Based in Silsden, Libby Ramsden and her partner Ollie are the faces behind Herd & Hive, a small, local business dedicated to producing high-quality honey, goats’ milk soap, and more. With a passion for farming and beekeeping, they’ve become a trusted name in the Yorkshire community, offering a genuine, local alternative to mass-produced products. We caught up with Libby to learn more about their journey and what makes their offerings so special.
Can you tell us how Herd & Hive began and what inspired you to launch the business?
My father was a hobby beekeeper for many years, keeping just 6–8 hives. He enjoyed pottering around with them in the garden and producing enough honey for family and friends. I had a full-time job but also worked on our small farm with my partner, Ollie, raising sheep and cows. We earned a modest income selling meat boxes locally until, one day in 2021, I brought home my first goat, Mary (who we still have). My intention was simply to have a new pet and try my hand at making authentic goat’s milk soap.
After much trial and error, I perfected the recipe and started making enough soap for family and friends. Demand quickly grew, and before long, people were asking for more. That’s when I decided to get a few more goats—now we have 20. My parents and I began selling both honey and soap at local markets, and we found they complemented each other well.
As our reputation grew, I had to push my dad for more beehives. Before long, he told Ollie and me that we needed to train as full-time beekeepers as well. A year later, we had 60 hives and 20 goats, and I quit my job to do this full-time. Eight months later, Ollie followed suit. Fast forward another year, and we now have over 100 beehives, and two new donkeys (to make donkey milk soap), and last year, we produced roughly 10,000 bars of soap.
Throughout this journey, our inspiration has always been to reinforce the message of “quality local produce” for our community.
What does a typical day on your farm look like?
Our day starts early, around 6 am, with a trip around the farm to feed the sheep, goats, and now donkeys, making sure everything is in order. While doing this, we also exercise our two sheepdogs.
We usually leave early for my parents’ house, where we have a custom-built honey processing facility. There, we spend the day either jarring over 700 jars of honey per week or preparing orders for delivery to shops and individual customers. From March to September, our routine includes visiting one of our seven apiaries to check the bees for strength and honey flow.
Right now, we’re also preparing for lambing season, and we have nine pregnant goats due to give birth in the next few weeks.
Most evenings, we head out to the various fields we rent to check on and feed our sheep. We usually return to the farm around 7 p.m., then spend a few hours responding to emails and processing orders from TikTok, Shopify, and other platforms before finally crashing into bed by 9 pm.
You’ve won the Young Market Trader of the Year 2024 award both regionally and nationally—what does that achievement mean to you?
This recognition means so much to Ollie and me, as it reassures us that what we’re doing is not only worthwhile but, most importantly, being done right.
Attending markets has been an invaluable opportunity to listen to our customers, witness their reactions to our products firsthand, and learn directly from those experiences. I genuinely don’t think we would have achieved as much if we had relied solely on online sales.
The Market Traders Association has been incredibly supportive, providing valuable information and guidance, and these awards help reinforce our credibility with customers.
What are the main benefits of locally produced raw honey compared to supermarket honey?
Unlike supermarket honey, which often undergoes extensive heating, processing, and filtration, our local raw honey is unheated, unprocessed, and unfiltered—preserving 100% of its natural goodness. This means it retains higher levels of enzymes and pollen, offering a richer nutritional profile. We quite literally take it straight from the hive and put it into the jar.
Most supermarket honey is “blended,” meaning suppliers purchase large bulk barrels of cheap honey from all over the world and mix them in giant vats. The result is honey with a bland taste and little to no nutritional benefits.
How do the Yorkshire landscape and local flora influence the taste and quality of your honey?
Local honey changes throughout the season, so buying regularly from a local beekeeper means that each jar will have a unique taste and colour as the nectar flow shifts from plant to plant throughout the year. Dandelion honey in April is light in colour and flavour, while Hawthorn honey from the Yorkshire landscape in June is thick and cloudy. Blackberry honey in August is dark and rich, and Heather honey has a thick, complex taste. None of these varieties are found in supermarket “generic” honey.
What are some common misconceptions about raw honey?
We find that many customers who buy from large outlets think all honey is the same. We’re still genuinely surprised when, time after time, we speak with customers who have no idea that there is such a wide variety of tastes and colours in honey. We offer tastings at all our markets, and we love to see the reactions on people’s faces when they realize that pure raw honey is completely different from what they expected based on past supermarket purchases.
People are also often misled by labels on supermarket honey. Labels might mention things like rolling hills and picturesque landscapes or include small details about the origins of a honey company, all designed to create a positive image. But in the legal ingredients list, in small text at the bottom corner, it will often say “blended from non-EU honey.” This is made even worse when ordering online, as the rear label is often not shown.
