can sum up by saying its been a stressful month for all but looking much better now!

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Now onto what we’ve been up to this month! It seems this month has been non-stop honey processing for us and for other brands. Many people don’t know that we actually process honey on behalf of quite a few honey brands around the UK. Their honey gets sent to us and we can process it and jar it for them under our certification. 

We have processed upwards of 8,000 jars this month alone for other brands which is brilliant and we keep picking up new customers ranging from smaller businesses and beekeepers wanting a couple of hundred jars doing through to larger businesses supplying retail chains and shipping overseas. 

Honey packing as it’s called was never something I thought we would be doing other than for ourselves but its become a really valuable asset to our small business!  

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Christmas is just around the corner and we’re so excited to  have back in stock one of our most sought after honeys, Festive Spiced. This has become a firm winter favourite with its warming spices and delicate honey flavour its a real treat at breakfast time, stirred into coffee or even by the spoonful!!

As well as our Festive Spiced Honey we also have our Christmas Hampers back in stock which contain a honey of your choice, a beeswax candle, honey dipper and packed of wildflower seeds. You can even add a gift tag for free!  

Thank you as always for your support and taking the time to read our short blog. If you ever want to learn about anything in our business send us an email with your question and we will answer it through our blog!

This month we have two markets on the same weekend

Middleton Hall Christmas Market – 26th and 27th November
Market Bosworth Farmers Market – 27th November

We look forward to seeing you there
Matthew Ingram

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Winter is coming!

Well this month the weather has given me all the excuse I need to come in and write my blog. I’m actually writing this two days  before the deadline (a miracle) owing mainly to the dull and damp weather we have had the last day or so. The overnight temperatures are certainly starting to push the bees into winter mode and their numbers are dramatically reducing as they do each year. Our large production colonies that may have had 60,000+ workers at their peak just a month or two ago but will now be on their way down to around 10,000. 

Our honey harvest is nearly over with just a bit of Heather left to process. Despite the very very dry weather and poor start to the year the bees have generally performed well and yielded lots of honey which is great for us. 

After we harvest the honey we strain it into buckets where it’s stored until we need it. Then we gently warm the bucket up so that it’s runny and it goes through our jarring machine we then hand label it and send it out.  

The photo shows some of our honey buckets. For those that have been following for sometime you will know that we had a new much larger honey room last year that was supposed to last a very long time and already it’s looking a bit on the full side!! eek!

 

The bees are back from their trip up north. Although only last month I was talking about them having gone up to the Peak District this month the heather has finished and the early start was once again happening. Bringing them back is worse though because you have to set off extra early to get the bees loaded up before they start flying. So at 4am off we go. We made great time and loading the trailer only took 40 minutes which was great. Our issue came when we got stuck in traffic on the way home. What the people behind us must have though seeing beehives with bees moving around under the net must have though, I was just glad we put the net on! 

Heather is an amazing crop – Dr Adrian Charlton of FERA has found that Heather Honey contains 10x the amount of the essential nutrient Manganese than other honeys. He tested 200 other honeys including Manuka. It is also now the second largest source of Manganese in the world. 

If you’ve never heard of Manganese then here is a bit about it: Manganese is an essential mineral. As well as its high antioxidant qualities, it plays a role in helping to make and activate enzymes in the body involved in protecting tissues from damage and in the metabolism of nutrients. It also helps maintain healthy bones. 

This month we are a bit quieter on the markets with only two in:

  1. 22nd &23rd October – Open Air Country Fair at Planters Garden Centre
  2. 23rd October – Market Bosworth Farmers Market 
As always thank you for reading our blog, if you have any beekeeping questions get in touch by emailing info@holthallapiary.co.uk
 
Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary
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September – Autumn already!

As ever August has proved to be a busy month with harvest in full swing! I’m happy to say that the last of our honey was harvested on the 30th August apart from our Heather honey that will be in a few weeks!

The crop has ended up being fairly average due to the dry weather but it’s our biggest crop to date as we have more hives than we ever have done before! 

August has also seen the end of experiences, we’ve run over 50 courses this year so as much as I love meeting new people and showing off the wonders of beekeeping I was ready to have a small break! On the experiences note – after almost 4 seasons doing experiences we have decided not to offer any more for sale for 2023. As we have got busier and busier we are having to pick and choose areas of the business to expand and other to contract. For those with a voucher don’t worry we will still honour any outstanding vouchers during 2023! Hopefully we will be able to bring them back in the not too distant future. 

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The Heather Move!

One of the most stressful yet fantastically rewarding parts of the season comes in the form of moving 28 (10 more than last year) hives on a trailer up the M1 to the peak district!

The process takes a couple of days to get the hives in the correct configuration with plenty of food and strapped ready to be moved. 

On the moving day we start early, about 4:30am and go and close all of the entrances up before carefully loading the hives onto the trailer, we can stack the hives 2 high, we might be able to go 3 high but i’m not that brave just yet!!

A net goes over the hives just to make sure if we were to break down and the entrances came open the bees would be confined to the trailer but importantly it allows for good ventilation which the bees need.

When we reached our destination (traditionally called a Heather Stance)we placed the pallets down before we started to unload the hives and open the entrances. 

Helping me this year was Will who had never done any beekeeping before so thrown in the deep end would be an understatement!

The move went well and we returned home a little over 5 hours after we set off.

Hopefully next time I will be able to tell you about the harvest of our heather honey which should be around mid September so look out for our Chunk, Comb and Heather for sale again soon!

I couldn’t not mention our very exciting news this month! Winning our very first Great Taste Award for our runny honey!

 

Thank you as ever for reading our blog, your support and feedback is always very much appreciated. 

Our markets this month are:
Open Air Country Fair – Planters garden Centre, 3rd & 4th September
Fillongley Show – 17th September
Middleton Hall Autumn Market – 24th & 25th September
Market Bosworth Farmers Market – 25th September

We look forward to seeing you at one of our markets
Matthew Ingram