We are practicing beekeeping in a traditional way on sedentary apiaries installed at specific locations selected for the richness of flora, the quality of nearby hedgerows and woods, and caring for a safe distance with the great cultivations. The bees are able to travel up to 3 km to find and harvest a food source. It is thus important to carefuly verify the surroundings before implanting an aviary.

The floral abundance of the Norman bocage guarantee the bees to find the resources they need in their immediate environment and allows us to manage clusters of fixed apiaries spread in the countryside. We benefit from an ideal geographic location, far from the intensive farming of the “Plaine de Caen”, and close to the “Marais du Bessin et du Cotentin”, a vast expanse of waterways, marshes, moors and hedgerows.

We do not practice transhumance in beekeeping, which is a different and controversed method. The bees have no natural migration and only spread around during the swarming season around the month of May. A colony of bees reduce its population during the winter and rise again the next spring. The frenetic harvest and hard work they operate is the heritage of their evolution and adaptation to local environment and climate. The sudden change of location and increases of harvesting periods is exhausting for the colonies and can foster the spreading of diseases.

We produce two types of polyfloral honeys along the year, of spring and summer, which are very different in texture and aromas. The spring honey is often of pale or yellow colouration, with a creamy texture and soft flavour while the summer honey is a little stronger and may remain longer in a liquid state. Although monofloral honeys are very interesting, particularly for specific flower essences, polyfloral honeys are the complex and unique image of the local terroir, combining nectars from various species of plants and a wide array of enzymes.

Today many plagues threaten the survival of bees, most of them are the result of human activity (environmental modificaitons, importation of parasites from international trade and globalization). We carry out biological control against Varroa destructor and Vespa velutina using products of plant origin that do not leave any trace in the honey or wax, and we do not use any synthetic element.