Three HivesHoney

The first harvest is in. The jars are ours, for now.

Three Hives is small-batch honey from Lauderdale in the Scottish Borders. Raw and unfiltered. We are keeping this year's harvest for ourselves, and aim to have honey to sell next year. Follow along on Instagram to see how it goes.

Follow on InstagramFacebook

Planned jar sizes: 227g and 340g, shipped across the UK.

A frame of capped honeycomb held up beside the hive, with bees walking across it

From winter hives to the first jar

The bees set the timetable, so we cannot give you a date. Here is the year as it runs, and where we are in it.

  1. We are here

    Autumn and winter

    The bees cluster up for the cold. We build windbreaks, rearrange the apiary and get everything ready for the year ahead.

  2. We are here

    Spring

    First flights on the first warm days. The colonies build up, and we aim to grow from three hives to eight.

  3. We are here

    Summer

    The bees forage and fill the supers. We mostly stay out of their way.

  4. We are here

    Harvest

    If the bees have done their job, we take the honey off, jar it, and tell our soon-to-launch email list first.

Honey as the bees made it.

Raw

The honey goes into the jar as it came from the comb. It is not pasteurised.

Unfiltered

Strained only enough to take out the wax. Nothing finer, so the pollen stays in.

Made in Lauderdale

From a small number of hives in the Scottish Borders, in batches small enough to count the jars.

One hive, then three.

One of the hives, wrapped for winter, standing on an old oak barrel in the garden

Three Hives started with one hive. By the end of our first year there were three, which we never planned. It is a small start, and we are learning from our bees every day.

Read the story

From the apiary

All journal entries

First Harvest

Uncapping, spinning and bottling: our first small harvest.

Summer Update

Honey building, calm bees, and a glimpse of one of our queens.

Hive Security

Wasps get desperate as the year turns, so we built a different front door.

Three Hives Honey is born

A second swarm, a sheet on the grass, and how we ran out of hives.

Quick answers

Where is Three Hives Honey based?
Three Hives Honey is a small beekeeping business in Lauderdale, in the Scottish Borders, Scotland.
What kind of honey do you make?
Small-batch raw, unfiltered honey. It is not pasteurised, and it is strained only enough to take out the wax, so the pollen stays in.
Is the honey for sale?
Not yet. We took our first harvest in September 2026 and are keeping it this year. We aim to have honey to sell next year.
How many hives do you have?
Three, and we aim to grow to eight next year.
How can I find out when honey is ready?
Follow us on Instagram or Facebook, or join our email list when it launches. We will tell the list first.

Follow the hives.

Our first harvest is in and the honey is staying with us this year. Follow along on Instagram and you will see how the hives get on.

Follow on Instagram