A short video showcasing Manchester Cathedral Bees by Adam York Gregory Manchester Cathedral Bees from Adam York Gregory on Vimeo. Bee Hive Cameras We currently have two bee hive cameras upon the flat roof of Manchester Cathedral, click on the play button below to view the bees and their hives. Heavenly Honey produced by our […]
Read More
Sir David Richards has become a patron of Volition Community following a visit last year to see the work of this charity. Welcoming Sir David, the Dean of Manchester thanked Sir David for his commitment to this programme which runs from Manchester and Liverpool Cathedrals. Sir David, encouraged at the outcomes of this programme of […]
Read More
What a difference a year makes! As I wander through the silence of the Cathedral, making my way to the spiral staircase that will take me to the roof, I am reminded that only a year ago we were celebrating Manchester City’s Premier League title win. The Cathedral was bustling with people and equipment the […]
Read More
Manchester Cathedral’s beekeepers and Manchester honey brand, Just Bee, have partnered to create a brand new throat syrup in time for winter cold and flu season. The idea behind the exciting new Manc partnership is a throat syrup which contains only natural ingredients including: Honey, Bee Propolis, Vitamin C and Botanicals.
Founder of Just Bee Honey, Joe Harper, said: “We are delighted that Manchester Cathedral with it’s charity Volition Community (www.volitioncommunity.org) is now one of our honey suppliers. Since I found out the cathedral had beehives on its rooftop and tasted how good their honey was, it’s been a dream of mine to use their honey in our products.”
Last year, Just Bee, who also featured on Dragons’ Den, went through a turbulent time with the pandemic. The business went from selling their honey sweetened drinks in Sainsbury’s, Boots, Coop, Waitrose and other high street retailers to losing 80% of its revenue after the first lockdown. Founder, Joe Harper, said: “Lockdown meant the demand for our drinks vanished and we lost some of our listings. We made a quick decision to pivot the business from honey sweetened drinks to a new product line called ‘Vitamin Honey’ high quality honey blended with vitamins and echinacea to boost your immune system. Thankfully the switch to honey worked and the business is already bigger than the drinks business was pre pandemic!”.
Just Bee is now focused on the health and wellness market and sees a big opportunity using the antibacterial properties of honey with vitamins and other botanicals. Its latest Throat Syrup product does just that. “Our customers had been asking us to create an all natural throat syrup with honey. When we researched the market, we realised that many of the throat syrups out there contain artificial and unpronounceable ingredients. After months of trials and development we finally cracked it this syrup both soothes your throat and boosts your immune system at the same time”.
And the product has the backing of University of Oxford research too. Last year new research was carried out based on 14 trials with 1,761 participants and concluded that honey was more effective than medicine for treating upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) symptoms, especially coughing. Two studies showed that treatment with honey shortened the symptoms by one to two days.
The beehives at Manchester Cathedral are part of a community project called Volition which was set up 10 years ago to help unemployed people build their confidence, motivation, selfesteem and skills to get into work – learning to keep bees is one of the skills they can learn.
The Very Reverend Rogers Govender, Dean of Manchester and Chair of Volition said: “We are very delighted with this partnership with Just Bee Honey. Volition Community was set up to help the long-term unemployed find work, our volunteers working with the bees have developed a product which will benefit many people across Greater Manchester and beyond”
Just Bee Natural Throat & Cough Syrup is available at www.justbeehoney.co.uk.
