STRUAN APIARIES
Back in 1952 our company founder Hamish Robertson took on a hive of bees as a hobby at his home in the Scottish Highlands. Not only did his family relish the delicious honey the bees produced, but his son Nigel got hooked on beekeeping and learned all he could from his father about these fascinating creatures.
Nigel went off to study apiology at college, and once he was qualified he returned home to take over what had become a flourishing and very sweet honey producing business.
Nigel and his wife Karen have grown the business even more, until they are now keeping around 500 bee colonies distributed over a wide area of the Scottish Highlands, having won awards for business achievement and honey marketing.
The business has a client base throughout the UK and abroad, supplying discerning retail outlets and many renowned hotels and restaurants with pure Scottish heather honey and blossom honey.
happy healthy bees
Keeping our bees happy and healthy, along with harvesting and bottling tons of honey each year keeps Nigel and Karen – who handles the administration of the burgeoning business as well as helping out “in the field” – very busy.
We have diversified to add a range of jams, preserves, chutneys, mustards, sauces and other tasty condiments to our brand larder, that have proved enormously popular.
What we remain most famous for in the discerning foodie world is our high-quality Highlands heather honey. Nigel has even appeared on an episode of celebrity chef Rick Stein’s “Food Heroes” TV series which paid homage to our signature product.
While Struan Apiaries has been mainly a success story the enterprise was hit with a blow in 2019: the production facility was almost completely destroyed in a fire. Fortunately, the bees weren’t affected, and we were able to recover and rebuild, so the shelves are once again stocked with delicious Struan products.
liquid gold
Although we work very hard at Struan Apiaries we realise that we wouldn’t have achieved business success without the assistance of nature. Our heather honey owes its deep, rich flavour and health benefits to the nectar of the abundant native heather.
We don’t have plans to expand into full commercial mass production of honey. For us quality is more important than quantity when it comes to all our products, so we prefer to use traditional hands-on methods of beekeeping and honey harvesting.
When you open a jar of artisan Struan honey you can rest assured you are going to enjoy an unrivalled taste of liquid gold, infused with the fragrances and sensations embodied in the unpolluted Highlands – a very special part of the world.
