Birstall Bee Man

14/09/2026

Over the next few days, we’ll begin harvesting our 2026 honey crop. Like every year, it comes with a mixture of excitement and anticipation because, until we open the hives, we never quite know what the bees have made for us.

This year, however, our harvest will be smaller than usual. The fire earlier this year destroyed a number of our hives and equipment, so there are simply fewer colonies producing honey for us this season. It will mean limited stock, but we’re grateful to still have honey to harvest from the bees that came through it.

People often ask why our honey doesn’t taste exactly the same every year.

The simple answer is because it’s real. Every season tells a different story, and this year has certainly reminded us of that.

The weather plays a huge part in what the bees are able to collect. Rain, sunshine, temperature and what’s flowering all have an effect on the amount and type of nectar available. As the season changes, so does the forage around Birstall, and the bees adapt accordingly.

That’s nature. As beekeepers, we can’t control the weather, and we certainly can’t tell the bees where to fly. Our bees around Birstall forage across gardens, hedgerows, fields and wildflowers. What’s available changes throughout the year, so the honey changes too.

Some years bring more of one type of blossom, while another year can be completely different. The weather decides what blooms, the bees decide where to forage, and together they create a honey that is unique to that season.

That’s why we don’t blend our harvests together to make every jar taste identical.

Once the honey leaves the hive, we keep things simple. We extract it, filter out the natural pieces of wax, and pour it into jars. Just pure, natural honey, exactly as the bees made it.

🍯 No blending.
🍯 No pasteurising.
🍯 No unnecessary processing.

We often compare honey to a good wine. Every vintage reflects the conditions of that particular growing season, and we believe honey should be no different.

When you open a jar of Birstall Bee Man honey, you’re tasting this year’s flowers, this year’s weather, and the forage our bees found around Birstall.

And after everything 2026 has brought us, being able to harvest honey from our bees this year means a little more than usual.

From our bees, here in Birstall. 🐝🍯

10/09/2026

🐝 A little update, and a very big thank you.

When the fire happened, we never could have imagined the kindness that followed. So many of you donated, shared our fundraiser, checked in on us, offered help and simply reminded us what an incredible community we’re part of.

Thanks to you, we now have enough to start rebuilding!

We’ll be sharing that journey with you too… from the first steps of rebuilding the apiary to, eventually, getting our bees back where they belong.

However, it felt really important to us to give something back to the local community that has given us so much, and to support some of the causes that matter to us. So, we’ve used part of the money raised to support local organisations and community groups, as well as charities and organisations working to protect bees, pollinators and wildlife, and promote bee wellbeing:

❤️ Children's Heart Surgery Fund
🌸 Birstall in Bloom
🏡 Priestley Residential Care Home
🏘️ Howden Clough Community Centre
💼 Birstall Chamber of Trade
🐝 Bumblebee Conservation Trust
🌼 The Bee Friendly Trust - https://beefriendlytrust.org/
🌍 Bees for Development
🐝 The British Bee Charity
🌱 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
🦔 Prickly Edge Hedgehog Rescue C.I.C
📚 Birstall Primary Academy - our local school

We’ve also bought copies of ‘Ziggy’s Frightening Flight’ by Wild Tribe Heroes to be shared with 12 local primary and pre-schools, helping introduce even more children to the world of bees, wildlife and the importance of looking after our natural world. 🐝📚
https://wildtribeheroes.com/

Every donation, big or small, helped get us to the point we’re at now. And whilst we’re incredibly excited to start rebuilding, we’ll never forget how many people stood behind us when we needed them most.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. 💛

We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do… but with a little help from our friends, we’re ready to bee-gin again. 🐝💛

08/09/2026

🍯 Limited Stock 🍯

As a result of the fire at our largest apiary which housed over half of our bees, we’re currently working with very limited honey stock. Unfortunately, the impact means we’re around 12–18 months behind while we rebuild what was lost.

We’ll be keeping our socials updated with what’s currently available.

Thank you, as always, for continuing to support Birstall Bee Man. 🐝

07/09/2026

Yellow-legged Asian Hornet Week is here - 7th–13th September. 🐝

The Yellow-legged hornet is an invasive predator that preys on honey bees and other insects. First found in the UK in Tetbury in 2016, it's now well established across much of Europe and keeping it from gaining a foothold here depends on people spotting and reporting it. A nest has already been found in Chadderton in Manchester, so unfortunately it looks like it's heading out way.

That's the whole point of this week: the more of us who know what to look for, the better protected our bees and pollinators are. Whether you keep bees, have an allotment or simply enjoy your garden, you can play a part.

More on how to identify via this link
https://www.bbka.org.uk/identify-report-asian-hornet?fbclid=IwdGRjcAULxIBjbGNrBQvEenBkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeAOxyK-g7u_3NCRj9kwyCblR4eKX0z29ip-UJkKpah180-hndKMkj9l205Wo_aem_YgfBFs7hp_QxRSMCFtaGVw

How to identify if the insect in front of you is a 'Yellow-Legged Asian Hornet' and details of how to report any sightings.

10/08/2026

It’s been a week since the GoFundMe closed and
we honestly can’t thank everyone enough for the incredible support we’ve received.

What started with the devastating loss of our apiary and equipment has shown us just how amazing our community is.

We’re now taking some time to work out how the funds will be shared and spent.

Keep an eye on the page, as we’d love for you to follow the journey with us.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. 🐝💛

03/08/2026

Sharing the below article from the T&A for anyone who may have missed our story.

