Congratulations to Rea Valley Apiary!

We popped along to the Birmingham Beekeepers show at Winterbourne this weekend and happened to catch the awards ceremony where Sharif Khan – whose Rea Valley honey we stock in our bakery shop – won nearly all the awards! Here he is with his haul.

With hives in Stirchley and along the river Rea, Sharif’s honey is as local to Loaf as it gets – there’s a good chance the bees have feasted on nectar from your back garden – and we also stock his borage and heather varieties.

Rea Valley bees on tour

Most of the bees looked after by Rea Valley Apiary live, as the name implies, along the River Rea, which includes Stirchley so if you have a garden there’s a good chance there’s nectar from there in one of those jars. This produces a their polyfloral Local Honey — a mix of whatever flowers are in bloom when the bees are active — and its flavour is a reflection of our area.

But there are areas where one particular flower will dominate, and beekeepers will often take a colony to forage and produce a monofloral honey with a distinctive colour and flavour. Rea Valley took some of their bees out of the city for a change of scene and we’ve taken delivery of two of the subsequent monoflorals. Borage Honey from borage fields in Stratford and Heather Honey from moors in the Peak District. Enjoy!