Greendale Farm is home to an apiary of 30 beehives; their position just off ‘Honey Lane’ couldn’t be better located to take advantage of the different crops on the farm and the natural heather and heathland of nearby Woodbury Common. Home to around 1.5 million bees, it's a great local source of delicious, natural honey. The Exeter Beekeepers’ Association (EBKA) established the Apiary on the farm at Greendale 2 years ago and they look after the bees on our behalf and allow us to be able to sell our home-produced honey in our Farm Shop and on our website. Labelled 'Greendale Honey', it's truly local (and truly lovely!). On paper, honey is an uninteresting-sounding blend of sugar, trace enzymes, amino acids, minerals and vitamins, produced by bees in order to feed themselves when food supplies are scarce. However, just one taste makes it easy to understand why mankind has been seeking out honey - and then farming it - for more than 10,000 years. As well as its sweetness, honey also has a long shelf-life and (some claim) medicinal properties. It’s no surprise that we love honey here in the UK; in a typical year, the nation makes its way through an estimated 30,000 tonnes of this delectable amber liquid, much of it imported. With this in mind, Greendale is particularly pleased to stock this locally produced honey, from a carefully tended apiary right here on our doorstep. The EBKA works carefully with the bees to harvest just the right amount – remembering the bees will need to feed themselves during the winter – so we have limited stock available. It’s definitely worth making a beeline for!
