One of the owners of Babylon has been learning beekeeping over the last few years, and the resulting honey has been used in The Kitchen at Babylon since we took over the location last June.
It was time to move the bees to their new home, and this was done over the bank holiday weekend at the beginning of May. Temporary hives were used to transport them safely to their new home where we will be aiming for five colonies to help support pollination across the Babylon site.
The transport hives used to safely move our bees.
Sem, our expert bee keeper, he’s looking after our new residents.
The transport hives have now been replaced with the permanent hives, which sadly don’t look like they are from a Winnie-the-Pooh story, (Sem explained that these actually aren’t very practical for beekeeping) and so our bees are in more ordinary-looking homes!
The bees being moved into their permanent residence.
Our bees are Buckfast honey bees, sometimes referred to as ‘the beekeepers bee’ as they are non-aggressive and highly productive.
Our intention to be fully ‘honey self-sufficient’ by the end of 2024 has started, and we would love to sell our honey in The Shop if we have a bumper harvest this year.