Mêl Cymreig Blas y Blodau Welsh Honey
Welsh honey produced in Carmarthenshire by Adam yn yr Ardd.
Savour the taste of flowers from Welsh honeybees kept by a family run business in Carmarthenshire.
Weight: 340g (12oz)
Ingredients: 100% natural Honey from Welsh honeybees.
Store in a cool dry place
Unsuitable for infants under the age of 12 months old.
The honey with time will crystallize naturally – but don’t worry, this is perfectly normal. The honey can be de-crystallized while placing the jar in a bowl or pan of warm water and stirring the honey with a spoon until it flows smoothly.
Cost: £7.50 per jar
If you would like to purchase honey, please contact us today by sending an email to cyswllt@adamynyrardd.cymru or visit our shop on etsy.
Beekeeping background
Since I was a young child I have always been very interested in the nature of the honeybee and the effect they have on all of our lives. A golden opportunity came in 2020 when my father in law Neville and I received a brilliant Christmas present to attend a Beekeeping course with a local honey company Gwenyn Gruffydd.
I had researched and read a lot about honey bees over the years but had never experienced the thrill of opening a beehive for the first time, seeing the pollen, honey, queen and eggs all in the hive – nature’s engineers creating the most perfect structures. After attending the practical beekeeping course – it was time to buy our first beehive and set up an apiary from scratch!
Beekeeping is a family enterprise. Both Neville and I are responsible for managing the apiaries and looking after the bees while my wife Sara and her mother Julie lead on extracting and jarring the honey.
As of 2023, we have expanded the number of our colonies to approximately 20 hives across three sites and have experienced our first honey harvest (of any substance) and hopefully there will be plenty more to come!
Why keep bees?
There are many good reasons for keeping your own bees. As a gardener I was keen to ensure that more pollinators visit the garden and pollinate crops such as apple trees, beans and soft fruits – and I have not been disappointed either – they’re hardworking and enthusiastic workers!
We mainly keep Welsh black bees as well as some Buckfast bees. Native European dark bees such as the Welsh black bees, the Apis Mellifera Mellifera are extremely important to our environment and this bee is perfectly adapted for our challenging climate here in Wales.
Bees are vitally important to our food systems around the world and without them, it would not be possible for most of humanity to survive on the planet today. Native natural honeybees are rarer than most insect species native to Wales – following many years of habitat loss, disease and bad weather. If it weren’t for beekeepers in Wales, it is very unlikely that we would have viable populations of honey bees left!
We manage our hives in a careful and considerate way so that we don’t overly disrupt the bees.
Our story
Establishing the first apiary
Our first apiary was established in our garden here in Gors-las back in 2020
This apiary is very close to four nature reserves of important scientific importance namely Caeau Blaen yr Orfa, Cernydd Carmel, Llyn Llech Owain Country Park and the Mynydd Mawr area
We are extremely fortunate that the local area is full of grassland and rhos pastures that are managed for conservation purposes and are abundant with native wildflowers.
Our bees also take advantage of the gorse and heather flowers during Autumn and late winter.
Expanding and taking care of an apiary in Carmarthen
An opportunity to expand our beekeeping activities came in April 2023 when a former beekeeper decided to rest his bee suite and sell his colonies.
We took care of the thriving apiary in the vicinity of Carmarthen and received some wise advice from an old hand This is an apiary that has long been established on the site with local black Welsh bees very familiar with weather conditions and foraging in the Carmarthen area.
We have exciting plans to establish another apiary in the near future!
From hive to jar
Setting out to collect the heavy supers full of honey and extract them is no mean feat. We collect the honey supers from the hives in August and then uncap the frames and extract them in our dedicated honey room in Carmarthen.
We remove the capped layer of wax from the honey frames and then place all the frames in the extractor. The extractor then spins out the honey that will then flow to the bottom of the collection tank and is then filtered to remove any wax particles.
We filter the honey for a second time using a finer gauge filter to ensure that we achieve consistency in the texture of the honey and then it’s ready for jarring.
Our honey room has been inspected by food hygiene officers from the local authority and we’re please to share that we have achieved a hygiene rating of 5/5 (The highest possible score).
