Supplier Visit - C Wynne Jones

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I am— today I'm at Seawind Jones in Denbighshire with Tudor. We're going to take a look around the facility and Tudor's going to give you some information about the services they provide down at Seawind Jones. So Tudor, will you tell us a little bit about the kind of services that you provide down at Seawind Jones?

We supply beekeeping equipment and also bottles, jars, and lots of food containers, and also jars for aromatherapy, beauty, medical products, that sort of thing.

Excellent. So what would you say is your best-selling product that you have down at Stephen Jones?

If you're talking about jars, I think the 1-pound honey jar is very popular. The other one is the 12-ounce hexagonal jar. Okay. And the jar which you use, the 190 food, is a very popular size.

So give us a feel of the number of jars that you sell kind of throughout the year.

The number of jars, it's going to be about 1.5 million jars per year. And then you need closures on top of those. So you're talking several million lids again on top of that.

And do you kind of sell them all across the country or the majority pick up?

We sell those all over the country nationally. We send out probably on average 20,000 30 parcels a day and an average of 5 parcels, 5 pallets a day.

Right.

So they go nationally and we also send to Europe. We've sent things to New Zealand, Australia, a lot to Ireland. So we sell globally.

That's really, really good. It's— Andrew, I mean, I know it's an absolutely huge business. I'm down here kind of all the time because I live just up the road. So tell us a little bit about kind of Seawind Jones and how it was formed. And how long it's been around and why you're kind of in the beekeeping and jar business.

Okay, well, C. Wynne-Jones is my father, who started the business back in about 1980 when we moved here. He was a beekeeper, been a beekeeper all his life, so it just grew as a hobby really. He'd retired from ICI and then just started selling a few bits and pieces of beekeeping, and then it just grew from that, mother and father starting the business. And then my sister joined the business, and then I left my job and came to work in the business.

Right.

And then since then, it's, it's just grown tremendously. My wife has joined us, and we've got other people working for us, so it's multiplied in size.

So, so how many people do you have working at Seawind Jones now at the moment?

So there's, uh, so there's, uh, 6 of us.

Right.

Yeah, so it keeps us busy.

Yeah, very thriving business then.

Yes.

Um, so what, what's your favorite product that you sell at Seeryn Jones? Your personal favorite?

My personal favorites, um, I suppose my favorite, personal favorite in jars is the 12 Hex.

Okay.

Very popular jar.

And why, why is that your favorite jar, the 12 Hex?

It's just the look of it, really. Yeah, I just like the look of it and, um, The benefits of it perhaps in selling in 12 ounces is that you're not selling in a pound. Yeah. You know, honey's very scarce, so you can make it go a bit further putting it in a 12-ounce jar.

I fully agree with that. You know, I sell kind of all my honey in 8-ounce jars. You see people selling it in pound jars. And I think when you see a pound jar versus a 12-ounce jar on the shelf, they don't look too different.

No, that's the thing. Yeah.

So it's a bit of a Yeah, like it's a very kind of precious commodity and you don't want to be giving it away for free. So yeah, I think that the 12-ounce jars are a very good marketing tool. Um, so then tell us about your best-selling products then. So kind of what is the, the number one thing that people come down here for really?

Well, um, for beekeeping, yeah, um, it's, um, hives basically. We sell an awful lot of the second hives. Yeah, so they're extremely popular.

So what's the difference between a first quality hive and a second quality hive?

So a first quality will have no knots in it whatsoever. So the second is slightly lower grade timber with a few, few knots in it. It's perfectly adequate. The bees won't know any difference. And, um, that's what people generally tend to buy because it's almost half the price of the first quality. Yeah, so it just makes sense really to buy.

So is that kind of, in terms of beekeeping, number one best-selling product, like a second quality hive? Maybe it's like a fully assembled hive, or, um, sorry, I mean like a full kind of kit hive, or do the single boxes sell well as well?

