Beekeeping in South Wales & Gwent · Closed-loop AI breeding programme

Sponsor a hive, or reserve a 2027 survivor queen.

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.

Now taking 2027 reservations

Reserve a 2027 survivor queen.

Capped brood on a frame from a native Welsh black bee survivor colony, measured with digital calipers at the Tŷ Mêl breeding apiary £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.

  • Dispatch June–July 2027
  • 100% live arrival guarantee
  • Cassette included
  • Reserve now, pay once
Reserve a 2027 queen — £45

We raise a finite number each season and every queen is allocated — reservations are taken in order.

From the field

Stories from the apiary.

Field notes, swarm callouts, and breeding updates — straight from our Facebook page as we post them.

Tŷ Mêl Apiary on Facebook

Posts not loading? Follow us directly at facebook.com/TyMelApiary.

Coming soon from the apiary

Hand-rolled 100% beeswax candles.

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

Three hand-rolled beeswax candles alight, with the honeycomb texture of the rolled wax sheet visible
Illustration — the first rolled batch is still in production. Photographs of the real candles go up here as soon as they are made.

What goes into one

  • 100% beeswax, nothing cut into it. No paraffin, no soy or palm blend, no stearin hardeners — the wax is the whole candle.
  • Rolled by hand, not poured. Each candle is rolled from a single sheet of honeycomb-textured beeswax, so the comb pattern you can see is the surface itself rather than a mould.
  • Scented by the wax alone. Beeswax carries a faint natural honey scent as it burns. Nothing is added, which makes them fine for a room where fragranced candles are too much.
  • Pure cotton wick. Sized to the diameter of the roll so the flame keeps up with the wax instead of drowning or tunnelling.
  • A slow burn. Beeswax melts at a higher temperature than paraffin, so a rolled taper burns steadily and stays clean-edged when it is kept out of a draught.
  • StatusComing soon — first batch in production
  • MadeBy hand at the apiary in Torfaen
  • Wax100% beeswax, unbleached
  • PricingAnnounced when they go on sale

Core services

Swarm control and school bookings.

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

Swarm catch & removal across Gwent.

  • Swarm Catch & RemovalGwent area

    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
    A healthy honeybee swarm clustered on an oak branch

Schools & education

Free educational visits for Gwent schools.

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

Beekeeper Markus Cox holding up a honeycomb frame while talking to a seated group at an outdoor teaching shelter
Talking a group through a frame of comb at Greenmeadow Community Farm.
A display table of beekeeping equipment including a hive box of frames, a wax-drawn frame, veil, gloves and jars of honey
The kit comes with us — hive boxes, frames, veil, gloves, extractor and honey.

What pupils get to see

  • Living bees, safely sealed in. Our observation hive holds a real colony behind glass. Pupils can hunt for the queen, watch nurse bees tending brood and see foragers dancing — with the bees fully contained the whole time.
  • Inside a hive. Brood frames, supers, foundation and drawn comb, handed round so pupils can hold the real thing rather than look at a picture of it.
  • The beekeeper's kit. Suits, veils, gloves, smoker and hive tool — with a volunteer or two usually ending up suited up.
  • From comb to jar. How honey is made, extracted and filtered, finishing with honey from our own apiaries across Torfaen.
  • Why any of it matters. Pollination, food chains, Varroa, and what is happening to bees in the South Wales valleys — pitched to the age group and easily tied into Curriculum for Wales science and outdoor learning themes.
  • CostFree of charge
  • Area coveredGwent — Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Newport, Caerphilly & Monmouthshire
  • Age rangeNursery to sixth form, pitched to the group
  • Session lengthTypically 45–60 minutes
  • Group sizeClass-sized groups; repeat sessions for a whole year group
  • CredentialsNBU-registered apiary, ID 100414
  • Option one

    We come to your school

    We load up the observation hive and the equipment and set up in your hall or classroom, working around your timetable. All we need is a table and a bit of floor space — everything else arrives with us.

    Free to any school in the Gwent area, with no travel or materials charge.

  • Option two

    Your class comes to us

    Bring a group to our scientific and educational apiary at Greenmeadow Community Farm in Cwmbran, and see working hives in the setting they actually live in, alongside the same equipment session.

    Please note: our session is free, but Greenmeadow Community Farm runs its own admission and ticketing. We do not control entry to the farm, so book your group in with the farm directly and let us know the date.

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.

  1. Pick a date
  2. Your details
  3. We confirm

Loading the diary…

  • Free to book
  • One session left
  • Provisionally held
  • Fully booked
  • Not available

No suitable date, or want to check on a booking?

Already have a reference? Check where your request has got to.

Or send us a message and we will find a date together.

Book a school visit

Tell us a little about your group and we will come back to you with dates. Nothing is charged at any point.

Operational pillars

Three disciplines, one closed-loop system.

  • 01

    Genetic ResilienceScientific selection

    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.

    Digital calipers precisely measuring honeycomb brood cell width
  • 02

    Precision PollinationEcosystem services

    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.

    Pollination mapping
  • 03

    Bio-Secure FrameworksClosed-loop management

    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.

    Two secure, enclosed beehives in a rural community orchard setting

Operations

Where we keep bees, and how.

  • Main apiaryGreenmeadow Community Farm, Cwmbran
  • RangeFurther sites across Torfaen & Blaenau Gwent
  • MethodVSH selection using AI, chemical-free
  • FootprintLow-impact micro-apiaries, 2–8 hives

One company, two operations

Bees on this site. Drone surveying on our other one.

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.

CalonTerra Ltd t/a

Tŷ Mêl Apiary

Our beekeeping operation — Varroa-resistant breeding, swarm catch and removal, and precision pollination across Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent and the wider South Wales valleys.

  • Swarm catch & removal across Gwent
  • Precision pollination for councils, farms & reserves
  • Scientific breeding & education at Greenmeadow
Start an enquiry

You are on this site — tymel.co.uk

CalonTerra Ltd t/a

CalonTerra Digital Aerial Intelligence

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.

  • Residential roof and leak surveys
  • Commercial inspection and digital twins
  • Topographical mapping and point clouds
Visit CalonTerra drone services

Takes you to calonterra.co.uk

Partnerships & funding

Partnerships, Funding & Community Work

Who we work alongside, who has backed us, and who we have helped.

  • Greenmeadow Community Farm logo
    Partner

    Greenmeadow Community Farm

    Our partner farm in Cwmbran, owned and run by Torfaen County Borough Council, and home to our main scientific and educational apiary.

  • Torfaen County Borough Council logo
    Grant Funder

    Torfaen County Borough Council

    Awarded us business grant funding and owns Greenmeadow Community Farm.

  • Torfaen Works / Torfaen yn Gweithio logo
    Grant Funder

    Torfaen Works

    The council-run employment and enterprise service that delivered our funding award.

  • Communities for Work Plus / Cymunedau am Waith logo
    Programme

    Communities for Work Plus

    The programme our grant was made under, delivered locally through Torfaen Works.

  • Welsh Government / Llywodraeth Cymru logo
    Programme Funder

    Welsh Government

    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

Bespoke pollination that meets statutory biodiversity obligations.

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.

Founder Markus Cox utilising ruggedised tablet for aerial mapping and AI monitoring
Founder & Director
Markus Cox
Telephone
07446 189746
Location base
Pontypool, Torfaen, NP4 5SP
Main apiary
Greenmeadow Community Farm, Cwmbran
Other sites
Across Torfaen

Start an enquiry