In this personal vlog, beekeeper Laurence Edwards explains why he is abandoning the most productive apiary he has ever managed. He describes the site’s exceptional qualities—isolated location, diverse and abundant forage (dandelions, bluebells, Himalayan balsam, mature trees), optimal sun exposure, low wind, and a supportive landowner—resulting in honey yields 50‑60% above his average. Despite these advantages, Edwards cites the excessive travel time (up to 35‑40 minutes each way plus setup, totaling about 1.5‑3 hours per visit) as an unsustainable burden given his current life and work commitments. He outlines a strategic consolidation plan, reducing his total apiaries from eight to four, and details how the time saved will allow him to service multiple sites and produce video content more efficiently. The video conveys both his deep disappointment at leaving a prime location and a pragmatic business decision to prioritize time management and overall operational efficiency.
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In this video, I'm going to tell you why I'm leaving the best apiary I've ever had. So this is a really sad video. This is by far and away my best apiary, absolutely miles ahead of all of the other apiaries that I've got. It's really isolated, the forage is exceptional through spring, summer, and late into the season as well. The honey crop that I get here is in excess of like 50 or 60% above the average that I get And I really do get a tremendous honey crop from this apiary here. So I'm gutted, absolutely gutted, but give it a couple of months and I will have no bees left in this apiary. I've already started to move some out. Some of the bigger ones I'm going to have to wait until later on in the season where I take the honey crop off them, the summer honey crop, condense the bees down and move them off elsewhere. But the simple reason that I can just no longer continue in this apiary is it takes too long to get here. Sounds like a really, really rubbish reason, doesn't it? And I knew when I took this apiary on, I kind of thought, well, you know what, it's only half an hour each way, so that's an hour's driving to get there and get back. But that's on a really good run. You often get stuck on the road to get down here behind a tractor. There's traffic, there's holiday traffic, so sometimes it's kind of creeping up to 35, 40 minutes each way. And then there's a little bit of a track, and by the time you've got set up and everything, you're talking about an hour and a half. To get to the apiary and get back again. And for me, with the way my life is going at the moment, I just cannot afford that additional time. So I just wanted to give you a heads up that these videos will no longer continue in this apiary. And I'm really, really gutted because I love this apiary. It is the best place ever. Like, I look around and you kind of hear that silence. It is absolutely beautiful here. Spectacular. The bees love it. The bees do so well. The landowner is one of the very best, so encouraging, gives me everything that I've ever needed. Every other tick box that you could tick in terms of what do you need for an apiary, this is it. It's perfect. It's isolated, really good access, excellent forage, not many other beekeepers around, quite close to sea level, only about 100 foot above sea level, really well protected from the wind, south-facing, gets perfect amount of sun. Have I mentioned it's got the best forage in the world? I think I probably have. Dandelions, bluebells, Himalayan balsam, really big, huge mature trees, sycamores, horse chestnuts, limes. The honey is superb, and the only reason I'm leaving is because I've just not got the time to get down here. Absolutely gutted. But when it's a business, you need to think about what works for you, and when you just cannot afford the time to get down here Has to be the first one to go. So what I'm looking to do is I'm looking to condense my apiaries down. At the moment I've got 8 apiaries, looking to condense it down to 4 apiaries. And although this was by far and away the best, it was the easiest one to give up because it just takes so long to go down there. For example, tonight I've come down here, I'm going to shoot a couple of videos, I'm going to do my inspections down here, and you're talking probably like a 3-hour round trip, including obviously doing the videos and doing my inspection. Where with a 3-hour round trip I can go and do 4 other apiaries and get a couple of videos in at the same time. Makes a massive amount of difference, and when you're trying to shoehorn your beekeeping job or your beekeeping hobby into your full-time job, every minute really counts. So there we go, that's it for the video. This apiary is no more. Check out this video here which shows you the summer crop from last year, which was truly astounding.
