Tandc_honey_bees

14/06/2026

29/05/2026

🌸🐝 One bee.

That's how this video starts.

A single honey bee working a sainfoin flower.

Then I zoom out...
..and reveal the rest of the field.

Thousands upon thousands of sainfoin flowers, all packed with nectar and pollen, waiting to be visited.

Sometimes it's easy to focus on the hive, but this is where honey really begins. Every jar starts with millions of visits to flowers just like these.

Now we wait and see whether these beautiful pink fields translate into a bumper honey crop. 🍯🌸🐝

28/05/2026

“A queen is just a queen.”

Said no commercial beekeeper ever. 🐝

A peak queen can lay around 2,000 eggs PER DAY during the season.

Now imagine she drops to just 90% productivity.

That sounds tiny, right?

Wrong.

That’s 200 fewer bees emerging every single day.

From April to July, that can mean around 24,000 fewer workers in ONE colony.

Given a worker bee only makes roughly 1/8th teaspoon of honey in its entire 6 week life… that “small” drop can cost around 20kg of honey PER HIVE over the season.

Now multiply that across 150 hives…

You’re talking around 3 TONNES of honey gone.

Drop to 80% productivity?

Closer to 6 tonnes lost.

And THAT is why beekeepers obsess over brood patterns.

A beautiful solid brood frame tells you:
✅ the queen is performing
✅ the colony is healthy
✅ the hive population is building properly
✅ the colony will hit the nectar flow at full strength

A scattered brood pattern?

That’s the colony quietly telling you something is wrong.

To a beginner, two colonies can look equally “busy”.

To an experienced beekeeper, one hive is about to produce a crop… and the other is about to eat stores all summer and make excuses.

The queen is the engine of the hive.
Everything starts there. 🐝

26/05/2026

The sainfoin is starting to blush pink across the fields 🌸🐝

Most people drive past and just see grass. Beekeepers see the next nectar flow loading…

With temperatures pushing 30°C this week, the bees are about to hit another gear. Warm days, warm nights, low wind and thousands upon thousands of flowers opening. Perfect conditions for foraging.

This is the sort of weather where colonies suddenly explode in size and empty supers don’t stay empty for very long 👀🍯

Traditional sainfoin used to be one of the most prized bee forage crops in the UK. It produces a beautiful delicate honey and the bees absolutely love it.

Now begins the beekeeper panic of:
“Do I have enough supers ready?” 😂

Chilterns WestWycombe HoneyFlow BritishBeekeeping

24/05/2026

🐝 Today on the Beekeeper Experience Day, I did a little experiment…

I stood directly in front of the hive entrance for 40 seconds.

Honey bees orientate themselves using the exact position of the hive entrance. Returning foragers fly back to that precise spot carrying nectar, pollen and water.

So by me standing in front of it, I basically created a bee traffic jam. 😅

Within seconds bees were hovering around me, circling in confusion and backing up in the air waiting to land.

Then I stepped aside… and the entrance instantly flooded with bees returning home.

It’s incredible seeing just how much air traffic a strong colony has every minute of the day. From the outside it looks calm… but to the bees it’s basically Heathrow at rush hour. 🐝✈️🍯

23/05/2026

🐝 BEE DAY READY 🐝

Gazebos are up. Honey is stocked. Candles poured. Suits ready. Smokers loaded. 🍯🔥

This is where the magic happens for our Beekeeper Experience Days. A proper hands-on day out in the countryside learning about honey bees, opening live hives, tasting honey, making candles and talking all things bees.

We’ve got all our products set up and ready for the weekend:
🍯 Raw local honey
🐝 Cut comb honey
🕯 Beeswax candles
🔥 Wax melts
🎁 Gifts & bee goodies

And yes… plenty of tea, food and bee chat too 😄

The weather’s looking spot on and the bees are flying hard. Exactly how a bee day should be. ☀️

Fancy joining us on a future date? Send us a direct message for availability.

SupportLocal Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire BeeDay CountrysideLife

22/05/2026

🐝 THIS is what a real nectar flow looks like… 🍯

Thousands of flights a day.
Pollen baskets packed solid.
Guard bees on the door.
Foragers queueing to get back in.

The girls are WORKING. 💪🐝

Right now the colonies are exploding with population and bringing in huge amounts of pollen and nectar from the surrounding countryside and wildflower crops 🌼

A strong hive during spring can collect several kilos a day when conditions are right… and trust me, they don’t hang about.

This is why regular inspections matter this time of year.
A hive this strong can go from “doing amazing” to “swarming into your neighbour’s hedge” faster than most people realise 😅

Nature at full throttle. 🚀🍯

Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire LocalHoney Pollinators BeeLife HoneyHarvest ThamesAndChilternHoneyBees

20/05/2026

🐝 BIG nuc season is underway…
People often see a single nuc box and think: “Nice little hive.”
What they don’t see is this. 👀
Dozens upon dozens of colonies.
Thousands of frames to inspect.
Queens to rear and monitor.
Feed to mix.
Swarms to prevent.
Varroa treatments.
Weather watching.
Collections and deliveries.
And every single colony still inspected by hand.
What started as 2 hives in 2018 has now grown into a serious bee operation producing British-bred queens and strong local nucs for beekeepers across the UK 🇬🇧🐝
A hive is nothing without a good queen — and that’s exactly where our focus stays.
Now excuse us while we continue lifting enough boxes to qualify as a free gym membership 💪📦🐝