Hive5 Manchester

For individuals they offer practical beekeeping courses that run over 8 weeks, a shorter 2-hour beekeeping experience and a theory beekeeping course. 

For businesses they offer beehive rental and management, corporate away days and group beekeeping experiences. Businesses can also adopt hives at Northern Roots or sponsor school visits and workshops.

For schools they offer pollinator workshops, apiary visits and beehive sponsoring.

For fellow beekeepers and community groups they offer mentoring and voluntary services including running a community apiary and offering beekeeping through social prescribing.

Each session is fully accessible to everyone.

Damson is the Master Beekeeper who started Hive5 Manchester in 2020 as a way to share her passion for beekeeping with a wider variety of people. Having grown up with parents who were beekeepers, some of Damson’s earliest memories are of being dressed in an adult-size bee suit with the arms and legs rolled up ready to help with hive inspections!

“I saw an advert for the beekeeping tender and fell in love with the idea of Northern Roots being the base for Hive5 Manchester. And after visiting the site there was no changing my mind! I honestly think it’s one of the best things to happen to my business.

Northern Roots are a fabulous, unique bunch of people that work so well together. I feel that we have a very similar ethos – we both aim to improve the local environment and engage people with nature. Many of us are so disconnected from the beautiful world around us. I aim to help people engage with their local environment, using honeybees as a door to open people’s eyes to the world around them.”  Damson, Hive5 Manchester

Despite having nearly 15 years of beekeeping knowledge under her belt Damson is still eager to learn more and enjoys picking up tricks from fellow bee farmers she works with.

Bees are fascinating insects, who wouldn’t want to learn more about them?!

All of Hive5’s beekeepers are registered with the BBKA and their hives are registered with the National Bee Unit (Defra). And Damson is now the UK’s youngest Master Beekeeper and is working towards the National Diploma in Beekeeping.

Hive5’s beekeeping courses are designed to help you gain the skill and confidence needed to become a successful beekeeper. Lots of introduction to beekeeping courses are classroom based or have a large number of students for each tutor so we designed out 8-week course to be as hands-on as possible, given that beekeeping is a hands-on hobby. Class sizes are kept small so everyone has plenty of time to practise the techniques and skills, plus ask lots of questions.

The beekeeping experiences are a 2hr taster into the world of beekeeping, giving you the opportunity to see into the hive and get hands on if you wish. You’ll be guided through a hive inspection, with our expert beekeepers pointing out what we’d routinely expect to see in a hive as well as interesting behaviours or sights that can differ across the season. At the end of the session we try to offer honey tasting and the opportunity to buy honey from the apiary you’ve just visited, although this is dependent on supply.

“A fabulous taster session. Damson was so informative and gave us brilliant hands on experience with the bees” Robert

“After going on this course I feel ready to start bee keeping. The materials and course notes were clearly delivered in a comprehensive and friendly atmosphere. I am very happy to give this course a 5 star review.” Jayne

“My husband and I really enjoyed our experience. Special thanks to Damson who was extremely knowledgeable and made the experience really enjoyable” Susan

Did you know you can buy Hive5 Manchester honey from our Shop? Head to our Welcome Building to pick up a fresh jar.

And if you’re interested in beehive rental and management, hive sponsoring, or would like to invite Hive5 to give a talk about bees or beekeeping at your workplace or club meeting, please contact Damson directly through the Hive5 website or social channels.