Oh, we sell the complete hive, but also we sell individual pieces. You can have a brood box or the supers or the roof. So in the summer, you know, it's just full on. Yeah, all the hive parts being sold, you know. It's— so there's no particular thing which really is just Good.

Okay, so tell us a little bit about the poly hives. You know all of my hives are going to got 100% poly, and I buy a lot from you, a lot from Swinty. So tell us a little bit about your poly hives and why you think what you think of them.

Yeah, well, we sell the Swinty poly hives, as you know. We sell an awful lot of them. They're very popular. They seem to be very good quality. I know there are different ones on the market, but that's. That's the one we've chosen, I think, because of the quality. Again, um, you get a very good service from Swinty. Yeah. Um, and we sell about 700 a year.

Wow, that's a good market for polyhives. Have you noticed kind of the market for polyhives increasing over the years or staying steady?

Yes. Oh, we've increased tremendously. Yeah, I think Swinty are amazed at how many times we're ordering from them, you know. And everybody who's got a polyhive say how well the bees do in them.

Yeah, I, I've definitely found that kind of personally. Yeah, I think especially kind of the further north you go, the more effective a poly hive becomes. I think people kind of on the continent and further south can get away with using wooden hives and they're absolutely fine, but if you start getting to kind of North Wales and Scotland, then the benefits become a bit more apparent.

That's it.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the changes that you've noticed kind of over maybe the last 10 to 15 years and how your business has adapted Well, one of the biggest changes we've noticed is perhaps less, um, people buying jars for making jam and things themselves.

Yeah, um, I think the supermarkets has probably killed that a bit, you know. Everybody used to make jam at home, didn't they?

Oh, so people are no longer making their own jams?

So that's one thing, um, the jam jar sales perhaps Not as much, but what we've noticed is a huge increase in the jars for candles, right, around the feather pea products, okay, um, all that sort of thing. It's, it's special beard creams. Yeah, that's it. It's grown hugely in the last 5 years. Yeah, you know, we used to have a small area where we used to keep that range. Now it's, it's just grown unbelievably, you know.

Yeah, so it's really interesting that, and I think, I mean, because I buy from a lot of different manufacturers different things and kind of get stuff imported from abroad, and I think all of the main manufacturers and stockists kind of have their niche. So some people design their own polyhires and some people do, I mean, various other things. I think your niche here is jars, isn't it? I mean, you are really, really behind the jars, and as you can see kind of here, there's Every single kind of jar that you can get. And I think a lot of people buy from you because of, because of that reason, because you have such a good kind of wide variety of jars.

We try to offer a really good service. You know, if people order today, usually they'll get them tomorrow.

Wow, that's really good. So, um, so tell me a little bit about the jars then. So when you send off jars, I think people are often hesitant for potential kind of breakages in the post. I know I've not bought jars because of that. But I mean, when I spoke to you about it in the past, you said that you have like a pretty much 0% failure rate on that, or very, very low. Do you want to tell us a bit about your packaging?

Yeah, so the, um, we pack the jars really well. They have cardboard strips in between and between them, so there's very little chance of damage. Yeah. And they all get, similar to these, fragile tape on them. Yeah. And we send out hundreds and hundreds every year. Virtually no damages. I think that could be something down to APC who we use.

Okay, yeah, APC are good.

Relatively good company.

Yeah, so it's not kind of going out with a My Hermes or a Yodel or someone who's just going to lob it over the fence. It's a real dedicated courier.

Yeah, so that's one thing that customers can, you know, rest assured that if they order jars, they're going to get them In one piece and that's not broken. So that's, that's a big part of it, isn't it?

That's really good, good to know. Um, okay, so what, what do you think is going to happen in the next 5 years? Like, there's kind of change across the board, um, within beekeeping. What's your predictions for the next 5 years in terms of growth or kind of diversification of your business?

Uh, I think beekeeping is still going to continue because we get new beekeepers every year.

Yeah.

