Lincolnshire's beekeepers have been organised for more than 160 years: the Lincolnshire Beekeepers Association was one of the first associations to form the British Beekeepers Association in 1874. It now has ten districts across the county and holds its annual honey show at the Lincolnshire Show.
Much of the honey reflects the county's farmland and the Lincolnshire Wolds. Stax Of Wax, near Louth, produces a soft-set honey from spring oilseed rape and a golden runny honey from later wildflowers, field beans and hedgerow plants. Beekeepers of the Lincolnshire Wolds, a collaboration of local beekeepers, has an apiary at Hallington outside Louth, and Gill-Eve Honey Bees also keeps bees in the Wolds. Further south, Bees & Co. at Langtoft describes itself as the world's first CarbonNeutral honey farm.
Stax Of Wax honey is stocked by independent and farm shops around Louth, Market Rasen, Horncastle, Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea; Gill-Eve sells through several local stockists; and Bees n Honey at North Scarle and Lincolnshire Honey at Sleaford sell through their own online shops.
Oilseed rape in April is the defining crop, sown at a scale that can fill supers in a fortnight. Field beans follow in June and borage appears on some rotations in July. The Lincolnshire Wolds break up the arable belt with chalk grassland, hedgerows and mixed farming, and colonies sited there get a more varied and better-balanced season. Along the coast between Gibraltar Point and the Humber, saltmarsh and dune flora — sea lavender, thrift, restharrow — offer something quite different. Lincoln, Stamford and Grantham all have mature lime and parkland, and the county's many old churchyards and verges are increasingly managed for wildflowers.
Predominantly pale and firm-setting from rape. Wolds apiaries produce a more varied summer honey; coastal ones a rarer, more savoury crop.
Flowering times are typical and can shift by two to three weeks with the weather, season and altitude.
Lincoln, Grantham, Boston, Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Stamford, Louth, Spalding
Oilseed rape. It is grown across the county on an enormous scale and its honey granulates faster than almost any other — often within two weeks. Local beekeepers usually sell it soft-set. If you want runny honey from Lincolnshire, ask for a later summer crop rather than the spring one.
Generally yes. The Wolds have hedgerows, chalk grassland and mixed farming rather than unbroken arable, so colonies there work a wider range of forage across a longer season. The honey is more varied in colour and flavour than the pale rape-dominated crop from the Fen.
Use the listing details to choose how to buy, then contact the producer before travelling.
The directory does not track live stock or harvest dates. Availability, collection, delivery, prices and seasonal varieties can change, so ask the producer to confirm what is currently available.
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