Sustainability is at the heart of this thriving centre of excellence for bee husbandry, beekeeping courses and honey from Lancashire bees.

Simon and Kath Cordingley have always been involved in environmental work - their eyes met across a crowded recycling centre - but it wasn’t until an unusual birthday present that they started keeping bees.

‘Simon handed me a little package and I thought “ooh jewellery, or maybe tickets for a trip abroad”, but I wasn’t expecting a beekeeping course,’ laughs Kath.

‘To say I wasn’t looking forward to it was an understatement. Who would want to spend time with a box of stinging insects?’
But Kath was hooked - so much so that a month later she ended up driving to Cheshire to collect three colonies of bees to raise back home in Bamber Bridge. Sadly, she hadn’t sealed up the lids tightly enough and as she drove, they started to escape.

‘There were about 60,000 bees and most of them escaped in my car,’ she recalls. ‘They were on the steering wheel, the dashboard, covering the seats, everywhere I looked.’

Thankfully she got them home without being stung - which was a good job as it turned out she’s allergic to bees and had to do a series
of desensitisation sessions in hospital.

Great British Life: A peek inside one of the hives and the gorgeous honeyA peek inside one of the hives and the gorgeous honey (Image: Jade Wright)

Simon found a passion for apiary too, and now the couple estimate they have around 10 million bees - all the black British variety.
‘They are a native species, and very well suited to our wildflowers,’ says Simon. ‘Our main focus is on keeping bees for their benefit and that of the environment, supporting the relatively small population of native and near-native honey bees in Britain. We harvest a small amount of honey, but that’s almost a byproduct, and we always leave enough in the hives to keep the bees well-fed over winter’.

Initially, they started The Bee Centre in Samlesbury Hall, building it up over five years into a multi-award-winning centre for bee-related education, breeding and husbandry.

During lockdown, with the hall closed, they moved to Brindle Distillery, where they now have their hives, shop, education centre and the base for their ’Bee Experience’, with courses ranging from beginner to advanced. It’s also the regional training hub for the Bee Farmers’ Association.
Simon and Kath support individuals and organisations looking to increase the bee population - putting hives on everywhere from hospital roofs to traditional farms.

‘Education is a huge part of our work,’ says Simon. ‘We have children as young as three here and we go into schools to teach the children about sustainability through bees. Children are fascinated, and we send them home with a pot of honey and honey fudge so they take the lessons home to their families too.’