Fine summer results in excellent flavour for Barnet honey but beekeepers’ association faces difficult times after move from Whalebones  

Honey of exceptional quality collected this summer has been a bonus for members of the Barnet and District Beekeepers’ Association during what has been a year of uncertainty for a well-established society.

Senior judge Fiona Dickson-Wood (above, left) was full of praise for exhibits at the association’s 111^th annual show at the Hadley Memorial Hall when she was welcomed by show secretary, Linda Perry.

She congratulated the entry from Adam Armstrong whose honey won best in show for its clarity, depth and flavour. 

Adam also won the prize for the best mead. Such was its quality, that he was encouraged to exhibit nationally as well at his local show. 

Entries were lower than expected although beekeepers have been the beneficiaries of a good spring and fine summer weather which has produced honey with high density and velocity.

Overall, 2025 has been a troubling year for the association which is on the point of leaving its longstanding headquarters on the Whalebones estate in Wood Street and is having to move its equipment to temporary storage at a farm in Arkley.

For decades the stable block at Whalebones had been home for the beekeepers’ association.

It was left for their use by the late Miss Gwyneth Cowing who built an adjoining timber-framed studio used by members of the Barnet Guild of Artists.

However, last year the Miss Gwyneth Cowing Will Trust and Hill Residential were granted planning permission for build 114 houses at the farm and fields adjoining Whalebones House (which had been the Cowing family home, and which is now in private ownership).

A new studio for the artists is to be built by the trustees and a lease for its use is about to be signed by the artists’ guild. It has acquired charitable status to meet its enhanced responsibilities.

Miss Cowing’s trustees’ original proposal was that the artists and beekeepers would share the new building to be constructed in Wellhouse Lane, next to Well Cottage, and directly opposite the bus terminus outside Barnet Hospital.

But after lengthy discussion members of the beekeepers’ association have decided that the potential financial liabilities of signing a lease – and the need to establish charitable status – were too onerous for such a small organisation.

Instead, the beekeepers have been offered temporary storage space in a container at a farm in Akley while the association looks for a more permanent base.

Once the beekeepers have moved out of the stable block the building will be transferred to the private owners of Whalebones House.

If all goes to plan, the guild will move to its replacement studio towards the end of 2026.

Once the new building is up and running, work is expected to start preparing the Whalebones fields for redevelopment.

Preparatory work will include demolition of the artists’ studio and the adjoining agricultural buildings which made up Whalebones farm, a small holding run by a former tenant farmer, Peter Mason, who died last year.