As environmentalist Damian Carrington explains in his blog: “Bees are in severe decline. Half the UK’s honey bees kept in managed hives have gone, wild honey bees are close to extinction and solitary bees are declining in more than half the places they have been studied.”

If farmers are forced to do by hand what bees do for us for free – pollination – it is estimated that the cost in the UK alone would be £1.8 billion a year. Imagine what that would do to food prices!

Over the coming months, we are going to follow Bob Sturgess and his hives. Bob has kept bees for over 40 years and is going to help our farm manager, Keith, find ways to make the farm more insect friendly.

First of all, here’s a little background on bee-life.

It’s crucial that the bees survive the winter well. In the past, bee keepers used to supply their hives with a sugar syrup to replace the honey that had been harvested in the summer. Now, however, Bob uses a fructose fondant that seems to be much more effective and his bees have emerged this spring stronger than ever.

Bees have a flight range of about 2 miles from their hive. A few years back, a healthy hive of bees was worth about £50; now they are so rare they cost from £400-500. It means that you have to place the hives not only relatively close to as many flowering plants as possible, but also tucked away so that they don’t get stolen.

Bee society is very hierarchical. House bees are the young ones; their job is to keep the hive spick and span by removing the bodies of dead compatriots and sealing up holes with propolis to keep everything watertight. As they get older, they graduate to being forager bees and zoom off to gather nectar.

Drones are male bees and they don’t do any work at all – apart from fertilizing the queen. It sounds like the perfect life, until autumn arrives when they are kicked out and die.

Queen bees usually live for a couple of years and at the height of the summer will be laying up to 1,000 eggs a week. Once a year the queen leaves the hive, taking about 50-60% of the bees with her in order to start a new colony. This is known as a swarm and as Bob says: “As soon as the lupins come out, that’s when the bees start to swarm.”

Look out for our next bee-related blog which will include details of an amazing French seed mix designed specifically for bees, which produces months of flowers and looks utterly gorgeous.

We thought it would be fun to share with you some of the really lovely new brands that we came across at the recent Food & Drink Expo in Birmingham. It may not be a title that trips off the tongue, but it was jam-packed with some properly amazing companies.

The Sea Spice Company
Many of the country’s top chefs, like two-star Michelin winner Nathan Outlaw, have been getting thoroughly excited about this small Edinburgh-based company’s products. Set up by foodie authors Fiona Houston and Xa Milne, it produces seaweed seasonings. There are five varieties to choose from, each with an intensely different flavour. They can be used in myriad ways to enhance the taste of everything from mushrooms and peppers through to langoustine and partridge. Culturally, we are not used to cooking with seaweed in the UK, but don’t let this put you off – these products totally wowed us when we tried them in various recipes at the show.

Ogilvy’s Honey
Ogilvy’s Honey is another recent start-up that deserves to do really well. Founder Shamus Ogilvy trained as a chef before turning his attention solely to honey. While many people get excited about different types of coffee bean or varieties of dark chocolate, Shamus is passionate about the glories of golden nectar. He’s travelled around the world sourcing rare, sustainable honeys from as far apart as New Zealand and the Himalayas through to the Zambezi and Argentina. Eight flavours available at the moment (the number changes according to supply issues, like freak storms) and each one lingers in the memory when you try it; they taste like honey, but there is so, so much more to them than the bog standard pots that you find in supermarkets. It’s like the difference between a bottle of Blue Nun and Château Palmer ’96. Bee-licious!

Trotter’s Independent Condiments
After indulging in some of Byam Trotter’s Wild Garlic Pesto, our MD had a big smile on his face and came home brandishing jars of it for his wife to try. One of the idiosyncrasies – and joys – of Trotter’s is that it produces seasonal condiments so, for example, its Wild Garlic Pesto is only available while stocks last until the next harvest. The company specialises in sourcing, developing and producing products that are unusual or unobtainable in the UK. So, look out for Nettle Salsa, fruit-based Mostarda and Hot Pepper Jelly amongst others.

Cartmel Sticky Toffee Puddings
Much as she loved the Wild Garlic Pesto, the boss’s wife rather wishes that he’d brought home some Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding as well, instead of polishing it off in the car. Founded in the back of Cartmel village shop 20 years ago, this isn’t a new brand, but it’s one of those ones that you can easily miss. Connoisseurs like Rick Stein, Nigella Lawson and Anthony Worral Thompson know all about it, however, and are all big fans. Variations on the theme – Sticky Toffee Apple Crumble and Sticky Ginger Pudding – are thoroughly worth trying.

