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Current available positions

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Bee Farmers Apprenticeship

A unique opportunity is available as applications are now open for a bee farmers apprentice who will work as an integral part of our team at Northumberland Honey Company and undertake the Bee Farmers Assocation Apprenticeship Scheme.

The BFA apprenticeship scheme is a 3 year programme, culminating in the Diploma in Excellence in Bee Farming. 

The apprenticeship is ‘on the job’ learning with 2 weeks per year ‘block teaching’ which is classroom based, but the remainder of the year you learn working alongside your host trainer/ employer – Northumberland Honey Company.

As apprentice bee farmer you will learn the workings of all aspects of an industry leading bee farm. Working very closely with the directors of Northumberland Honey Company. On completion of the apprenticeship it is expected you will be working at a level of being able to successfully manage a bee farm. Key requirements and specific learning elements for the apprenticeship are listed below.

There may be opportunities to work on different bee farms throughout the country and visit different businesses in order to gain breadth and variety of experience also. This is completely dependent on the individual candidates desire to do so, but at Northumberland Honey Company we are well connected to bee farms through the UK and also in New Zealand with plenty of opportunities to maximise experience on the apprenticeship.

The Bee Farmers Apprenticeship has usually 1 intake per season in autumn, you can start in emploment with your host trainer at anytime through the year before officially joining the apprenticeship intake. 

Start Date

We are looking to start this position as soon as possible but are happy to wait for the right individual who may have school to complete, or notice periods to work. 

Background

At Northumberland Honey Co we currently manage around 400 honey production colonies and 800 mating nuclei being one of the UKs largest breeders of queen bees, and producer of quality honey.

We work from a SALSA approved purpose built production facility at Haltwhistle, Northumberland.

A career in bee farming is very fulfilling, combining working in some of the best scenary that Northumberland has to offer, and working with bees on a close level day in day out. Completion of the Bee Farmers Apprenticeship opens doors to work on any bee farms in the world furnishing you with skills and qualifications to work in the industry at a high level.

The Apprenticeship Learning Programme

Underpinning knowledge will be delivered expert Bee Farmer industry trainers in two blocks per year, each of two weeks. You will study:

  • introduction to beekeeping
  • equipment
  • carpentry and basic woodworking skills
  • seasonal management
  • queen rearing and stock improvement
  • botany and forage sources
  • pollen and nutrition
  • honey bee anatomy
  • honey bee diseases
  • integrated pest management
  • microscopy
  • processing hive products
  • bottling and presentation
  • setting up a business
  • business structures
  • finance
  • marketing
  • the competitive environment
  • the industry worldwide
  • health and safety
  • first aid
  • food hygiene.

Whilst working as a bee farming apprentice for Northumberland Honey Company you will be working with an industry leading team, from sales and marketing manager, production staff, and beekeepers all with a significant background and expertise. You will join one of the most forward thinking bee farms in the UK and gain experience in all areas of the business which should hopefully give you meaningful insight, skills and knowledge to be able to choose your career path following the apprenticeship. Completion of the apprenticeship gives an industry recognised qualifaction which is effectively a passport to work at a high level on any bee farm in the world.

Following completion of the apprenticeship it is anticipated that a full time role similar to the current available Beekeeper vacancy will be on offer. With significant career progression available.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

You will be an excellent communicator, team player, a passion for beekeeping at the highest level. Comfortable working alone / independently. As part of communication being comfortable calling the boss and discussing / working through any concerns or issues.

A can do attitude to work and learning new skills, a desire to starting early, working late if needed and pulling together to work as a team to get the job done. If you see someone struggling with a lot of work, being that person that steps in to help out.

You will have a very good level of fitness, no medical requirements that would prevent you from fulfilling the role, and no known allergy to bees.

You will have a good interest in bees, and desire to learn about beekeeping on a commercial level. You will have interest in food production to the highest quality standard. You will be comfortable will learning new skills, and be able to undertake self-directed learning.

You will be passionate about helping produce all natural hive products, from pure honey to beeswax products and cosmetics.

These are all the strengths of our current team and strengths we would like to build on.

Other Essential Requirements for the Role:

  • Self-motivated and committed to completing a 3 year apprenticeship programme. 
  • Demonstrable excellent time management skills
  • Demonstrable team working skills
  • Ability to work under pressure in challenging conditions.
  • Minimum age of 18 at the start of the apprenticeship.
  • Clean driving licence and experience of driving.
  • GCSEs and A-Levels.

 

Desirable Criteria

(note, the following criteria are not essential only desirable)

  • Evidence of team working and lone working in previous jobs
  • Previous beekeeping experience.

 

Application Process

Please complete the application form below.

Whilst we endeavour to get back to ALL applicants it may be that we can only respond to shortlisted applicants. We will only be able to review those applications who are complete and full applications. Once you submit your initial expression of interest form below, you will receive a copy of the submission via e-mail which will confirms that we have received your application.

Working Hours

Regular working hours are Monday to Friday 9am to 3pm.

With the apprenticeship being beekeeping focused, there are times in the season where colonies are migrated, there is late evening/ early morning work and work can be dictated by weather patterns there may also be occasion where some weekend work is required. This is very seasonal and purely dictated by the beekeeping work/ weather patterns.

It is envisaged that a reasonable amount of overtime will be available in the summer months and you’ll be able to work as the beekeeping workload dictates. For example there are 3 key honey harvests, spring (end May/ start of June), summer (July), and heather (September) where honey harvest over the course of a week can involve extended hours, equally bee hive moving to crops such as OSR in spring and heather in August can have 1-2 weeks of extended working to get the bees moved and in place for the flowering crops. As flowering is dictated by the weather we can often have to respond to moving bees with only a couple of days notice. Even with extended working weeks it is likely we would not be working over 40 hours in a week.

