‘Around William Woodley’s Apiary, Worlds End, Beedon’ is an update of a blog post I did in 2014. The purpose of the post was to review the features in the photo (see above) and to discover what remains today.
Back in 2014, I had just discovered the above photo in the British Bee Journal via the website archive.org. This discovery started a grand project to uncover the story of William Woodley’s life.
This is a honey label review of the Saddleback Farmshop‘s honey-shelf. This farmshop is located on the edge of the village of Farnborough in West Berkshire and is adjacent to the B4494. # Saddleback Farmshop Honey
If you stumbled on this blog because you are looking for LOCAL HONEY, then hop over to my online shop.
I visited the farmshop in early January 2020 to get an appreciation about how other honey producers label their jars. I hope to redesign my label before the honey season begins. Without further ado here is my review.
Printing Bees on tissue paper, using an adana printing press, is tricky because the paper is so thin and the ink very thick. Nonetheless, it is possible and here’s how.
In addition, here is a photo showing the anatomy of the adana press. It explains the printing jargon I use below.
Put as little ink on the ink-table as possible and spread it evenly using a roller.
This blog is a Honey Label Review of Galloway Honey Farm Scottish Heather honey. This blog follows on from my honey label style review of London Honey Co.
As an aside, the taste of Scottish heather honey is wonderous, although it might be a bit too strong for some palettes.
Finding local honey in Scotland proved challenging during my visit there in August. After spending the week looking for Scottish honey I drew a blank but finally finding a jar in a motorway gift shop on the Scottish Borders.
Sadly, the labelling on this jar is lacking. Selling Scottish local honey in a Scottish themed gift shop, which sited in a motorway gift shop on the Scottish Borders, must be easy. No effort required.
Here’s what I learnt from this label.
By deconstructing the style of London Honey Co (LHC), I hope to show how beekeepers can raise their game in marketing honey.
If you have stumbled on this page because you are looking for LOCAL HONEY you can buy it here. 🙂
The conceprt of supply and demand fails because humans are irrational. The only time this law of economics works is if you go into a supermarket and buy economy jam.
Let me describe this utopian supermaket. There would be a shelf of economy jam from ten different competitors. Each competitor labels their jam in a boring and samey way, with the style of jar and lid being identical. Described on each jar is the word ‘jam’; no information about the fruit is used. The rational shopper chooses the cheapest jam.
Humans have stories in their heads and these stories play to their biases and world views. Price is only one factor when people buy honey. The story that people can tell themselves about a jar/brand/type/lcoation of honey, determines their decision to buy.
Beekeepers should tell stories about what they do, and not be fooled into thinking they are selling a standard commodity in a glass jar.
London Honey Co sell lots of different honeys. There is a story with each honey they sell.
I will be publishing a series of posts about William Woodley (Beekeeper) in the forthcoming weeks and months. To set the stage for this endeavour, I summarise below William Woodley’s life-story.
William Woodley (1845 – 1923) [1,2] was a pioneer in ‘Modern Beekeeping’, a champion at the show-bench, the owner and operator of Britain’s largest bee-farm [3], was presented to Queen Victoria, an owner of the world’s first mass-produced car, and a prolific writer. His commentary of the Isle of Wight disease, a disease which wiped-out ninety per cent of the honeybee population in the British Isles [4], is his most significant contribution to the world of beekeeping. Woodley’s story charts the rise and fall of British beekeeping.
Look carefully at this photo because honeybees are living inside a tree. The photo above is a paulownia tree in East Hanney with honeybees living inside it. Tree cavities were the original home of the honeybees.