Just a reminder that our GoFundMe closes today at 6:00pm.

As we’ve said from the beginning, we have already raised enough to rebuild what was lost in the fire, thanks to your incredible generosity. Any donations made before the fundraiser closes this evening will go towards supporting bee-related charities and local community initiatives that help protect pollinators and raise awareness of the importance of bees (not forgetting the already promised donation to The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.

Thank you for standing by us and our bees. We’ll continue to share updates on our rebuild and where the additional funds are used over the coming weeks. 🐝💛

You can donate to the fundraiser up until 6pm on Monday, August 3 🐝🍯

01/08/2026

After announcing that we had paused our GoFundMe, we’ve had so many messages, comments and phone calls(!) asking us to reopen it. We’ve thought carefully about it, and we’ve decided to reopen the fundraiser until Monday at 6:00pm… and want to be completely transparent about why.

Because of your incredible support, we have already raised enough to replace the equipment lost in the fire and begin rebuilding our apiary. We cannot thank you enough for making that possible.

As mentioned, any further donations will not come back to Birstall Bee Man… Instead, every penny raised from now until the fundraiser closes will be used to give back to causes that support bees, pollinators and our local community (along with our already promised donation to the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund). This could include supporting local projects that raise awareness of the importance of bees, sponsoring community initiatives, and helping bee-related charities. We’ll carefully decide where the money can make the biggest difference and keep everything completely open and honest.

We know many of you simply want to help, and this feels like the best way to turn your kindness into something that benefits even more people and, most importantly, our bees.

As always, we’ll continue sharing updates on our rebuild, and what we choose to support with any additional funds raised.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you again for what has been an unforgettable few days. We feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an amazing community 💞✨🐝

https://gofund.me/e9a8bc1a8

31/07/2026

The last 24 hours have been completely overwhelming, and we are so incredibly grateful for every single message, donation, share, offer of help and kind word we have received.

When we set up the GoFundMe, it was never about raising lots of money. It was simply about making sure we could replace and rebuild what was lost in the fire - equipment, bees etc.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our community, we have now raised more than enough to rebuild what was lost!

Because of this, we have made the decision to pause the GoFundMe. We want to be responsible and transparent, and we don’t want people continuing to donate when we have reached the support needed to get back on our feet.

The kindness shown to us has been so humbling. From people sharing our story, checking in on us, offering practical help, and supporting us in so many different ways and we cannot thank you all enough - we even made it on the Calendar 18:00 news!

It’s been a very emotional and very wild 24 hours, but knowing how many people care about our bees and what we do has meant more than we can say.

We’ll be sharing updates on the rebuild, the recovery of our bees, and what happens next right here on Facebook.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. 🐝💛

———-

After announcing that we had paused our GoFundMe, we’ve had so many messages, comments and phone calls(!) asking us to reopen it. We’ve thought carefully about it, and we’ve decided to reopen the fundraiser until Monday at 6:00pm… and want to be completely transparent about why.

Because of your incredible support, we have already raised enough to replace the equipment lost in the fire and begin rebuilding our apiary. We cannot thank you enough for making that possible.

As mentioned, any further donations will not come back to Birstall Bee Man… Instead, every penny raised from now until the fundraiser closes will be used to give back to causes that support bees, pollinators and our local community (along with our already promised donation to the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund). This could include supporting local projects that raise awareness of the importance of bees, sponsoring community initiatives, and helping bee-related charities. We’ll carefully decide where the money can make the biggest difference and keep everything completely open and honest.

We know many of you simply want to help, and this feels like the best way to turn your kindness into something that benefits even more people and, most importantly, our bees.

As always, we’ll continue sharing updates on our rebuild, and what we choose to support with any additional funds raised.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you again for what has been an unforgettable few days. We feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an amazing community 💞✨🐝

Following the suggestions from our community, we have set up … Birstall Bee Man needs your support for Our Bees Need Help: Rebuilding After a Devastating Fire

30/07/2026

I’ve said it countless times, but the response from everyone has been overwhelming.

Seeing this snippet of news from ITV Calendar has made me feel even more grateful for the support that our local communities has given.

This is huge, not just for myself, but for all beekeepers that have lost colonies, equipment and honey due to unfortunate circumstances.

The GoFundMe page has exceeded all expectations, and I’m amazed. Reminder that although we’ve gone beyond our goal of funds to get me back up and able to rebuild the apiary, any funds further than our goal will be donated to Children's Heart Surgery Fund. This is a charity very close to mine and my family’s hearts ♥️.

https://gofund.me/62c2fabfe

Thanks to all today, I can’t express how I feel right now 🐝

30/07/2026

So many people have kindly offered to organise fundraisers on our behalf, and we can’t thank you enough for wanting to help.

To make things as simple as possible, we’ve set up one official GoFundMe. If you’d like to support us, we’d be incredibly grateful if you could donate or simply share the link below.

https://gofund.me/cf3c526af

Every donation will go towards replacing essential beekeeping equipment, rebuilding our apiary, and helping us care for our bees after the fire.

We also want to be completely transparent. If, thanks to your incredible generosity, we raise more than is needed to rebuild, every penny above our rebuilding costs will be donated to the Children's Heart Surgery Fund (CHSF) a charity that is very close to our hearts and has supported so many families.

Whether you donate, share our fundraiser, or continue supporting us by buying our honey in the future, thank you. Your kindness is helping us rebuild something that means so much to us.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. 🐝💛