Honey fraud is a growing concern. Can you explain what it is and how consumers can identify real honey?
In November 2024, DNA tests commissioned by the Honey Authenticity Network and conducted by Estonia’s Celvia laboratory found that more than 90% of honey jars from major UK retailers were contaminated with cheap fillers like sugar syrups. (By contrast, all five samples from local British beekeepers passed with flying colours.)
Honey adulteration kits, designed to allow sugar syrup-laced honey to pass basic authenticity tests, are even available on online B2B marketplaces.
Cheap honey is often processed sugar syrup fed to bees, who then store it in the hive. When extracted, it’s classified as honey, but it has no natural elements in it whatsoever. Honey should be pure nectar, directly from the plant source, without any interference.
Regrettably, the only way to identify authentic honey on the supermarket shelf is to check the rear label under the ingredients list. It should simply say “English Honey.”
Anything else must legally be listed as either EU honey or non-EU honey. Unfortunately, terms like “Raw” and “Pure” are often misused, leading customers to believe they’re getting high-quality honey when it’s often far from it.
Here’s a great article that explains this issue better than I could, which may offer some inspiration:
How to spot fake honey
Why is it important to support local beekeepers, and what challenges do they face today?
Most local beekeepers work for 6-8 months of the year to support their bees as best as they can, without any guarantee of a honey crop. A local beekeeper will always put their bees first and will only remove surplus honey. In a bad year (like 2024), when the weather was too wet here in Yorkshire for the plants to flower for long, it meant we had only about a third of the honey crop we anticipated.
Beekeeping is a very expensive and time-consuming activity, and we are entirely reliant on an insect we have no real control over. It’s unlike any other form of husbandry. We face an increase in diseases caused by weather changes that affect the bees, as well as the parasitic varroa mite.
A whole apiary of millions of bees can be wiped out by a single tractor spreading insecticide over a crop within a 3-mile radius. This is becoming more common, and the government continues to authorise the use of known problem chemicals, even after we petition them every year.
How does Herd & Hive ensure ethical and sustainable beekeeping practices?
We manage all our bees ourselves, on farmland in the Yorkshire area. We do not supplement feed our bees between March and October, and during winter, we leave plenty of honey for them to get through the season. We only top this up if needed during the winter months. If we must feed them, we try to feed back only honey.
In addition to honey, you produce goat’s milk soap and beeswax products. What inspired you to expand into these areas?
The beeswax products, such as candles, beeswax food wraps, and beeswax lip balms, were a natural progression from using the resources from the hive and have proven successful. The goat’s milk soap was an idea I had after reading about the benefits of goat’s milk for sensitive skin issues, such as eczema and psoriasis.
Coming from a farming background, I’ve seen many farmers with rough hands and skin problems, which inspired the idea. Now, we have plenty of Google reviews from customers sharing before-and-after pictures. This only strengthens my resolve to keep improving and spreading the message about the benefits.
Do you have any new products or projects in the pipeline for Herd & Hive?
We are currently trialling some new soap scents and we’ve recently launched a beeswax hand cream, which is being well received.
Additionally, we now support other local beekeepers by supplying live bees to help them get started on their journey, complete with training.
Our beekeeping experiences, which give people the opportunity to get inside a working hive with over 50,000 bees, are proving very successful.
What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own sustainable business?
Get advice from as many people as you can. It can be very lonely at first if you’re trying to do it all. Ollie and I have been lucky to have supportive families with some business experience, and they taught us the importance of seeking out more opinions.
Listening to and adapting to your customers is key, and always honour your sustainability beliefs. It can be tempting to take shortcuts as you grow, but remember, you’re providing the better alternative, not the average. So, stick to your values.
How do you engage with the local community to raise awareness about beekeeping and sustainability?
We use social media a lot. I try to keep our content varied, sharing a mix of our activities, some educational posts, and a bit of humour where possible. I’m constantly educating myself through various courses on both beekeeping and animal husbandry for our farm animals, so I can be well-informed and pass that knowledge on in an engaging way to the community. We also love chatting with people at markets.
Where can people find and buy Herd & Hive products?
Visit our website to learn more about us and our products: www.herdandhive.co.uk. We post most days on Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms:
https://www.facebook.com/BridgeHouseFlock
Or come and see us at one of our many markets. We’re at Skipton High Street Market every Saturday and often have a stall at other locations and events too.
Finally, what’s the best way for customers to support local producers like yourself?
Find outlets that support local producers and frequent them for your products.
Local garden centres, farm shops, butchers, florists, and others often work with small-scale producers who create excellent products.
