Welcome to B.E.E.T
The home of our Bee Equipment Evaluation Team
Our B.E.E.T team are here to bring you honest, productive and informative reviews of our products. We will be bringing you tutorials and reviews in the form of videos, blogs, photos and more.
Meet the B.E.E.T...
The B.E.E.T team is made up of 12 beekeepers from all over the UK with varying degrees of experience, number of hives, but all with a common interest, beekeeping.
Vince and Sue, Kent
Bray's Bees, aka Vince and Sue, are two of our
Kent BEET members. Vince always had a great
interest in bees which intensified when Sue sent
him on a beekeeping course 12 years ago, and the
rest is history. They own Bray's Bees selling
local honey and beeswax products. You can find out more about them here - www.braysbees.com
Neil and family, Devon
Neil has the whole family involved in his beekeeping business. With 40 hives to keep them busy, all 3 of Neil's children like to take part in the day to day beekeeping life. Neil also runs The Friendly Beekeepers Group UK so make sure you join this great group for like minded beekeepers! Follow Neil and the family here - @nmhoneyandbees.
Nick and Kirsty, Lincolnshire
Having worked with livestock all of his life, and as a gamekeeper, Nick thought "how difficult can it be?" and entered the world of beekeeping. You can find Nick's Instagram @sageandbellflowerhoneybees and Kirsty, an aromatherapist, @sageandbellflower selling products, their adopt a hive scheme and giving lectures on the benefits of the great outdoors.
Brian, Newark
Brian started beekeeping as a hobby and as a form of therapy after working overseas in the military. Starting out with the BBKA, he has passed his initial theory and now supports a community garden project in Sherwood Forest - The Feel Good Gardens - where local people are referred for social and welfare therapies.
Gael, Fife
You may recognise Gael from Kin Bees, and her very colourful hives! Her brightly coloured beehives are the real stars and make a fantastic backdrop for photographs and videos along with our roaming goats, chickens and highland coos. She is about to feature in a Master Chef's new cookery book. Her bees are spread across 6 sites from an organic farm, a traditional wildflower meadow, a rewilding site and an airport, each apiary site is unique and has its own challenges from forage to access. She runs 40-50 hives at differing stages from honey producing mature colonies to splits creating new nucs for sale, feeding, treating and honey harvesting. Make sure you're following Gael's adventures @kinbeesuk.
Dan and Amy, Middlesborough
Dan and Amy are on their beekeeping journey, producing raw honey, growing their own food in North Yorkshire. Make sure that you are following all of their beekeeping adventures - @bee_folk.
Paul, Norfolk
Paul started beekeeping as initially he needed a hobby, needed some alternative medicine for hay fever and wanted to become greener and spread the word about bees and bumble bees. You can follow Paul's beekeeping adventures here - @fourhiveshoney.
Sue, Kent
Sue is local to us in Kent and Beekeeping is a practical hobby of hers. She is keen to share her beekeeping knowledge from over the years and loves interesting creatures and of course, nature!
Andy, Cheshire
Has been interested in bees since he was a child, then had the opportunity to be part of a team establishing a Community Garden as part of a local community project. They decided that bee hives would form part of their education and sustainability efforts. He is a relatively new beekeeper, that is open to new approaches and ideas. To find out more about Reach Community Gardens and the work they do, check out their instagram - @reachcommunitygardens.
Daniel, Pontypool
Daniel is based in Wales, and has a passion for bees and beekeeping. He wanted to be part of the team as he is always keen to explore new products and review the benefits and potential improvements. As a commercial beekeeper, he also has 58 hives of his own.
Derek, Argyll and Bute
Derek and his wife are embarking on a self sufficient lifestyle and have a little bit of land on the west coast of Scotland where they intend on producing the majority of their food. Bees just made sense as they will promote stronger pollination of soft fruits and also will satisfy their sweet tooth with the surplus honey! Their bees are native black bees obtained from Colonsay from Andrew Abraham's and are very gentle and easy to handle.
Simon and Kath, Lancashire
Simon and Kath are also known as The Bee Centre, a multi-award-winning, centre of excellence for bee-related education, breeding and husbandry. Find out more about them and what they do here - www.thebeecentre.org - or follow them on instagram @thebeecentre.
Trial 1
Trial 1 saw our B.E.E.T members trying out ApiVert Syrup and UltraBee Dry. This involved making up the pollen substitute patties and applying them to hives up and down the country. See some videos below, and head to our Facebook and Instagram pages to see updates from all of our product testers and what they get up to in Trail 2 - smokers and smoker fuel.