About Honeyfields Bee Farm
Honeyfields Bee Farm is a family-run commercial bee farming enterprise based in the rural Warwickshire countryside near Bulkington. Founded on a deep respect for honey bee health and traditional apiary husbandry, we manage hundreds of production colonies across Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and the West Midlands—producing award-winning pure English honey, 5-frame nucleus colonies, and mated queen bees.
From Hobby Hives to Honey Farm
Our story began in 1976 when Grenville and Gill Barber took up beekeeping as a weekend hobby with a handful of traditional WBC hives. Driven by an authentic fascination with apiculture and an immediate local demand for their raw honey, they committed to full-scale commercial bee farming.
In 1985, Honeyfields Bee Farm was officially founded. Purchasing a permanent plot of land in Warwickshire, Grenville and Gill built our first purpose-designed honey house and established our central apiary base, where our family home remains today.
Global Commercial Experience
In 2006, their eldest son Sam joined the business full-time after university. Having grown up in bee suits assisting with colony management and honey harvesting throughout his school years, Sam sought to expand his commercial knowledge internationally.
In 2008, Sam spent six months working on an industrial-scale bee farm in Australia, gaining intensive experience in large-scale honey production, queen rearing, and colony production for export. Bringing these commercial techniques back to the UK, Sam restructured our operations—significantly expanding our honey yields and founding our specialist queen breeding and 5-frame nucleus programmes.
What We Do Today
Today, Honeyfields operates as a fully integrated commercial bee farm, supported by a skilled, year-round team working across our apiaries, workshop, and honey extraction house.
100% Pure English Honey
We harvest single-source, unpasteurised British honey from permanent and seasonal apiary sites across the Midlands:
- Small-Batch Bottling: Our award-winning Spring, Summer, and Soft Set honeys are coarsely strained and bottled in our own honey house.
- Commercial & Bulk Supply: We supply food-grade 20kg buckets and 300kg drums to honey packers, mead makers, and craft breweries nationwide.
- Zero Blending: We never blend our honey with imported syrups, guaranteeing complete British hive traceability.
Nucleus Colonies & Queen Breeding
We are one of the Midlands' primary suppliers of high-grade honey bees to both hobbyists and commercial apiaries:
- 5-Frame Nucleus Colonies: Supplied on British Standard National DN4 frames with active brood, stores, and calm laying queens for a rapid spring build-up.
- Mated Queen Bees: We produce calm, prolific Buckfast queens raised at our Warwickshire farm, alongside NBU-inspected European imports for early-season splits.
- Biosecurity Focus: All stock is managed in strict accordance with National Bee Unit (NBU) health guidelines.
Over 40 Years of Commercial Beekeeping
Four decades of practical bee farming have taught us that no two seasons are ever the same. We take pride in our sustainable, hands-on management and have been registered members of the Bee Farmers Association for over 20 years.