My crash course in beekeeping at Weaver Valley Farm

I know it needs great knowledge and skills to get the bees to stick around and do the business, but until my recent visit to Weaver Valley Farm in Bartington, I had always been a little weak on the details.

Honey was a vital foodstuff back when we humans were still living in caves, but actually managing artificial colonies of bees has been going on for about the last 10,000 years.

Over that time, it became about more than harvesting a scarce, calorie dense and delicious sweet treat.

Beeswax came to be used to make candles, lubricants, medicine, skincare products, writing tablets, and for waterproofing fabrics.

And let's not forget, honey readily ferments, and there is a long tradition of turning it into alcohol.

But beekeeping plays a less showy role in the rural economy too - you guessed it, pollination.

Me with Weaver Valley Farm owner and Wharton Allotments official beekeeper, Becky Edwards (Image: Newsquest)

If the flowers of food producing plants are not visited by insects, which transfer pollen grains from one flower to another on their bodies, the flowers will not turn into fruits.

This really hit home when I called in at Weaver Valley Farm after being invited to take a crash course in the craft of beekeeping.

Owned and operated by Becky Edwards, the farm is a mere four acres, and around half of this is mature woodland.

Becky demonstrated how the frames fit into the 'honey super', our task for the day (Image: Newsquest)

Yet Becky, a fanatical grower of all things edible, manages to produce a staggering variety of crops.

This includes a wide variety of fruit trees, and she gets some truly impressive yields.

Though obviously green fingered, she puts much of her success down to the bees which share Weaver Valley Farm with her Clydesdale foal, Pandora, and her impressive collection of fancy fowls.

“You hear a lot about the pollination crisis due to insect decline, but you don’t fully appreciate their importance until you witness their impact first hand,” he 43-year-old said.

The honey harvested is the stuff the bees are setting aside for the winter, which Becky replaces with fondant sugar (Image: Newsquest)

Becky, who lives in Winsford, recently took up the role of beekeeper at Wharton Allotments, where the growers are keen to get in on the pollination benefits.

After being introduced to Pandora and some day-old Polish Hen chicks, the time to don our bee suits was upon us.

While this was unlikely to stop the bees stinging me if they took a fancy to the idea, Becky explained, it would 'stop me panicking' when they started crawling all over me.

Bee hives are essentially split into two sections, the upper ‘honey super’ and the lower ‘brood box’.

Thankfully, the warmed weather meant the bees were pretty chilled (Image: Newsquest)

The queen lives in the brood box along with her reverse harem of fertile drones, so this is where all the breeding activity takes place.

Separated by a ‘queen excluder’, the honey super is where the bees store honey not for feeding the brood, but for keeping the colony fed through the winter.

This upper section honey, stored in small, hexagonal wax chambers, is what beekeepers harvest when the time is right.

Our task for the day was fitting some new frames to the honey supers in several of Becky's hives.

These must be added gradually over the course of the season both to maintain a regular temperature in the hive, and to ensure the honey is deposit evenly to help with extraction.

Thomas 11,365 (Becky assures me) resting on a leaf (Image: Newsquest)

Armed with her smoker, Becky and I approached the hives, not without trepidation on my part.

Thankfully, the bees where as good as gold, which Becky explained was less down to them knowing I am a natural allay, but to do with the temperature, well above average for May.

Peeking inside the hive and seeing cells swollen with honey and capped with wax, I could not help feeling a real sense of privilege getting a look at their fascinating world.

As well as producing honey, Becky also makes pure beeswax candles (Image: Newsquest)

Becky also gave me a look inside the brood box, where she pointed out the queen.

Twice the size of a worker bee, she was marked with an iridescent blue spot to make her easier to find and monitor.

To minimize disturbance, our tasks were complete inside 15 minutes, and Becky inspected my suit for stragglers before I took it off.

Becky's Clydesdale foal, Pandora, came to say hello (Image: Becky Edwards)

“If you’re going to get stung, nine times out of 10, it will be as you’re taking the suit off,” she said.

I am grateful to Becky for allowing allowing her to experience her world and that of her wonderful bees, as well as the samples of some of her Weaver Valley Farm products she gave me to take away.

Weaver Valley Farm also produces stuffing fruit preserves and eggs from quails, ducks, geese, and hens (Image: Newsquest)

Aromatic and subtly floral, the honey is nothing like what you get in the supermarket, and her homemade, homegrown rhubarb and ginger jam was also incredible.     

Keep an eye out for Becky with her Weaver Valley Farm honey and produce at local craft and farmers markets.