Speaker 2 (00:01.068)
Hello everyone and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. I'm Maria and today I'm speaking with Jenny Morgan from Jenny's Bees. Jenny, hello and welcome to the podcast, how are you?

I'm fine, thank you and thank you for inviting me.

Welcome, what I've bumped into you at various events all over the place. What fascinates me is you talk about bees as we're to discuss in the podcast. I've bought honey. I've never really thought about the bees or where it's come from. So I think it's important to highlight what you're doing to educate people a little bit on bees. So before we get into that, how did you get into beekeeping and the many things that you do to help bees?

So I became a beekeeper because my daughter decided that she would start beekeeping. So she went on a course and then she got bees, but she kept on phoning up saying, please, could I go and help her? So as I helped her, I began to get more and more interested in how they functioned. And also I saw the potential for making it a hobby for when I retired.

I used to canoe a lot, but my knees prevent me from doing that anymore. So I was looking for another hobby. So that's how I started. I helped my daughter for over a year and then I went on a beekeeping course myself and got my own bees and it's escalated from there.

Speaker 2 (01:32.758)
How many years have you been beekeeping for then?

I've been beekeeping for about 15 years now and I started with two hives and I now have 35.

Wow, mean, 15 years, given how far you've come since you started with your daughter's bees, because you are a qualified master beekeeper, aren't you? And as we've said before, you have various qualifications at British Beekeeping Association. Could you just give an outline to your different qualifications that you have and what they mean?

The British Beekeeping Association has a structured education programme and it entails different elements. There are seven examinations. Each of them is called a module on different sections to do with beekeeping. So for instance, there'll be one on the anatomy of bees, there's one on the way in which they interact with each other.

There's another on plants and pollinators and the way in which they forage. So there are seven different exams. On top of that, there are practical assessments. So the first one is what we call a basic assessment. And that will take place at an apiary which isn't your own. And it will take an hour. And then you go on. You can do honeybee health.

Speaker 1 (03:04.524)
which is all to do with the diseases of bees. And that's another practical assessment. And then you have what we call general husbandry, which is two people will come to your own apiary and your house and see exactly how you do your beekeeping. And that will take place over a three hour session where you're asked questions all the time as well. And then finally, you'll do

the advanced husbandry, which is done at Stonely and that will take a whole day and it's got different elements involved in it where you're questioned about all your beekeeping, you've got to show practical skills as well. So at the end of all of that, if you pass all the modules, you get what we call advanced theory. If you pass the advanced husbandry and the advanced theory, you then become a master beekeeper.

And the expectation is that then you share what you know. On top of that, I've done microscopy to do with bees and I've been part of a group that does microscopy about bees and honey and pollen for probably the last five to six years. And I teach other people about how to use the microscopes, the dissecting and the compound microscope to look at.

bees and honey.

So for the microscopy, what is that for? Is that part of research into these and the health?

Speaker 1 (04:40.894)
One is to, you can dissect bees, which are only tiny, but you can dissect them. And by dissecting them, you can actually then understand more about their anatomy and how they're put together. Similarly, you can use the microscope to diagnose disease. With the pollen analysis, it allows you to know what your bees have been foraging on. And also you can then

test honey to see what pollens are in it so that you've got some idea of where the bees have collected the nectar that's gone into the honey that you're using or have.

that was something I found very interesting because one of the places I saw you is at Reading Museum when you came and you did a talk on bees and the two parts that really interested me first of all you spoke about communication and how bees communicate which in itself is fascinating and it would be good if you could say a couple of words on that in a minute but also you saying about how you've got the different types of pollen and how different types of pollen obviously make different

and that affects the different colourings of the honey which I never really realised before. Because you go to supermarket, you see honey and it's one colour. But when you buy honey from you, it's different colours.

The honey will take up the characteristics of the nectar that the bees have collected and because nectar is so varied in its composition you will get variations in the colour and when we show honey we show it in classes that are considered to be light, medium and dark honey and light can be anything from water looking honey.

