Meet the COOK Bees

What do frozen food and honey bees have in common? Not much, on the face of it … unless you’re me: the cousin of COOK’s co-founder Ed Perry and a keen beekeeper for ten years now.

People are waking up to the worrying decline in bee numbers in rural areas. This loss of pollinators impacts us all, so I have decided to do what I can to help. It is, perhaps, a bit rich coming from me as a Londoner for most of my life, but there is now no shortage of people keeping bees in the capital. So I decided to talk to Ed about raising awareness about beekeeping outside of London. With shops all over the country, COOK is well placed to meet potential beekeepers in the areas that need them most.

So we sent out an email to customers in a some specific area around the M3/M4 to see who might be interested in a year’s free beekeeping, courtesy of COOK. That email led us to meeting Roy, Sarah and John. They all shared an interest in bees, had a suitable garden, and – we’re guessing – had secretly always wanted to wear funny suits!

After months of preparation and discussions, their hives arrived six weeks ago. I have been visiting once a week to each of their houses to guide them through an inspection of their hives. We have avoided our first potential swarm, seen queen bees, eggs, larvae and generally marvelled at the extraordinary business of bees. In short, it’s all going brilliantly. We won’t get enough honey to put on the shelves of any COOK stores just yet; it’s all about creating awareness of our environment and how what we do impacts even the humble bee.

If you’d like to know more about this fascinating and important hobby, the best place to start is the website of the British Beekeepers Association: https://www.bbka.org.uk/ And, if you want to try it yourself, you could try taking one of their Introduction to Beekeeping courses in your local area.

More news from the COOK bees to come!

Rebecca Teare