BeeCraft Beginnings

Kent Beekeeping Association initiated the publication of BeeCraft in February 1919 and it became a joint magazine with Surrey Beekeeping Association in December 1920.

Those two counties worked so well together that they also launched the National Honey Show at the Crystal Palace in 1922.

As beekeepers across the country began to subscribe to BeeCraft, other counties, such as Hampshire and Gloucester, soon joined. The addition of Yorkshire, then the largest beekeeping county, in 1929 marked the transition of BeeCraft from a home counties to a national magazine

BeeCraft even managed to strengthen its position during the second world war. With great foresight, the then editor, Percy Thornton, bought a stock of paper before the beginning of the conflict and, remarkably, kept the monthly magazine going, albeit in slimmer versions, throughout the war, even coping with the growing readership which more than doubled to 10,000 between 1939 and 1945.

In 1947, the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) adopted BeeCraft as its official journal. BeeCraft Ltd was created to share the ownership of the magazine with beekeeping associations across the country.

BeeCraft Today

Today almost 100 county and district associations have affiliations, and monthly circulation is in excess of 4,000. A board of directors is elected at the annual general meeting and operations are undertaken by several part-time consultants.

Since its origins in February 1919, the magazine has had nine editors: C P Jarman (1919–1928), Percy Thornton (1928–1937), Jim Wadey (1937–1971), Arthur Dines (1972–1979), Robert Young (1980–1992), Dave Ribbans (1993–1997), Claire Waring (1997–2019), and Stephen Fleming and Richard Rickitt (from January 2020).

Rather than operating as a conventional limited company, Bee Craft is in practice run as a non-profit making enterprise. No dividend has ever been paid, and all profits are reinvested in activities for the benefit of beekeepers.