Stop the Press! Our Wildflower Runny Honey has been honoured with a 2-star award ⭐️⭐️ at the 2024 Great Taste Awards!
We are a family-run beekeeping business in rural Boxford, Suffolk, UK. We absolutely love our bees and keeping them healthy and happy, and we think you can taste the result in our honey! Twice a year we take any honey the bees make surplus to their own requirements and sell it locally in shops, farmers markets, online and ‘at the door’.
Take a look at our bees, our honey and how we manage them.
WHERE TO BUY
We sell our honey in 3 sizes – a 454g (1lb) jar at £8.00, a slightly smaller 340g (12oz) jar at £6.50 and a small 227g jar at £5.00.
We sell our honey direct from our main apiary at 18 Stone Street, Boxford, Sudbury, Suffolk, CO10 5NR or you can regularly find us at Boxford Markets – held in the Village Hall every last weekend of the month. We accept credit and debit cards as payment.
If you can’t make it over to us you can also buy our honey directly from our online shop!
We are a small family-run company from Boxford, Suffolk that is passionate about bees and bee-keeping.
Number Eighteen consists of Trudi, Rich, Beckett and Orla Wild. You’ll find us all regularly in the apiary, in our bee-suits, tending to our colonies of bees to ensure that they are fit, healthy and happy!
Bee Swarms are a natural part of honeybee reproduction. Whilst they can be very noisy and scary, swarms are not ‘gangs’ of bees looking to attack people, but a portion of a colony that has divided off, with their own queen, looking for a new home. Bees in a swarm actually very rarely sting and are not in ‘attack mode’, but it is still wise for members of the public to avoid them so that accidental stings do not occur.
We are registered as Swarm Collectors with the BBKA (British Bee Keepers Association) and hold full Public Liability Insurance, so if you have a swarm of bees nearby you can call us and we will come and take them away.
Swarms typically occur in late Spring between May and July when bee colonies outgrow their hive, which induces the old queen to take half of her colony off so that the remaining half can raise a new queen and continue in their current hive.
The swarming half will form a cloud of bees around the queen and may take several days to find a new perfect location to start a new hive. Typically in the wild this will take the form of a hollow tree or natural enclosure, but often human habitats provide ideal nooks and crannies that bees identify as safe and protected places for their new homes.
If you encounter a swarm we advise that you keep all windows and doors shut and pets inside. Give us a call on 01787 210 946 asap and we will come and attempt removal. We do not charge for this service.
In the case of bees nesting in house roofs or cavity walls it may be necessary for the homeowner to hire a builder to open up brickwork so that we can retrieve the swarm before they cause further damage. It is always best to remove the swarm as soon as they move in, as it will become more difficult to extract them as time passes.
Swarm CollectionSwarm Rehoming
Honey Wedding Favours
If you’re planning a wedding and you’d like something different to gift to your guests as wedding favours then why not try our local Suffolk honey? We can supply our honey in single-serving small gift jars – the perfect size as a small gift for large numbers of people. What’s more, we can fully personalise/customise the jars to suit your wedding theme and details. For weddings with nature themes we can also supply our bee-friendly seed bomb packets that will supply your guests with nectar-producing flowers for years to come!
