Steve’s Bees was founded in 2018 by Steve’s daughter Jo. Jo originally qualified and practised as a Property Lawyer for many years until taking a short break to have her family. In this time sadly her father Steve passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. After a lifetime in Print, Steve had only recently retired, planning to enjoy his time on his farm in Crowborough, East Sussex.
Sadly Steve didn’t get chance to fulfill a dream of keeping bees on his farm. Jo wanted to see this through for him and began training that summer with the intention of keeping one hive. Even though determined to learn and keep a colony of bees in his memory, Jo didn’t expect to fall in love with them and begin a hobby that quickly grew into a business. By the end of the summer Jo had been successful in fulfilling Steve’s dream on the family farm and that was the start of Steve’s Bees.
The following years saw the prolific, wonderfully calm colony grow, and together with the addition of a few swarms, the apiary had become an exciting place to be. The farm surrounded by woodlands, hedgerows and meadows led to multi floral wildflower honey harvests.
During the winter months and determined not to waste any by-product of the hive, Jo began experimenting and developed hand and lip balms made with the beeswax, initially for Christmas presents for family. The products received such a response from friends and family asking to buy them that the only way forward was to obtain the necessary legal documents required to sell. The Cosmetic Product Safety Reports (CPSR) were obtained and the order book was opened. Over the following months it was a challenge to keep up with large orders of the balms, especially when the amazing healing properties of the hand balm were put to the test during the Covid hand washing period and the demand increased yet again.
Due to many requests, 2022 will be the year where the exciting Bee Encounter Days and Bee Support Days will be launched!
A dream, together with dedication, passion and hard work has lead to Steve’s Bees and it’s exciting to see it grow.