Spicentice
Another family-run company, Spicentice specialises in blending herbs and spices to make unique rubs, chutneys and spice kits. If you want to make a fresh, authentic curry or tagine, this is the place to get your seasoning from. All the ingredients are natural with no nasties like MSG added. Our sales director, Lawrence, swears by them.

We’re giving away our lovely Belvoir canvas shopping bags to everyone who buys three or more bottles of either cordial or 75cl pressé. So make sure you don’t forget to drop in on us.

We’re situated near the theatre on the second floor (2E36); it’s a perfect place for spotting all the celebrity chefs as they make their way to the theatre. This week’s cook-athon includes Phil Vickery, resident chef on ITV’s This Morning, and the Fabulous Baker Boys who are coming in on Sunday; we’ve got a bit of a crush on them.

There are some brilliant stalls around us too. The Happy Cupcake Company has a stand that looks as if it has come straight from the set of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, while the very cheery guy at Caramel Rum is using our  Organic Ginger cordial to make a cocktail that can turn your ears inside out.

In fact, our cordials are a real hit with many of the liqueur specialists here. Our new friends at Condessa, a Welsh company that makes cream and fruit liqueurs, have concocted a spectacular cocktail using our new Organic Lemon cordial mixed with their cherry brandy and fizzy water. It’s utterly delicious.

We’ve also got new gift boxes to give away which, though we say it ourselves, look utterly charming. They fit three full-size bottles and are ideal as an alternative present to chocolate eggs at Easter.

Made with hand-picked, English elderflowers, it’s perfectly blended with spring water to bring you that cool, crisp taste which is unique to Belvoir. And, as with everything we make here on the farm, it has no preservatives, artificial colours or flavours added to it. It tastes lovely because it’s made with nothing but lovely, natural ingredients – elderflowers, lemons and cane sugar.

You’ll find our ready-to-drink elderflower cordial exclusively at Sainsbury’s. It’s in family-sized bottles for convenience and decorated with a gloriously cheerful label – the Union Jack made up out of hundreds of tiny elderflowers. So, join us and raise a glass of cordial to the summer and to all things quintessentially British.

It was a difficult decision to make, but after much heated debate, we have finally chosen our winner. It is a 1953 photograph of the Durham Street party, in Gosport, Hants held to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation, sent in by Jeanie Cole. As she explains: “The picture was taken outside a general grocery shop that was a few doors away from my grandparents’ house. The little girl at the front with a hat on is Margaret Quinnell. We still see each other occasionally when we meet at our school reunion get-togethers.”

Jeanie adds: “My Grandmother would have been watching everything that was going on sitting on her window sill; as she was crippled, she often sat there watching the world go by.”

You’ll find Jeanie’s picture decorating our lovely bottles of Summer Celebration Punch which will be on the shelves from the 1st April 2012.

We’ve added a few of our favorite entries to the blog for you to enjoy too. The picture of the clowns was sent in by Stuart Kelly in Sutton Coldfield.

Sue Smith from Whiston sent in a picture of the Jackson Street party to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation.

Paul Green’s snap of the Workhouse Lane party in Wisbech shows that whatever age you are, you’re never too old to party!

And finally, Kathy Cakebread sent in a cracking shot of all her friends in Chatham.

We completely agree with that. We’ve got one full time office dog, Echo, our bouncy cocker spaniel. Tallulah, a slightly over-weight Norfolk terrier, comes in part time for a rest when she’s not on nanny duty with our MD’s children.

It’s not easy being an office dog. You have to love everyone (not that difficult when there are so many digestive biscuits around); you have to be quiet and sleep in your basket when there are meetings on – even when you want to play; worst of all, you have to learn that each time you hear the sound of crinkly paper being unwrapped you’re not going to be given a tit bit. Clearing a boardroom of its occupants in 20 seconds thanks to escaping wind is also not something to be proud of.

On the plus side, however, there are loads of people to love you and a limitless supply of cuddles. And when you sit up on your back legs and beg, everyone laughs.

Being a country office dog is much easier than being a town hound. Echo had her office dog apprenticeship in London; an irrepressible flirt, she loved going on the tube and was frequently given little treats by friendly strangers. Unfortunately, it meant she got tube-sick and threw up at least once a week, much to her owner’s mortification. Tallulah spent three years being smuggled into the offices of a fashion magazine; she usually got bored sitting under a desk and decamped to the next-door magazine, Country Living, where everyone cheerfully ditched their computers to play with her. She ended up being the star of several photo-shoots.

If you have an office dog, why not post a picture of it on our Facebook page and we can share the joy of these happy canines.

