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Welcome to the Natural Beekeeping Trust
The Natural Beekeeping Trust aims to promote awareness of sustainable beekeeping which is determined by our understanding of the essential needs of the bees. We believe that encouraging a wider adoption of "bee guardianship" - keeping bees for the bees' sake - as well as actively supporting organic/biodynamic agriculture and horticulture, will make a major contribution to ensuring the long term health of the honeybee.
Husbandry approaches advocated by the Natural Beekeeping Trust are based on allowing bees to express their instincts fully through swarming, presence of drones, overwintering on honey, as well as taking due care to support colonies’ brood nest warmth maintenance.
Respecting the colony’s need to keep its broodnest at a constant temperature is one of the cornerstones of natural beekeeping, and from this it may be inferred that routine inspections of the nest are not advocated. This, however, does not equate with ‘leave-alone’ beekeeping as observational skills must be developed to a high degree in order to monitor colony health and take remedial action when needed.
More details may be found in the Guidance Notes which are available on request. Please also read the Why Natural Beekeeping? page for more information about our approach.
We maintain a “Bee Garden” in Ashurst Wood, Sussex, which is open to Friends of the Trust by arrangement. If you would like to support our work, please consider joining as a Friend.
We offer courses in natural beekeeping based on biodynamics from our Classroom, and talks and workshops at other locations.
If there is interest in sustainable beekeeping in your area, please email us at info@naturalbeekeepingtrust.org.
We would encourage anyone starting with bees to seriously consider training in natural beekeeping, which is invariably grounded in an attitude of respect for the natural world and its most important and vital representative, the honeybee.
The Natural Beekeeping Trust collects information and research on methods which accord with the aims stated above, and welcomes submissions of information of interest by email at info@naturalbeekeeptingtrust.org.
The Trustees are indebted to Dr. Rudolf Steiner, whose insights into the nature and importance of bees provide much inspiration.
Natural Beekeeping courses are also offered by Gareth John in Oxfordshire, Jonathan Powell in Somerset and John Haverson in Hampshire. Phil Chandler of biobees.com, and Bees for Development also offer courses in natural beekeeping with the top bar hive.
For further information about biodynamics please visit the Biodynamic Association.
