A SCHEME designed to bring some young blood into the UK bee farming industry has unveiled its latest recruits, including a 21-year-old part-time fire fighter, a 19-year-old school leaver and a 24-year-old shop worker.

The Bee-a-Beefarmer scheme, developed by Rowse Honey with the Bee Farmers Association, aims to boost the British bee count in order to safeguard the future of the bee farming industry, recruiting a total of 30 new apprentices over three years.

Insect experts have warned that the UK is home to just 30% of the bee hives it needs in order to future-proof its pollinators count and boost honey production. It has been estimated that the country needs to increase its bee farmer count by a minimum of 33%, to a total of 848 farmers, over the next decade or face lower availability of produce and potentially higher food prices.

In 2015, the average age of a bee farmer in Britain was 66 years old. However, the launch of the Bee-a-Beefarmer campaign last year resulted in the recruitment of 10 new apprentices with an average age of 19. Between them, these apprentices have already added an additional 60 million honey bees to the UK bee farming industry and between them care for over 1000 hives, which combined have resulted in the production of over 44,000 jars of honey (11 tonnes) in the past 12 months.

It is intended that a further six apprentices will join the scheme during 2016, followed by another 10 in 2017 who have yet to be appointed. Interested candidates can apply for the scheme via the Bee-a-Beefarmer section on the Rowse Honey website.

Mr Weekes commented: “Since joining the scheme I’ve learnt so much. As well as on-the-job training, we’re able to do practical courses which are extremely beneficial when running your own bee farm, which is something I hope to do in the future. If you enjoy being outdoors and like bees, I can’t recommend this scheme enough.”

Rowse Honey MD Ian Ainsworth said: “Having officially launched the Bee-a-Beefarmer apprenticeship scheme last year, we received a fantastic response from the British public and hundreds of applications for our next wave of new recruits. We’re delighted to now unveil our latest apprentices as we continue to boost UK honey bee numbers and future-proof bee farming in the UK.

“There continues to be a skills shortage and an ageing profile in the bee farming industry. The number of commercial bee hives in the UK has declined by 73% over the last century, falling from one million hives in 1900 to less than 274,000 in 2015.”