Starting off, lots of young people. So I think, I think it's going to thrive and continue. Um, perhaps there'll be more towards polystyrene, as you do. Um, but I think it's going to continue. I think the only thing that's going to restrict big batches is disease.

Yeah.

That might affect beekeeping.

Um, the dreaded Asian hornet Hopefully it's a bit too cold for them in North Wales, so they can stay further south. Okay, so tell me about any new products that you have here, kind of something new that you want to share with people on YouTube.

Oh, one of the new products that we've got at the moment is a new feed from Vita. It's similar, it's a fondant, but it's got lots of nutrients, lots of extra things which are good for the bees. So that's— and we've got exclusivity for that.

So how does that come? So is it like a fondant or is it a liquid or?

So that's a fondant. It comes in a 2.5 kilo bag. Yeah. So you can cut it up into smaller pieces or put it in as it is. So that's a new product for people to look for.

And you say you've got kind of exclusivity on that within the market?

Yes, we have. Yeah. So have a look on our website and you'll see See the prices and you can do that.

So Tudor's going to give us a bit of a tour around now to show you kind of all of the products that are available at Seawind Jones.

Yes, Lauren, so here we are. So we've got lots of, um, bee medicines, uh, varroa treatments. That's the sort of thing we can— we sell. Um, what would you say the thing on the market really?

What would you say your number one varroa treatment is that you sell here?

I think the The biggest one still is Acriguard. We sell an awful lot of that, although perhaps not as much as we used to sell.

Right.

Lots of people— we used to sell an awful lot of Acristan, but that's not as popular these days. But it's gaining popularity once more.

Yeah.

And then another one is Acrybyroxyl.

Sublimation.

Which is basically oxalic acid.

Yeah.

So there's lots of different ones you can use really.

Great.

And then we've got— we have our foundation. So lots of foundation, very popular in the summer.

What would you say your number one type of foundation that you sell is?

The number one is British Standard deep and British Standard shallow.

And do people tend to go for the wired variant?

Wired, yes, we sell The most of this one. This is the most popular, the wired ones. So, um, sell a huge amount of that in the summer.

Yeah.

Yes.

Cool.

Um, then we have lots of smaller bits and pieces, um, wide ends, narrow ends, and then we do the mating hives. Those are poly ones again.

Yeah.

And then if you come through here, this is where we keep the hive parts.

This is my favourite room.

So, uh, it's quite full at the moment. We've just had stock in at the beginning of the year.

Now you obviously can't get the impression of this from a video, but the smell in this room is just incredible. Like, it smells of freshly cut cedar, doesn't it? It's amazing.

So these are the sapkins, brood boxes. And then we've got the supers. So we got stacks of these at the moment, as you can see.

Yeah, it's a really good collection. It's just a good one to kind of point out there, I think, like the fact that that is a second brood box and it's because of these 2 points, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

And they're absolutely solid. They're not falling out, are they? They're just very minor defects.

As you can see, that side is virtually the same as the first one, you know, so there's nothing wrong with them at all.

I can see why you sell so many of the seconds.

That's it. So we've got frame pads. So these are 14 by 12.

Yeah.

So these are the deeper ones which you use in your—

That's what I've moved over to now.

Yeah. Um, so we'll do some Manleys as well.

Yep. And what would you say the most popular frame is? Like, you got— I mean, there's a small pile of Manleys there, is it?

Yes, Manleys aren't so popular. No, the most popular Are the Hoffman Supers and Brood frames. Yeah, so the DN4 and the SN4.

So the self-spacing variants.

Those have become much more popular now. Yeah, years ago used to be SN1, DN1 with spacers, but yeah, nowadays people tend to go for these.

Yeah, all of my frames are kind of SN4, DN4. Yeah, and it's still— you can still have spacers on them, you can still put them in castellations, but it's just easy when you're kind of getting them drawn out to have the Flexibility.

Those are a big seller. Yeah. So if you come this way, we have queen excluders and other hive pads, crown boards.

