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Andrew Scarlett
Scarletts (Scotland)
The diverse mix of fruit blossoms and summer
flowers offered by the Scottish landscape allows
Andrew Scarlett to produce two delicious and
distinctly different honey varieties – Blossom
and Heather. Andrew started Scarletts (Scotland)
nine years ago and his state of the art
production facility, built six years ago with
the help of a processing grant, is based near
Meigle in Perthshire. Andrew learned the craft
from his father and grandfather, ‘my earliest
memories are of my grandfather extracting honey
with an old hand extractor. We now use high
speed machinery capable of bottling 600 jars of
honey per hour.’
The siting of hives is crucial to production and
Andrew works closely with farmers, gamekeepers,
shepherds and land owners. Changes in farming
policy directly affect commercial bee producers
and the recent take up of environmental schemes
such as beetle banks and uncultivated endrigs
has had a beneficial impact on production.
Andrew is also watching closely for further
signs of change as a result of CAP reforms.
Bees have a flying range of about three miles
and ideally hives should be situated as close as
possible to the source of the nectar. The best
sites for bees are on managed heather hills and
principal nectar and pollen crops include winter
oilseed rape, willow, fruit tree blossoms,
sycamore, hedgerow blossoms, raspberries,
strawberries, lime, clover and heather. Andrew
deploys more than 1,200 hives, each holding up
to 80,000 bees. During April and May hives are
mostly put on oilseed rape and then shifted to
phacelia in June. In summer months the bees
forage
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the lowland nectars producing blossom honey
before going to the heather in mid-July to
produce the rich, distinctive Heather Honey.
‘That’s what it’s all about’ he says ‘not many
people realise that bees are extremely important
to the pollination of crops and if they didn’t
do it, farmers wouldn’t get such perfectly
shaped, high quality produce.’
Attentive management of hives is essential to a
good crop and swarming must be prevented
wherever possible, which involves checking them
every seven to nine days throughout the breeding
season of May, June
and July. ‘Bees are like cattle in that some are
better for milk production and some are better
for beef. There are also umpteen different
strains of bee, some produce vast numbers of
progeny but don’t work well in poor weather,
while the more native, smaller black bees don’t
breed as well but work well in all weathers. The
trick is to establish a variety of strains so as
to minimise the risk to the business. Honey
production is almost totally dependant on
weather conditions and we have just experienced
the best winter in the last eight years. We can
budget for costs but it’s almost impossible to
forecast yield.’
Colony collapse disorder has made the headlines
recently with producers around the world
recording record losses of hives. It’s worse in
the US where honey production is worth $200m
(£101m) a year and bees are needed to pollinate
$15bn (£7.6bn) worth of fruit, veg and nuts.*
Andrew on the other hand has fortunately
experienced none of this decline so far and
normally expects to lose between 10-20% of his
hives each winter. Andrew has little problem
with supply and demand either and says ‘we can
never produce enough for the ever growing market
for healthy, locally produced food which is
additive and preservative free.’ After just nine
years Andrew is now supplying a range of honey
to Tesco and bottling for Duchy Originals as
well as selling at numerous farmers markets,
delicatessens, garden centres and food shops
including the exclusive House of Bruar in the
heart of the heather covered Scottish Highlands.
*Source: MoneyWeek May 2007
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