Speaker 1 (06:29.982)
all the way to dark which looks like treacle and those honeys will have come from different foraging sources. The other thing that we get is we get honey that sets very quickly and that's because it's got a higher glucose content than fructose content and that makes the honey set so that it sets with a small grain and that's what people prefer, they're not too keen on the gritty.

texture of honey, but all honey eventually will set and the slower it sets the larger the grains that you get in the honey itself.

And going back to the communication of the bees then, because you said when bees are foraging, they actually go back and tell each other where different types of flowers are. So could you say a bit more about how they communicate and what they're communicating to each other?

So when a bee has been foraging, it will return to the hive and usually it will then share a sample of the nectar it's collected with other bees. So it will share it by a process called trophallaxis. And then if they've found a good source of nectar, they'll dance and they dance in a figure of eight. The vertical section of the dance is

usually an indication relative to the sun as to the direction in which the bees have got to fly and the amount of energy in the wiggling, the waggle that they do as they go up the figure of eight is an indication of how much energy the bees have got to use to get to that forage and then they'll repeat the cycle, they'll go around in a loop so that they indicate to the other bees where the nectar source is.

Speaker 1 (08:26.452)
If the nectar is not particularly good, then the other bees won't take any notice. As I say, they let them sample it to see whether it's worthwhile. If there's a need for foraging to take place, sometimes the bees will actually shake each other, sort of wake them up, as if to say, you know, watch this dance so you know where you've got to go.

But the bees that do the foraging are usually three weeks old or older. Worker bees only live about six weeks in the summer because they literally work themselves to death.

They are a fascinating group of insects. The communication that they have, how they work together, it's really impressive. You look after your bees very well and one of the ways in which you do that is to sell the honey. As we said, you have Jenny's bees, you go to different markets and you sell the honey. How do you do that? Do you just have a list of the local markets that you go to? Do you have it in stores? How do you sell the honey in order to get the funds to then help the bees?

I have an arrangement with a local garden center who let me do a pop-up every now and again. Alongside that, I have one or two retail outlets that take small quantities of honey from me. But other than that, I have to apply to attend. It's usually events in the center of Reading because one of the unique selling points about the honey I've got is that it's local.

it comes from the bees that are foraging in the locale. So that's what I try to promote, the fact that it is actually local honey. I'm not a member of any regular market. The commercial beekeepers, how shall we say, have rung those markets so that I can't get in on any of the regular markets. It's impossible for a small

Speaker 1 (10:31.946)
artisan beekeeper to get in on those. I'm not big enough to do that and it suits me to be fair because I also attend things like the Spring Convention, the National Honey Show, which are beekeeping events and other honey shows. You know, if I've got a regular commitment to a market then it's not convenient.

You said you have a small amount of honey, but that you've got 34 hives. So how much honey would you say a hive or a certain number of bees can produce?

It varies from hive to hive and it varies from year to year so there's no set recipe. Usually you can get about 60 pounds of honey from a hive in a year but it varies. It will depend on what they've foraged on and how well you've looked after the bees and what also the size of the colonies are.

to be hibernating in the winter.

No, what happens is the numbers go down considerably. So in the height of the summer, my colonies are all big colonies. So usually there's about 60,000 bees in the height of summer in a colony. But as the autumn draws in, they will throw out all of the male bees. They will be pushed out of the door because they don't actually bring any forage back to the hive. So they're seen as a mouth to feed rather than.

