North Devon Queens

North Devon Queens was set up in 2021 by Kasper and Matt, two friends who between them have more than sixteen years of beekeeping experience across the UK and Europe. Kasper trained in beekeeping at college in East Poland over four years, then went on to work in apiaries in Poland, Austria and Germany that specialised in queen rearing as well as honey production. Both are members of the British Bee Farmers Association, and the aim from the start was straightforward: breed the finest British Buckfast queens they could, working out of West Buckland near South Molton.

Their queens are open-mated and selected for good temperament and honey production, and every nucleus colony they sell is bred locally in North Devon and headed by one of their own queens. Spring nucs become available for collection from West Buckland from June onwards. Alongside queens and nucs they produce honey, which picked up Three Gold Stars at the 2024 Taste of the West awards, and both honey and nucs are sold at local farmers markets as well as direct from the apiary.