World Honey Bee Day 🐝 and when it comes to 🍯 for me it’s got to be raw I’m pretty excited (btw that first clip was me 6 years ago filming for H+H tv show) about my good friend and neighbour Dale’s new hobby with his son - bee keeping. He’s done the course, he’s got the kit and this summer he’s been setting up this hive home starting with a ‘nuc’ (approx. 10,000 bees) and 5 frames - hopefully progressing to 30 frames for a full house. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to source raw honey from here in the next year. One of Ayurveda’s golden rules that I’ve employed easily into my life over the last 15 or so years and that you’ll have seen me mention in my books and blogs is to only consume raw honey and use it more medicinally rather than culinary - if you’d like to see a post on more of the ‘whys’ and ‘why nots’ I’ll start working on it! Anyone already with me on this? ✋ P.s while honey is part of Mother Nature’s Medicine cabinet (and remember the dose makes the medicine or the poison) all bees and pollinators are important to our ecosystem and we need to respect and protect them. If you’ve read some of my interviews over the years you’d know that one of my favourite fictional books is The Bees by Laline de Paul - I read it during my Hemsley + Hemsley years and it totally upset my sleep for a week as I couldn't put it down 🙈 - but wow respect to bees and their incredible intelligence and work... Although they are important for agriculture, honey bees compete with our native bees—some of which are at risk due to loss of habitat and neonicotinoids (for more on this see the link in my bio) but pollinators in general are thought to have declined in the UK since the 70s for example loss of 50% of managed honey bee hives in England between 1985 and 2005 so I’m glad it’s a hobby that’s picking up interest Sources: Friends of the Earth and RSB Royal Society of Biology