King Charles is renowned for his love of the outdoors. From championing sustainability to painting picturesque landscapes and crafting award-winning gardens, the monarch has a long-standing fascination with nature.
And there's one particularly sweet outdoor hobby that Charles is especially fond of… Beekeeping!
© ShutterstockCharles's private residence, Highgrove House, is home to a kaleidoscopic wildflower meadow teeming with 120 different plant species and 30 beehives. The bees produce a 'Royal Garden Honey' that can be purchased from the Highgrove Gardens website.
© Getty ImagesThe monarch also has treasured beehives at Clarence House and Buckingham Palace. According to The Independent, each hive contains an estimated 20,000 bees.
© Getty ImagesAnd he's not alone… The Princess of Wales, Queen Camilla and Kate's brother, James Middleton have also been bewitched by the buzz of beekeeping. Keep scrolling to learn more about their unconventional shared hoby...
Princess Kate
The Princess of Wales keeps bees at Anmer Hall - Prince William and Kate's Norfolk retreat.
The royal mother of three brought a jar of honey from the hives for schoolchildren to sample during a visit to the Natural History Museum's biodiversity hub in June 2021.
© Getty ImagesIn honour of World Bee Day last year, Kate surprised fans with a rare snapshot of herself rocking a full beekeeping suit and Wellington boots. The picture showed a beaming Kate carefully tending to a hive frame teeming with bees.
At the time, she wrote: "We are buzzing about #WorldBeeDay. Bees are a vital part of our ecosystem and today is a great opportunity to raise awareness of the essential role bees and other pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy."
Queen Camilla
Queen Camilla is also a keen apiarist! Her Majesty produces her own honey at her Wiltshire home, Ray Mill House, which is then sold at Fortnum & Mason to raise money for charity.
© Getty ImagesIn 2020, the royal became President of Bees for Development - a charity that reduces poverty and improves biodiversity in over 50 countries around the world through training beekeepers, creating a network of resources, and protecting bee habits.
© Getty ImagesMeanwhile, during a visit to Launceston, Cornwall, in 2022, Camilla met honey producers and told them she was a hands-on beekeeper and had only lost one colony during the previous winter.
James Middleton
Kate's brother James loves nothing more than tending to his bees.
The father-of-one was given his first beehives by his parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, and sisters Kate and Pippa Matthews.
© InstagramOn his 24th birthday, they clubbed together to buy James a beehive which he later described as "the most fantastic birthday gift imaginable."
Writing for the Daily Mail in 2020, he said: "On a warm summer's day there are few places on Earth I'd rather be than tending my bees.
"I've been a passionate advocate of these ingenious, industrious little creatures since I became a beekeeper myself nearly a decade ago, having fallen for them as a child. I now have almost half a million bees in eight hives in a meadow at our family home, Bucklebury Manor in Berkshire."
