Our honey bees (Apis Mellifera) are mixtures of Carniolan Queens & “Sussex Mongrels” adapted to our local environment. Each hive contains 10,000 bees during the winter rising up to 60-80,000 in mid-summer.

Bees are under intense pressures at the moment from a wide range of problems including imported diseases, chemical sprays, pollution and a lack of natural habitat. At Stubcroft we are trying new techniques to reduce disease and provide a better, more natural habitat to help the bees thrive.

We make our own hives from recycled & scrap timber wherever possible. We currently have 45 hives and are building up to a target of 75 hives by the end of this season.

Honey is harvested in mid to late summer and is on sale to campers & guests. We use a hot capping knife to cut off the white capping wax seen above. The opened honeycomb will then be placed with others in a large spinner, and rotated to extract all the honey. The remaining comb is then put back in the hive for the bees to clean. With 45 hives, we produce a lot of honey!