Wilco's Bees
Sustainable / Local / Special
What we do
Wilco's bees keeps... bees!
With hives spread around the Hampshire and Surrey countryside, I produce single-hive honey, beeswax/hive products, other handcrafted items, provide professional beekeeping services, sell beekeeping equipment and advise on sustainability and biodiversity for individuals and organisations.
The story so far
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From a young age, it was obvious I care deeply about animals, the environment, nature and biodiversity.
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Following a chance encounter with a local bee farmer who encouraged me to get the ball rolling with beekeeping, I attempted to make my own hive, my own way which didn't really work as I was thinking more like a human than a bee. My early attempts at beekeeping failed so I decided to put everything on hold. Not long later, I chanced across a swarm when helping a friend with some sheep. After improvising a suit from waterproofs, duct tape, a hat, gloves and mosquito net, I collected the swarm, read up on bees and beekeeping and started again. My bee farming and beekeeping friends provided a lot of support, encouragement and advice and this time I was off!
Whilst not always straightforward (what in life that is worthwhile ever is?), I now keep bees at sites in Hampshire and Surrey to produce local honey and hive products and am able to provide advice and mentoring on beekeeping. I have beekeeping equipment for sale and at certain times of year, bees (queens, nucs or colonies) may be available for purchase.​​
About the bees
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I have a number of colonies with different characteristics depending on where they are from and the genetics of their queen. Several have queens from locally caught swarms or their descendants and I occasionally buy in strains such as Buckfast, Carniolan, Jolanta or A.m.m. type if I need to. I prefer bees which have a nice calm temperament (as well as producing surplus honey!) so try to select for this although the bees will adjust their temperament depending on factors such as the weather, how much food is available and how you handle them (understandable and rather like humans!) so it pays to be(e) gentle. My favourite colony was one which came to a bait hive in my gardeN and which gave me a lot of heather honey in 2021!
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The hives I use are mostly the B.S. National design (relatively unique to the UK) and most of my colonies are kept in wooden hives as this feels more sustainable and 'natural' to my mind- not that there is much that is natural about keeping bees in a man-made box! I provide insulation (either wool from my sheep or PIR insulation, usually from offcuts that I've rescued from skips) above the top board, which improves their survival, especially over winter and make many of my own hive parts. Many people claim bees need a lot of ventilation to avoid condensation in winter but if you think about bees in a natural tree cavity, they're surrounded by a thick insulating layer of wood and have a relatively small entrance which reduces draughts; insulation and ventilation are two ways to avoid condensation but only one of those helps maintain high humidity and reduces the work the bees need to do to keep warm.
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During the 'season' (Spring-Summer) I usually inspect my bees weekly, to look for brood, spot the queen or eggs, check colonies are healthy and avoid swarming. I usually mark my queens with a dab of colour depending on the year they were born so have a look through the pictures on this site or @wilcosbees on instagram to see if you can spot any of them!
About honey from Wilco's Bees
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When it is ready, I remove sealed frames of honey from a hive, uncap them (remove the top layer of wax) and spin the honey out in an extractor. Some types of honey, such as Heather, are too thick to spin out so go through a lengthier process such as pressing, which is time consuming and results in destruction of the comb so the Heather honey (like cut comb honey) is usually priced higher than jars of spring or summer honeys. Once extracted, the honey is then passed through a double strainer to remove large bits of debris such as chunks of wax. I then store the honey prior to bottling (jarring) and labelling for sale.
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For me it is important to know where my food comes from so most of my honey is labelled with the area it was produced.
When extracting or storing, I keep the honey from different hives separate; each jar of honey you buy from me comes from a single hive and there is no blending like most supermarket bought honeys (with the exception of 'Baker's Honey').
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Honey bought from Wilco's bees will often vary between jars. This is because different plants and trees flower at different times of year. Different locations, even within a few miles, will vary in the available forage for the bees. All this leads to vastly different combinations and often unique flavours and characteristics between apiaries- even between hives sited next to each other! Make sure you try as many as you can.
The honey from my bees has minimal processing so most of it will set over time as the sugars in the nectar gradually crystallise around pollen grains or any small bits of wax that escape the straining (fun fact; different nectars crystallise at different speeds!). The flavour is just as good as when it is runny although the texture is different. If you prefer your honey runny, just place the jar in some warm water and it will turn more liquid again but over time will still return to the 'set' form. If doing this, take care to only use warm water (not hot and not the microwave) as overheating the honey risks denaturing any proteins/enzymes.