Bees on a frame
Hi, I'm Simon.
My love of bees started when I was 8 when Mrs Norris brought some bees into school to show them to her class. Although it took nearly 30 years to get into the position to become a beekeeper, this is the culmination of a lifetime's ambition.
After moving to Shropshire in 2018, I did a beekeeping course with the local beekeeper's association. In 2019, I got my first colony of bees and kept them in the back garden at my home in Priorslee. Since then, I've expanded my number of colonies of bees and apiary sites.
One of the things I love about beekeeping is that there is always something to do. In the winter, it's time in the shed building and repairing the equipment. During the summer, it's out with the bees. It's certainly a nice change from my day job sitting behind a computer.
I extract honey twice a year, in May and August. The spring honey is usually very high in rapeseed which gives a light colour and a delicate flavour. My favourite is the summer honey, which is much darker and has a very floral taste. When extracting, I don't mix between apiaries preserving the flavours. And, as I'm a small-scale producer, the only thing I do to the honey is filter it.
Each year, my bees produce large quantities of wax. Most of the wax I give back to the bees in the following year, but I also make candles and other beeswax items. The candles are unscented which gives a beautiful, sweet honeyed scent when burning.