Speaker 1 (12:04.054)
something that's contributing towards the winter economy as it were. So they're thrown out, so that reduces the colony down. Also, the queen will start to lay less. She normally lays about 2,000 eggs a day in the summer, but she'll start laying less. So it means there are less bees being born and consequently the hive numbers will go down and they'll go down to

between 10 and 5,000, usually about 10,000. But those are all worker bees and their physiology changes slightly so that they store more fat bodies, as we call them, so that they can help survive the winter. And their main purpose is to ensure that the queen survives the winter so that she's ready to start laying again in the spring. And they'll do that by huddling like penguins.

around her, they'll keep her warm and they'll move, rotate so that the outside ones as they get cold move in and the ones in the middle move out. They vibrate the thoracic muscles to actually generate heat so that they keep warm. Normally a hive in the summer will keep a temperature of about 35 degrees C inside it. In the winter that temperature will go down but

they will still be able to maintain their physiological functions.

You are so good on educating people on bees and there are so many fascinating points that I hadn't realised. How do you educate people? Because you've got the different levels I suppose. On the one hand you are on the exam board for the British Beekeeping Association so you help to train the specialists and on the other hand you do talks for example at Reading Museum for novices, people like me who maybe have an interest or want to know more.

Speaker 1 (14:01.698)
Yeah, so what I try and do is give talks to the general public and I offer talks to schools, to church groups, to any group that really wants to talk about bees. But I don't only just talk about the life cycle of bees. If people want to know about hive products, then I can talk about hive products. I've given a talk about wax to a village.

church so that they understood the history of how wax has been used over the years, from mummification to using in church candles to doing encaustic art now. So you've got a variety of different talks for the general public depending on what they're interested in, or if not that, then doing things like candle rolling or honey tasting. So that's

the general public side of things. Then when I'm selling honey, quite often I get asked about how do I become a beekeeper? And then I will encourage people to join an introductory course to do with beekeeping and Reading Beekeepers have introductory courses which last for six weeks. Some people want to do a taster, but a taster session is

it's not really benefiting anybody. It's far better if people are really interested in becoming a beekeeper that they do an introductory course where they learn about the life cycle of the bees, they learn about the seasonality of beekeeping and the implications in terms of time that they're going to have to put in, the implications in terms of cost.

and commitment and also some of the legislation associated with bees. What people don't realise is bees are regulated by DEFRA, by FERA, they're actually livestock and as such we have bee inspectors and there are legally notifiable diseases a bit like foot and mouth disease for cattle we have notifiable diseases for bees.

Speaker 1 (16:23.308)
So it's better if somebody wants to be a beekeeper, that they actually do an introductory course, which lasts six weeks, find out all the implications before they go and encourage people to buy them a hive. Quite often it happens the other way around. I've had phone calls where, we have bees in our garden. Yes. Can you help us? Well, you know, have you got a bee suit? Have you got a smoker?

No, and you think, well, why the best thing for you to do is to actually let somebody come and take the bees away and you go on a course and get them back afterwards.

like said, they are living creatures. So I think that's really important to identify. Are there some things that people should know, even if it's not people who want to have bees, but people in general should know about bees? Should they buy honey sustainably, for example, or are there certain types of flowers that they should plant in gardens to help bees?

So if people want to help the bees in this country, mean ideally they buy British honey and the best way to do that is to buy it direct from beekeepers because then you know it's actually honey that's come from a set source. The other thing that the general public can do is plant plants which flower throughout the year. So if you've got flowers that

flower in the spring like crocuses and snowdrops through the summer so you can have salvias and lavender and then coming into the autumn all the asters, all the micklewest daisies and leave ivy that's climbing up trees alone because that's a really really important source of pollen and nectar for not only the bees but all pollinators at this time of the year.

Speaker 2 (18:17.196)
So what are the challenges that bees are facing then? Because even if you don't know much about bees, you just hear constantly how the bee population is decreasing.

The honey bees, i.e. the bees that I look after, are alright because they're being monitored and nurtured by beekeepers. But the wild bees, like the bumble bees and the solitary bees, are finding life more difficult. And that is largely due to the lack of forage and habitat. But that's because...

