History
Having kept bees as a boy, my interest was
rekindled when I moved to Whaley Bridge in the Peak District of Derbyshire.
Inspired by the countryside of the Peak District with it's abundance of
landscapes and by definition, floras, I started with a couple of hives in1999 as a
hobby, but the activity soon built into a small business and Goyt Valley Apiary was formed in 2003 with Apiaries all over the High Peak. Contact was made very
early on with the Derbyshire Beekeepers association www.derbyshire-bka.org.uk
and through them I met Ben
Gilman who has been a very patient and informative mentor.
Now Goyt Valley Apiary can offer a number of bee related products at competitive prices.
Aims
Put simply, my aim was to keep bees and
sell honey, but very early on you realise that nothing is simple. For example,
what type of bees did I want to keep? My studies soon led me to the works of
Beowulf Cooper and his book "The Honeybees of the British Isles" which
struck a chord of logic in me. Basically he was saying that the best bees for
our climate are the bees that have evolved here since the last Ice age and if we
could find bees that showed the desirable characteristics then these were the
bees to keep and breed. This train of thought soon connected me with BIBBA who
do much valuable work on the subject of conservation of the British Black bee.
Today my aims are two-fold:
1.To produce the finest quality Honey from the High Peak Flora.
2.By selective breeding, to conserve the British Black bee Apis melifera melifera