As you can see in it, excellent levels of stock. So I assume you kind of get prepared ready for the upcoming season and it gets a bit crazy.

So all our stock comes in in December.

Yeah.

So we're prepared then for the forthcoming season. So we've got plenty in here, but we've got much more in the shed waiting to replenish when these sell out. So yes, so we got— and then we also do some, uh, the commercial frames, the 16x6 and 16x10. Yeah, so not as popular as the national, but we still have those if people want them. Great. And we also do Langstroth frames as well.

It's a really kind of good mix. So you do national, commercial, Langstroth, and Manley. Pretty much every frame that you can get.

And then we also do, um, the National Hive, but we also do WBC hives as well.

Cool.

Those not as popular, but we do, we do sell them as well.

Nice traditional looking hive.

Yes, yes, they do look nice. Yeah, this is the sort of thing that we, we sell. These are 150 medical round bottles. Similar ones again, and we do all the pipettes, um, dropper caps, all the different closures that go with these sort of things. So they've become a big part of the business now.

Really well stocked up with those as well, aren't you?

Yes.

So what kind of things do people put in there? You say aromatherapy, what is it like, kind of oils, essential oils?

That's right, yeah, and, um, hand lotions.

Okay.

That sort of thing.

Yeah.

So it's, it's become a huge part of the business. We used to keep everything in this part, but now it's overflowing in the shed.

Right, yeah.

It's just, it's just grown so much. So if you come this way through to the warehouse. This is Matt, our expert packer.

Hi, Matt.

He's packing some bottles at the moment ready to go out to a customer.

Is this just one order of all that size of bottle there?

Well, this is not just for an order, this is for stock.

Right, yeah.

So we get this, we get the jars like this on a pallet, and then we box them up so they're ready then to go Okay. We've got some brood boxes ready if people want them assembled, we can, we can do that as well.

Great, so what's the kind of, uh, difference in price? Is it like a fee that you add on for assembly, or are they just kind of—

So it's, it's an extra £10 for the assembly.

Yep.

So, um, if people haven't got the time or, yeah, not sure what to do, then we can do that for them.

And I'm guessing it's a real kind of professional-level assembly, so you know exactly what you're doing, you've done hundreds of them, and Yeah, does a really good job with them, you know.

So it's another service that we do. Roofs there ready to go.

Yeah, it's a real time saver because some people, they just don't— they don't have the time or kind of maybe ability to do them properly, and to be able to come in and buy them assembled is a real good thing for them.

main warehouse where we keep most of the jars. So we've got all sorts of different jars here, as you can see. Just jars, jars everywhere.

Yeah, I'm always kind of amazed when I come into this room as to how much stock you actually have in here, because you don't really notice it from the front, but like just kind of like the stacks of pallets and frames.

And so as you can see here, these are the, um, all the Hive parts that we've got waiting, so we've got plenty in stock for the year to come.

So where do you get all your kind of hive parts and frames from?

So these come from Thorns, and these are all the seconds that we get from them in December. So we've got hundreds and thousands of those ready.

Yeah, so they're kind of produced and made by a really kind of reputable kind of company within beekeeping, and then you sell them on their behalf, don't you?

So, uh, so yeah, everything else is sat high here.

Um, so what, what are your opening hours then, kind of, for people coming down here?

Um, so people call it between 8 o'clock and 5 o'clock in the winter.

Yeah.

And between 8 and half past 5 in the summer.

And then Um, you're open Saturdays in the summer, is that right?

In the summer, yes, we're open on a Saturday morning.

Okay.

So we've got quite a lot of beekeepers calling on Saturday.

So yeah, because it's difficult for people to kind of get down here sometimes in the week, so it's good for people to know. I think some people may be not aware that you're open Saturday mornings, so you can come down, have a chat, kind of try out some of the kit and stuff.

Yeah, it's, um, we get quite a lot calling on the Saturday. Cool.