Our Trustees & Associates

Bees are a source of wonder to me. I am grateful that at some time in my beekeeping career they flew into my heart and stayed.

Rachel Hanney's passion for the Sun Hive has inspired numerous beekeepers around the world. She is an exceptional teacher and has helped countless people to make their own hives.

Peter has been a biodynamic farmer from his early twenties; after farming for ten years in South Africa, he returned to the United Kingdom to build up what has developed into one of the flagship community farms in this country, Tablehurst Farm in Sussex.

John has enjoyed a lifelong interest in the natural world since he was a boy living in Africa. As a professional engineer he has always wanted to know how things work; and if they malfunction, he wants to know the reasons why. He first touched honeybees in 1980 in New Zealand and started his own apiary in Hampshire, after he stopped globetrotting, more than10 years ago. John has been keeping bees since 2003.

I am a beekeeper from Poland who seeks the thin line between keeping bees and letting them live as they want to without any intrusion. I hope it is possible to connect those two.

André is a discerning observer, he is fascinated by natural fundamental principles and their application as well as impacts in the contemporary environment and society.

Is a trustee of the Natural Beekeeping Trust and co-founder of Learning from the Bees. He authored the Tree Beekeeping Field Guide, and oversees forest rewilding projects in the UK and Spain.

I am Director and Founder of Bees for Development, and President of the Apimondia Scientific Commission Beekeeping for Rural Development.

When I became interested in bees I attended a beekeeping course. It became clear to me that serving the bees would not be achieved by the kind of beekeeping advocated.

David Heaf keeps his bees west of the Welsh hills on the coast of the Lleyn Peninsula. Undoubtedly one of the leading lights in the movement towards more ethical practice and holistic methodolgy in beekeeping, David's contribution to the body of research and knowledge in the field of sustainable beekeeping is considerable, and his insights are informed by a thorough grounding in Goethean Science.

I studied conventional agriculture in Germany - learning for many years how to manage farm animals and produce the maximum output possible. I know a lot about agri“culture” in Germany and consider it extremely alarming what it does to nature, landscapes, our society and people all over the world.

My personal ‘Bee Journey’ only really started in 2015. I got my first National Hive after completing a conventional beekeeping course but it wasn’t long
before I started questioning some of the methods I had been taught.
I then stumbled across a Tree Beekeeping workshop hosted by Jonathan Powell at The Dartington Hall Estate in Devon.

Helen is deeply connected with trees, as an educator, verifier for the Ancient Tree Inventory and writer. She is passionate about ancient trees, and helps bring this knowledge into a more common understanding.

Karmit‘s work focuses on developing sensitivity to living systems in nature – cultivating an awareness of the wild, the unseen, and the conscious aspects of the Earth.

The Bien has much to tell us. Will we heed its counsel? I hope to engage in conversation with many of you who are drawn to bees for whatever outward reasons. By working together in a spirit of enquiry and an attitude of humility towards the bees, I believe we have hope of addressing the many problems affecting our relationship with Nature as a whole, and the bees in particular.

I learnt conventional beekeeping from my grandfather in 2006.

My first awakening happened when I treated my hives against varroa and then found hundreds of antennae on the mesh bottoms. This was the bees’ response to the recommended treatment: self-mutilation.