Beekeeping in South Wales & Gwent · Closed-loop AI breeding programme
Tŷ Mêl Apiary breeds Varroa-resistant native Welsh black bees in Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent, chemical-free. Two ways to back the programme right now — sponsor real hive hardware, or reserve a mated queen from our own survivor stock.
Sponsorship · from £4
Every sponsorship buys a real, physical piece of kit that goes straight onto a hive in Torfaen — no general fund, no admin skim. Add what you want to your basket and check out once, securely, with Stripe.
Or go straight to a category
Secure Stripe checkout · one-off items from £4 · monthly tiers cancel any time
Now taking 2027 reservations
£45Incl. VAT & delivery
Mated native Welsh black bee queens from our own survivor stock — smoke-free calm on the frame, Varroa-resistant, raised with no chemical treatments at Greenmeadow Community Farm, and shipped in our 3D-printed zero-squish introduction cassette.
We raise a finite number each season and every queen is allocated — reservations are taken in order.
From the field
Field notes, swarm callouts, and breeding updates — straight from our Facebook page as we post them.
Posts not loading? Follow us directly at facebook.com/TyMelApiary.
Coming soon from the apiary
Rolled by hand, one sheet at a time, from pure unbleached beeswax — no paraffin, no soy blend, no synthetic fragrance and no dye. Just wax, a cotton wick and the smell of a warm hive.
Coming soon · not yet on sale
Tell me when the candles are ready
Leave your name and email and you will get one message when the first batch is rolled — with sizes, prices and how to order. No newsletter, and nothing else sent to you in the meantime.
Core services
A honeybee swarm collected across Gwent, or a free apiary session for your school — the two things we are called out for most.
Catch & Removal
Found a honeybee swarm in the Gwent area? We come out to you and either catch the swarm directly or place a swarm bait box to settle it safely. Once secured, every swarm is relocated to one of our apiaries and welcomed into our Varroa-resistant research and breeding programme. As an NBU-registered apiary (ID: 100414), all collection and relocation is handled bio-securely from start to finish.
Call our swarm service · 07446 189746
Schools & education
We bring the apiary to your pupils — hive parts, tools, protective kit, honey straight from our Torfaen sites, and a sealed observation hive with a living colony inside, so children can watch real honeybees at work in complete safety. There is no charge to schools anywhere in the Gwent area.
No charge · Gwent area
See when we are free, and hold a date
Weekdays are open unless the diary says otherwise. Pick a day that suits your timetable, tell us about your group, and the date is held for you straight away. Every booking stays provisional until Markus confirms it — and nothing is charged at any point.
Loading the diary…
Markus will confirm it by email, usually within a couple of days. Until then the day is provisionally yours and no other school can take it.
Already have a reference? Check where your request has got to.
Or send us a message and we will find a date together.
Operational pillars
Our breeding protocols rely strictly on independent queen rearing and naturally captured local valley swarms. By using discreet AI monitoring and data analysis we are able to select Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) traits without synthetic chemical dependencies. We are building a locally adapted Welsh bee capable of thriving in the damp, post-industrial valleys of Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent.
This work is centred on our main apiary at Greenmeadow Community Farm in Cwmbran — our scientific and educational apiary, where the breeding programme runs alongside public learning about honeybees. We keep further apiary sites across Torfaen.
We deploy low-impact, micro-apiaries — ranging from 2 to 8 hives and larger 25-hive research apiaries — specifically targeted to support regional ecological infrastructure, such as newly planted community orchards and protected Local Nature Reserves.
To eliminate the risk of genetic contamination from unmanaged hobbyist stocks, all biological interventions and colony assessments are handled exclusively by Tŷ Mêl Apiary. Every apiary site is strictly monitored and physically protected via secure timber perimeters to fully manage public liability and safeguard our biological assets.
Operations
One company, two operations
Tŷ Mêl Apiary is the beekeeping arm of CalonTerra Ltd. The same company also runs a CAA-authorised drone survey operation, booked and delivered entirely separately on its own website.
Our beekeeping operation — Varroa-resistant breeding, swarm catch and removal, and precision pollination across Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent and the wider South Wales valleys.
You are on this site — tymel.co.uk
Our drone services. CAA-authorised aerial surveying across South Wales and the South West — scaffold-free roof and leak inspections, thermal trace and access, topographical mapping and ISO 19650 commercial data.
Takes you to calonterra.co.uk
Partnerships & funding
Who we work alongside, who has backed us, and who we have helped.
Our partner farm in Cwmbran, owned and run by Torfaen County Borough Council, and home to our main scientific and educational apiary.
Awarded us business grant funding and owns Greenmeadow Community Farm.
The council-run employment and enterprise service that delivered our funding award.
The programme our grant was made under, delivered locally through Torfaen Works.
Communities for Work Plus is funded by the Welsh Government.
We set aside time each year for community groups, schools and education across South Wales — including free school visits across Gwent. Get in touch if we can help.
Partner with us
We partner with local councils, land trusts, farms, and local nature reserves to provide turnkey, expert pollination services that deliver directly on statutory biodiversity obligations.
Our Director and Founder, Markus Cox, brings over a decade of large-scale biological systems management to Tŷ Mêl Apiary. Beginning his agricultural career in 2013, Markus oversaw complex, multi-species operations encompassing 800 acres and thousands of livestock units. It was during this period of large-scale land management that he established his first working apiaries. Today, he combines that foundational understanding of macro-ecology with bleeding-edge AI and drone technologies to build resilient, biosecure ecosystems for South Wales.
