What a year it has been at Fruitfields! Despite the challenges of the COVID pandemic, Brexit, the American election and more we are not just surviving but thriving due to focusing on our bees and trees and the support of our apple juice & honey stockists and everyone who has bought our products.
Throughout the Spring and Summer we tended to our fruit trees and beehives. We are pleased to have doubled the number of honeybee hives we have and our fruit trees are starting to establish themselves. We caught a couple of honeybee swarms at the end of May and one of these stocks has become quite prolific with a strong laying queen. We cross fingers they over winter well.
During mid-summer we took advantage of the season, and were able to carry out a great amount of work in the orchard soon after sunrise. We have always thought it a stunning location with the combination of the North Worcestershire Countryside and Upper Bittell Reservoir adding to the surroundings.
We have been able to develop some nucleus bees from splitting our existing beehive colonies to help prevent swarming and to grow the number of colonies we have. It has been good to pass on beekeeping skills and introduce members of the public to our honeybees via our beekeeping experiences.
From August on-wards we have been extremely busy with the harvest. Starting with the extraction of our Fruitfields honey in August before apple picking throughout late August, September and October. Having picked the apples we then wash, mill and press the fruit before bottling and pasteurising the apple juice.
We are part of an amazing local community. Apple pickers included friends and colleagues, the Barnt Green Girl Guides and many families, individuals and members of the network of villages which we form a part.
We used the facilities at Tardebigge Cider in order to scale up our position to process the 5 tonnes of apples collected.
We have also invested in bottles fillers and our own mill and hydropress which give us the ability to process smaller runs of apple juice such as a limited number of pink juice using a single variety called ‘Red Devil’. From our harvest this year we are delighted as a business to now be offering the following products:
A medium sweet apple juice (Made from Browns & Dabinett)
A medium sharp apple juice (Made from Bramley, Sandlin Duchess & Ashmeads Kernel)
A single variety Ashmeads Kernel apple juice
A single variety Red Devil apple juice
Honey in both 1 lb and 8 oz jars and either liquid or soft set. All these products are subject to availability!