But making toffee apples is part of growing up. It shouldn’t be banned! We’ve come up with a seriously easy, quick and relatively unmessy way of making toffee apples that should keep both kids and parents cheering. And paired with some Belvoir Apple & Ginger cordial, everyone is guaranteed to be smiling.

Ingredients
6 apples
6 lolly sticks
100g plain toffees (any supermarket own-brand will do)
½ eggcup of water
6 drops vanilla essence

Method
1. Mix the water, toffees and vanilla in a pan and gently heat.
2. Push the sticks into the apples and then place them on a baking tray lined with lightly greased aluminium foil.
3. Once the toffee mixture has fully melted and there are no lumps left, dip the apples into it. After they have been fully covered place them on the baking trail and leave in the fridge to chill.

The poll was organised by our friends at British Food Fortnight and over 22,000 people cast votes, with nearly 40% of them rooting for Lincolnshire.

In an area renowned for its traditional and unique produce, we reckon that Belvoir Fruit Farms can hold its head high. We focus entirely on making natural drinks, with NO nasties added – you’ll never find any artificial colorants, flavours or preservatives in our cordials and pressés. And you’ll never believe the hassle we go through to grow our elders so we can make the purest elderflower cordial on the market.

To every gardener’s dismay, elders seem to sprout wherever you don’t want them. But you try growing them in nice, straight lines in a field and it’s a nightmare. They loathe it and try and die whenever they can, particularly in a drought year like this one. What they really love are hedgerows filled with nutrient-rich soil made by years of accumulated leaf mulch; they love lots of water and hate being pruned.

It’s because they are so difficult that hardly anyone else bothers to grow them and, as a result, most other cordial makers import their syrup from Eastern Europe. But we’ve spent years perfecting the art of cultivating elderflowers and it shows in the sheer quality of our award winning organic cordial. Try some yourself and you’ll taste the difference. It’s truly British.

Elderberries – packed with anti-viral properties, these little powerhouses help shorten the duration of flu and are a useful antidote to coughs. The elderberry season is short, so you need to get out there quick and start picking as soon as the berries are ripe. (Don’t eat unripe elderberries – they cause sickness and diarrhoea.)

Recipe: simmer 500g of elderberries with 250ml honey and a sliced lemon for 25 – 30 minutes, until the fruit is soft. Remove from heat, strain and allow the liquid to cool. Pour into a sterilized bottle and store in the fridge.

Rosehips – another of nature’s vitamin treasure troves packed with anti-oxidants and a host of B vitamins. Turned into syrup and poured over ice-cream or pancakes, it’s a cunning way to get all sorts of goodies into the kids without them noticing.

Recipe: simmer 250g of slightly crushed rosehips in 500ml water, along with a cinnamon stick for 20 minutes. Strain and then add the same amount of sugar as there is liquid – probably about 125g – and stir until dissolved. Filter, cool and then pour into sterilized bottles.

Chestnuts – a humble staple of the medieval diet, chestnuts ooze with essential minerals including iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. The classic way to eat them is roasted, but it’s more fun to turn them into jam.

Recipe: Gather 1.5kg of chestnuts; cut a cross into each chestnut and place into a pan of water; boil for 10 minutes. Peel the nuts and then simmer for a further 40 minutes. Puree them once cooled and then add the same weight of sugar, plus 3/4ltr water per kilo of puree/sugar mix. Add some vanilla extract and then simmer the whole lot for 15mins. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.
If you haven’t got the time to forage for yourself, raise a cheer because we’ve done it for you. Our Belvoir Spiced Winter Berries, available from our website, cordial is inspired by the autumn harvest and is made with elderberries, oranges and blackberries, along with nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Add to hot water and you’ve got the perfect hot toddy.

You might be wondering why it’s so crucial for us all to conserve the country’s meadows – they just sit there and don’t appear to do anything, so how come they’re so valuable? The answer is simple. Apart from providing extraordinary habitats for a wealth of flora and fauna – not to mention our desperately endangered bee population – they’re also an important store of carbon. Moreover, meadowland is vital for reducing the impact of flooding and, because it isn’t sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides, it provides valuable, nutrient rich grazing for livestock.

We’re working with Plantlife in two ways and this is where we need your help. Firstly, every time a new visitor subscribes to our newsletter, we will donate 50p to Plantlife’s save the meadows campaign up to a total of £5,000. Secondly, click here to receive a packet of wildflower seeds to plant in your own garden. This way you can create mini havens for hedgehogs, bees and all the other small creatures that live in our gardens and hedgerows that we very rarely think about. And what’s even better, is that you will be able to enjoy a colourful and beautiful array of flowers throughout the summer and early autumn.

For Plantlife’s essential tips on how best to grow your own meadow, click here.