Adam's Apiaries: Small Scale Honey Room (Part 1)

With a clunk from the front of the house my soul left my body. I was sure that my wife had said she was out for the day. With a freshly fitted kitchen, I had decided that this was the best place for me get my spring crop extracted. In my eyes this was a huge crop, but being honest it was only a few supers. So having waved my wife of for the morning, I set to getting everything ready. Luckily the clunk had been my spaniel dropping a ball across the front room.

The cause of my soul leaving me.

I cleaned, then cleaned again, after all I'm always getting told off for man cleaning. With the kitchen now looking like a Mr Muscle advert, I wiped the sweat off my brow and made a brew, did my normal and left a trail of sugar on the worktop, then proceeded to clean again. It was then time to get all my new (to me) shiny equipment out, then it was back to cleaning. As you can see there was a lot of cleaning!! But with a house with dogs, a child and me in it I wanted to do everything I could to make sure my honey was not being contaminated.

My dream extractor!

As I set into the few supers that I needed to extract, I came across one more issue. A single bee, who had found its way through an upstairs window, found me, then returned to the hive to tell her friends that there was a easy meal on offer. Before long there was 100s of bees in the house!! Luckily there was not a lot left to do, so I cracked on to get finished. This was made easier by the fact that I had got a 9 frame electric extractor. All finished up, I managed to get my honey bucketed up, without any bees in it. Waiting for the hot uncapping tray to finish gave me time to open windows and doors everywhere to vent the bees.

As you can see from that little adventure, if my plans for growth were to go ahead then I need to find a more suitable space that I could build to comply with regulations and more importantly not end in divorce! I need a plan. I have already added another shed to the garden to store equipment and I will say to those who are starting like me you really do end up needing space.

It wasn't long before a cunning plan came to me over a sausage sandwich one Saturday morning. I proposed my pitch to my wife, that maybe we should turn the old workshop at the back of the garage into a 'utility room'. Well, I think it took less than 10 seconds for my wife to realise that if I were suggesting any more building work on top of the already long list that there had to be another reason. It would have to be something to do with bees!

At this point I would like to say my plan was to grow my bees organically, rolling back the money to slowly increase. That could not be further from what has happened! Yes, I have made a little bit of money on honey sales, but it does not come close to what has been spent! To build a honey room on the cheap was going to take time. My first port of call was to clear and create a room that could be kept clean, was sealed off to the outside world and would do the job. From there, over time, I could get it to where it needed to be in order to be compliant. Straight away I needed a stud wall, a ceiling and a new door. Oh, and I needed to rewire!

With all this in mind I set to it. With every tool I could lay my hands on I set about my project that had somehow jumped to the top of the 'To Do' list. The stud wall was easy. The ceiling was not. Rewiring lead to tripping out the house a few times but I got there in the end. I chose LED lights which are brighter than anything we have in the house and save on energy. I painted all the walls a clean white and sealed the concrete floor.

By now my subtle hinting to my folks, that their kitchen was old and outdated, had paid off and in return for removing all their kitchen units I got to keep whatever I liked. I now have some lovely floor and wall units, a sink, and a under-counter fridge all with plenty of life left in them. There is room for my 9 frame electric honey extractor, my hot uncapping tray, the full supers and the honey buckets. Now I just to get water to the garage!

After two years in our project house (and my wife washing up every night) I even gave in and took the time to fit the dishwasher in our kitchen. Once again, although grateful, she knew there must be an ulterior motive and she was right! What a perfect way to wash all my honey buckets! I was on a roll with all this winter bee preparation. I also did an online Food Hygiene for Hygiene Supervisors certificate.

That's when realisation struck! Whilst I had set of to build a honey room, what I had actually built for myself was a lovely bee/man room! Although clean and neat, no specific regulations had been researched. This is my first FAILURE of the 2024 season. Don't get me wrong, it's a great (small space) where I spend my time building and servicing my bee equipment.

It didn't take long for everything bee related to end up in here

From here I need to actually do some reading on what I need in the room, and how I can change it to make it comply in order to get it accredited. I will pick up on this later in the year as I progress with this part of my story.

Details of the requirements for Food Hygiene Regulations and the Food Safety act 1990 can be found on the Food Standards Agency website.

For now though, please share with me some pictures of your honey/bee rooms. I would love to see your setups.