Werrington Honey

22/05/2026

It's swarm time again! At this time of year the bees just can't wait to get going as soon as the sun peeks out after a gloomy spell. We collected a lovely swarm from a cherry tree earlier today and they are now safely in our last empty hive. Five hives, five colonies! Now we can look forward to the first harvest of this year's delicious honey which should be within the next few weeks! 🐝🐝🍯

19/05/2026

Tomorrow, the 20th of May, is World Bee Day and we have a busy day planned.
Early in the morning we will be speaking to a reporter from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, so you might hear us during the breakfast show.
We will be giving talks about beekeeping later in the morning, to the residents of a local care home, and in the afternoon, to a local primary school.
If you want to do something to help bees, consider growing 'bee friendly' plants such as lavender, foxgloves and borage. Bees like blue, purple and violet coloured flowers.
Take part in 'No Mow May' so that wildflowers are allowed to grow and provide pollen and nectar for bees.

30/04/2026

Read all about the 'Trampoline Bees' in the Peterborough Telegraph!!!

https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/people/peterborough-family-discovers-huge-bee-swarm-clinging-to-their-trampoline-as-local-beekeepers-offer-advice-on-what-to-do-if-you-find-one-8298611

Thousands of honey bees caused a buzz in a Peterborough family’s garden when they chose a children’s trampoline to swarm under.

28/04/2026

A further visit to check the ‘trampoline bees’ and an unexpected surprise when we get to our apiary…

20/04/2026

Went to check on the 'trampoline swarm' today and release them from their short confinment...

18/04/2026

Posted yesterday about early swarms, and in the evening we had a message to collect one! It was a big one that had settled under a trampoline and was really easy to collect.
It was a bit more tricky getting them into a hive at our apiary as by then it was dark and we had to use the car headlights to see!

17/04/2026

It looks like the swarm season is starting early again this year!
If you see a large cloud of bees congregating somewhere or a large cluster of them hanging on a branch, sign, fence post, etc, don't be frightened! These bees are looking for a new place to set up a colony. They not only have no home to defend, but they are also full up with honey so that they have enough resources to start fresh wherever they end up. This is the calmest you will ever see a honeybee.
Contact us and we can organise either ourselves or another beekeeper to come and get them!
However... please remember that beekeepers are only able to deal with honeybee swarms, not wasps, bumblebees, etc.
Also beekeepers can only collect swarms that are out in the open, we cannot remove bees that have settled in buildings.
Check out the links below for more details on what beekeepers can help you with:
https://www.bbka.org.uk/pages/category/swarm-removal
https://www.bbka.org.uk/bees-in-buildings

08/01/2026

Another quick check of the bees.
They are enjoying the fondant and clustering together in the hives to keep warm. Interestingly, for the first time, we have had a woodpecker have a bit of a go at getting in the hives (unsuccessfully) so we have put some netting up to discourage further attacks and we will fill the holes with wood shavings and glue when it gets a bit warmer.

07/12/2025

We picked a nice day last week to swap out the liquid sugar syrup feed for solid fondant feed which the bees find easier to metabolise when it's really cold. We make sure the bees have stores of honey for the winter but we add the feed as a backup supply if they start to run out.

It's cold and flu season and honey can really help relieve sore throats and infections with it's antibacterial and soothing, anti-inflammatory properties!

Honey also makes a unique, natural and healthy sweet treat to gift this Christmas!

Both spring soft-set and runny summer honey is available in our standard jars, or in our mini gift sets 🐝🎄🎁

13/08/2025

Beekeepers are having a real problem with wasps this summer. We heard of one beekeeper losing all three of his hives!
We have also suffered to an extent. We reduced the entrance holes on all our hives right down to one bee space (about 1cm) and put out ten wasp traps that caught absolutely loads of wasps! Our traps are simply old jars with a spoon of strawberry jam mixed with water, covered with a double layer of foil with a pencil hole in it, but they work really well!
Out of our five hives, our two strongest hives have had no problem repelling wasps that try to get in, however we have lost our two weakest hives that were small swarms we collected earlier this year. We thought we might be losing one more which was a stronger swarm, but they seem to have managed to survive with some help from us hiding the entrance behind some foliage to try to confuse the wasps.