There are wide swathes of the land which have been cultivated for monoculture for single crops. And once that crop has gone, quite often nothing is put in its place. Pesticides inhibit the brain function of bees, all bees and insects generally. At the moment, we have invasive species. We've got Varroa for the honeybee, Asian Hornet.

is making its presence known well and truly at the moment. It's moved through Kent and it's spreading throughout the country using transport opportunist movements and those Asian hornets have no common predator in this country so they will destroy all the pollinators and insects we have, not just the bees.

invasive species are things like tropylaelaps and small hive beetle and all of these are because they'll buy our securities such that we're a global trading country and things are coming in on products and plants from abroad but the main thing is lack of forage and some of the native species have got niche

Speaker 1 (20:20.76)
food sources that they need to complete their life cycles and without those they don't survive. The climate is having an issue because the wet winters most of the solitary bees and the bumblebees are ground nesting so if that lands flooded then where they're hibernating is flooded as well. So those are the main things. The other one is

I mean, I have a bit of a beef about people who don't do their beekeeping properly as well, because you have a duty of care to your bees, but you also have a duty of care to other beekeepers. So if you're not making sure that your bees are clear of certain diseases, then that gets spread into the population of the bees. We also have a lot of green washing going on in cities where companies

London is a prime example. There are beehives on the tops of nearly all the big office blocks and that is beginning to have an impact on the other bee populations in the city.

These are to be looked after, aren't they? You can't just put a hive there and leave it. It's not like a bird's nest. You put a bird box, you leave it, the bird does its thing.

No, mainly because bees will swarm. Swarming is a natural process of reproduction. However, in a city setting, it's not desirable. And if your next door to somebody who's got bees and they swarm all the time, it's not very pleasant having a cloud of bees fly across your garden every other week. So you've got to act responsibly and therefore you've got to

Speaker 1 (22:09.94)
manage that situation. It can be done but it requires you actually being vigilant and observing what's going on with your colonies.

So how much effort does it take to look after bees? I know it probably varies according to how many bees you have. How often do you look after the bees and what do you do?

Usually I will go and visit all my hives. I'll go to a hive once a week during the summer and I will inspect them and I'll inspect them to make sure they've got no disease, that they are not going to swarm, that they've got food and they've got space to continue to develop the colony and then make decisions based on what I see.

keep records of what you see as well so that you can look for trends so you can see if the colonies expanding or contracting and whether they've got enough food etc.

What are your plans going forwards then? I know you said you go to conferences regularly, you sell the hernia, you look after the bees. Is there something you are hoping to do or planning to do going forward?

Speaker 1 (23:21.888)
My plan at the moment is to continue to do what I do, try and recruit more beekeepers and to continue to educate people. My main concern is that people look after the livestock properly and look after their bees properly. I'm the education officer for Reading Beekeepers, so I'm actively involved in trying to train people and get them to do more studying because

You learn something new every day. I personally would like to get better at using social media, but I have two daughters that are in my team who continually say, mum, but anyway, we're getting better for that. I really need to consolidate what I've got. I don't want to expand the number of hives I've got. I've got to a capacity that I don't need anymore.

I'm not getting any younger and I'm not getting any taller, so I need to look to that. My main concern at the moment is that one of the allotments I have bees on is going to close, so I've got to relocate my bees to another apiary. I have other apiaries where they can go, but it's case of sorting that out. So those are my main things that I've got to worry about.

fascinating. Every time I speak with you, seem to learn something different. Is there anything you would like to leave our listeners with today? Any final thoughts?

Well, if anybody wants to become a beekeeper or learn more about bees, then you can contact me. I'm bees.jennies at gmail.com or educationrbka at gmail. And then you can find out about our introductory course, which will start in January.

Speaker 2 (25:18.124)
Jenny, thank you so much. If you're listening to this and you're interested, I'll have all the information on the episode landing page. And yes, please do check out Jenny's Bs and join the course if you're interested in learning more. Jenny, thank you so much.