As part of the apprenticeship you will also be involved with sales to the public and attending marketing / sales events, these are usually planned well in advance.

Annual Leave

Annual Leave is 6 weeks pro rata.

Salary

Salary starts at £19,500 per annum based on salaried hours of 9am-3pm Monday to Friday, reviewed annually.

Work outside of normal hours will be classed as overtime and paid extra accordingly.

Training

Structured training will be provided as part of the apprenticeship scheme, all new starters have a structured induction/ training programme. You will be expected to maintain a portfolio, be able to work independantly and as part of a team. 

You will be introduced to David and Celia Rudland who deliver the 2 week block teaching each year and are the apprenticeship assessors. Please take time to watch Celia talking about the apprenticeship scheme in the video below.

Closing Date

We have not set a closing date for applications as this is a fairly niche role and applicants we expect will be less than our usual job roles we offer. We do however expect to have the position filled during sometime in summer 2025. So if you are interested please do apply as soon as possible.

All applications are treated with the utmost confidence and references/ previous employers only contacted after a provisional job offer is made and accepted.

Interview Process

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview, this will be quite informal, and involve spending upto a couple of hours with the team here and getting some experience of what we do on a day to day basis. There may be tasks set ranging from the administration side, to the beekeeping side such as packing orders, labelling honey, through to getting into a beesuit and handling some bees – full training at interview will be given on how to approach any task, it is simply for us to be able to ascertain how well you take on instruction, and how comfortable you are with some example tasks that you would be encountering on your apprenticeship. It also gives you opportunity to see what a day in the life of a bee farming apprentice might be like, and give you a good insight into the role. 

How to Apply

Please complete the application form below and if you’d like to have an informal chat just give the office a call on 01434 322981.

Bee Farmers Apprentice - Application Form

If you have any questions or difficulties completing this application form, or would like the application form in a different format please contact us on lukeandsuzie@northumberlandhoney.co.uk or 07752 534953

Beekeeper Role

We are recruiting for a beekeeper who will play a significant part in our beekeeping operation, with opportunity to become specialised in either honey production or queen rearing depending on the individuals preferences.

Although this role is ‘seasonal’, this role could become full time permanent if desired with opportunity to work in other areas of the business in the beekeeping ‘off season’ as we are busy throughout the year.

Background

At Northumberland Honey Co we currently manage 800 mating nuclei for open mating of queens, on a 4 week cycle. With between 100-200 nuclei for instrumentally inseminated queens and nucleus colonies for sale.

Our queen rearing apiary runs a starter / finisher system with upto 16 finishers at any one time. We incubate queen cells in our queen lab where we also undertake grafting and instrumental insemination. We currently instrumentally inseminate around 200 queens a season and aim to produce 2,000 open mated queens, with the plan to increase this number.

Our honey production colonies numbering 3-400 run in BS national equipment.

Key Abilities Required (Queen Rearing)

  • Stocking mating nucs (apidea type)
  • Tidying queen bee lab and workshop keeping organised
  • Transferring queen cells from incubator out into mating nucs
  • Assisting with managing queen rearing apiary, setting up starters, finishers and managing nuclei
  • Pulling / caging mated and virgin queens
  • Checking emergence rates from cells
  • Assisting with managing drone rearer colonies
  • Banking virgin queens
  • Gathering drones for instrumental insemination
  • Maintaining records on % successes and failures.
  • Reporting back on field status
  • Working as part of a close team and also individually
  • Ensuring colonies are in good health and feed status
  • Excellent queen handling abilities and cell handling
  • Being able to mark and clip queens

Key Abilities Required (Honey Production)

  • Swarm Control / Prevention
  • Clipping and Marking Queens
  • Basic Beekeeping carpentry
  • Able to move and handle heavy supers/ brood boxes full of honey
  • Excellent understanding and awareness of bee diseases and management
  • Track record of honey production
  • Clean driving licence, familiar with driving 4×4 pickups.
  • Able to work long days/ early starts and variable days of the week to fit with beekeeping demands / weather.
 

If you are applying and do not meet all the key abilities above we would expect that you would have a good understanding of what is required, with the ability to apply knowledge and learn quickly. Training will be provided.

As part of the working week we have a structured job plan, based around whiteboard planning with a date / timetable of events flowing from one task to the other.

As a whole team at Northumberland Honey Co we have weekly staff briefings on a Monday morning where the whole team is present to discuss the work of the week ahead, along with staff socials.

Our beekeeping season starts in April and runs through to end of September.

This job role is a seasonal role starting completing end of September.

Working Hours

Working hours are planned to be a minimum of 3 days a week. 

With beekeeping / weather patterns there will be some weekend work is required. 

Annual Leave

Annual Leave is 6 weeks pro rata, it is however expected that the bulk of leave is taken outside of key high workload periods in the beekeeping season.

Salary

Salary dependent on experience and is highly competitive within the industry.

Training

Training will be provided, all new starters have a structured induction/ training programme, however it is expected that you will already have beekeeping experience. If you don’t have all the beekeeping experience we require, but have transferable skills / other beekeeping experience please do still apply or discuss with us further.

For experienced beekeepers there may be scope to undertake training whilst with us in instrumental insemination, bee breeding and selection.

Closing Date

We have not set a closing date for applications as this is a fairly niche role and applicants we expect will be less than our usual job roles we offer.

All applications are treated with the utmost confidence and references/ previous employers only contacted after a provisional job offer is made and accepted.

How to Apply

Please complete the application form below

Beekeeper - Application Form

If you have any questions or difficulties completing this application form, or would like the application form in a different format please contact us on lukeandsuzie@northumberlandhoney.co.uk

Northumberland Honey Co
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