The Bee Lady
The Bee Lady
Rebecca Teare. London
The farmer
Rebecca began her beekeeping life in 2010 when her local kitchen garden at Chiswick House won a hive of bees and sent her on a course to learn how to look after them. The ‘Capital Bee’ campaign was intended to create community food gardens with bees being at the heart of the regeneration. Many years of tending to the bees, watching and learning has resulted in Rebecca moving her bees out of London and onto a private estate. It is here that she has begun to truly witness the relationship between wild forage and keeping honey bees in a sustainable way. Due to the bountiful forage around the apiary her bees are able to produce honey in excess of their requirements, enabling Rebecca to share a little bit of the wonder in a jar full of honey.
The animals
Apis Mellifera – the European Honey bee. It is the most common of the 7 – 12 species of honey bee worldwide.
Each hive can contain up to 80,000 bees. At the height of the summer Rebecca can be the custodian of nearly 750,000 bees!
The land
The apiary is located on private land between Windsor and Ascot. Much if the estate is left wild. It is home to a skylark meadow, a bluebell wood and acres and acres of wild hedgerows.
