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First National Honey Day

    

Let’s celebrate! Friday 21 October is the first ever National Honey Day in the UK. The aim of the day is to promote delicious local honey and to highlight the increasing problem of fake ‘honey’.

Honey has been used worldwide for centuries both as food and medicine. It’s a natural source of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and is antibacterial. The ancient Egyptians offered honey to their deities, used it to heal infected wounds, and in embalming the dead. And it’s widely used in modern medicine, infused in wound dressings. 

Pure, raw honey comes in a huge range of different flavours and colours. These qualities are determined by which plants the busy bees have collected nectar from. The flavour can range from light and floral to dark and bitter – the latter is definitely an acquired taste!

Honey is so delicious to eat but at Let It Bee we also add it to our skincare products as it is antibacterial, nourishing and moisturising.  

But bee aware! There’s lots of fake honey out there. Sadly, honey is one of the most faked food in the world! Suppliers mix cheap sugar or corn syrup with honey to bulk it out. Fake honey lacks the natural, delicious flavour of real honey, as well as the health benefits. Look for pure honey with the country of origin clearly shown on the label. Ideally buy a jar of pure honey from your local beekeeper at a farmer’s market or local shop.

At the recent Birmingham Honey Show Jane won prizes for her honey and beeswax. If you live near B30 in Birmingham you can buy a jar of her bee-licious honey direct from her or come along to one of our up-coming markets.

Find out more about National Honey Day here.

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See more news stories from Let It Bee

First National Honey Day

    

Let’s celebrate! Friday 21 October is the first ever National Honey Day in the UK. The aim of the day is to promote delicious local honey and to highlight the increasing problem of fake ‘honey’.

Honey has been used worldwide for centuries both as food and medicine. It’s a natural source of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and is antibacterial. The ancient Egyptians offered honey to their deities, used it to heal infected wounds, and in embalming the dead. And it’s widely used in modern medicine, infused in wound dressings. 

Pure, raw honey comes in a huge range of different flavours and colours. These qualities are determined by which plants the busy bees have collected nectar from. The flavour can range from light and floral to dark and bitter – the latter is definitely an acquired taste!

Honey is so delicious to eat but at Let It Bee we also add it to our skincare products as it is antibacterial, nourishing and moisturising.  

But bee aware! There’s lots of fake honey out there. Sadly, honey is one of the most faked food in the world! Suppliers mix cheap sugar or corn syrup with honey to bulk it out. Fake honey lacks the natural, delicious flavour of real honey, as well as the health benefits. Look for pure honey with the country of origin clearly shown on the label. Ideally buy a jar of pure honey from your local beekeeper at a farmer’s market or local shop.

At the recent Birmingham Honey Show Jane won prizes for her honey and beeswax. If you live near B30 in Birmingham you can buy a jar of her bee-licious honey direct from her or come along to one of our up-coming markets.

Find out more about National Honey Day here.

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Why do bees swarm?

If you see a big, swirling cloud heading out across the rooftops and trees, it could be a swarm of honeybees. They have left the safety of their hive and are flying off to find a new home – a hole in a tree, a chimney or an empty hive. It's an awesome sight! 

Swarming bees are full of honey - carrying supplies for their new home - so they usually don't sting. But it's best to stand well back just in case!

Swarming is an important, natural process. It happens when a colony of honeybees splits and the queen takes a large number of worker bees with her in search of a new home. It's the way they reproduce. As soon as the old queen reaches the new nest site her entourage builds wax honeycomb so then she can lay her eggs and there’s space for pollen and honey stores.

Meanwhile in the original hive site new queens are hatching. Another one or two queens might leave the colony to set up a new home but one will stay to rule over the original hive. In this way the colony becomes two, three or more colonies.

Honey bees mostly swarm early in the season from late April to June. So this is a busy time for beekeepers!

Swarming early in the season gives the bees enough time to set up their new home and gather plenty of stores to see them through the winter. Beekeepers put out bait hives to try to lure a passing swarm. We also ‘artificially’ swarm our colonies which means separating the brood from the queen and flying bees. This splits the colonies and the urge to swarm goes away - usually! 

So if you are lucky enough to see a swarm of bees, marvel at this force of nature and then find your local swarm collector here: https://www.bbka.org.uk/swarm#swarmmap 

 

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How do you move a honeybee colony?

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