We are Yorben and Anouk and we live in Velp with our children. We started selling some honey and queens last year under the name "van het Imkertje" but have chosen to proceed as Honey and Bees.

 

We started the beekeeping hobby in 2019 after I read about the famous Flow Hive from Australia. This system makes it possible to harvest the honey without disturbing the bees in their natural process and without mess and hassle. Interest was immediately sparked and a study into all the ins and outs began.

 

Countless hours on YouTube later, I signed up for the basic beekeeping course. However, the course only started at the beginning of the following year, so I couldn't wait that long! I was confident that my knowledge was sufficient to purchase a single colony.

 

On August 30, 2019 the time had come. Online I found a Buckast grower who sold colonies including a self-built 3 window box from PIR (something I now also make myself). This way of selling seemed ideal for the starting beekeeper because you don't have to move bees to your own hive. When they got home it became clear pretty quickly that the people almost burst out of the 3 window box! Fortunately, the seller still had a segeberger (plastic 11-window cabinet) that I was allowed to take over from him! So it happened that I spent my first beekeeper winter in a Segeberger!

 

 

During the season of 2020 we eventually made 4 colonies from our first colony! Nevertheless, that year they were able to get a little bit of honey and we were able to taste our own honey for the first time. In the spring the honey comes from the rapeseed here along the meadows and in the summer from the silver linden nearby. In 2020 we entered the winter with our 4 hives.
 

 

We started queen breeding in 2021. At first only for the expansion of our own apiary, but due to the high demand for Buckfast queens, we have also been able to sell a number of queens. By using queen breeding, we were able to expand our apiary from 4 to 13 hives in 2021! We entered the winter of 2021 with 13 hives.

 

 

We have big plans for 2022. We now have more colonies so we can share our fresh honey with more people and we have a better system to improve the sales of the queens.