Spring 2025 Blogpost #1

22 May 2025

Dear Honey Lovers,

Seems right that Spring 2025 is my first blog post--so far the season is restoring my love and faith in all we do here at Naked Nectar. Balmy days, seeing the bees out and gathering, and getting feedback from our customers on how much they LOVE our honey—makes us proud to be doing what we’re doing.

It was a cold and wet start to the season last year, which yielded a far smaller than average Spring Harvest. Then, last winter was pretty rough, to be honest—stormy, wet, freezing one day and mild the next, and it seemed to last years. Bees were hunkered down for months. Still, we were lucky to only lose 8% of our hives (we keep learning).

This year (so far!) looks to be the sort that beekeepers dream about—and judging by conversations with others on various forums and social channels, every beekeeper in the UK is thanking Mother Nature!

A strong Spring brings busy work though. We’ve been racing to build additional frames for the extra supers that will need to go on the hives to store all that Naked Nectar honey coming in, feeding splits made to hives to help them establish themselves, and constantly trying to keep on top of ‘swarm season’. The bees are expanding at such a pace, if we take our eye off the ball we would be chasing swarms for far too much of the time!

We’ve already been called out a few times to rehome swarms spotted by local farmers and neighbours we know—with varying results. Sometimes they are easy to catch, being nestled against, say, a fence, about knee height. However, sometimes they might be so inaccessible and high that it’s just too dangerous to even attempt catching them. If you see a swarm in your area, contact your local county bee association who will be able to help.

Yet the main thing is we are excited to harvest our first crop of the season. Date of course TBC by the bees—they’ll let us know it’s ready for extraction when they start capping the honey. Our stock from 2024 is coming to an end, so we’re hoping for a solid restock after this season.

Now, what about this summer? Our aim is just to keep going, keep learning, keep expanding (which to be fair you don’t have much choice to do when you have to split and manage hives!) and just keep bringing Naked Nectar’s honey to your table. 

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram @nakednectarhoney if you’re not already doing so. There’ll be more content coming soon, along with more honey. We love to hear from you so DM or email us or leave us a review on the website https://nakednectar.co.uk/products/honey . Please also ask us questions or tell us what you’d like to see or know in future posts.

And don’t forget to order more honey before your current stock runs out!

Naked Nectar – Nothing But Honey!!! 

Your beekeeper, Huw