About Us
Welcome to Denrosa Apiaries
History
Denrosa Apiaries was established, initially as a hobby, by Ken McGregor back in 1950.
He spent the winter of 1949/50 making his first hives, constructed from the wood of wartime tractor packing cases, in his garden shed prior to buying his first bees in the spring of 1950.
As is often the case with beekeepers this became a lifelong obsession and fascination, greatly fueled by a huge season in 1955, and not dampened by some very bad winters in the early 1960’s. By 1970 he had had enough of the day job and went full time in 1970.
By 1981 he had reached the 450 hive mark, which was more than enough for him and his son Murray (the current owner) came home from a short career at sea and took over the bee operations. Ken finally retired from the day-to-day work of honey packing and sales in the late 1980s. The business diversified into a wide range of honey packing and other gourmet foods throughout the 1990s, eventually reverting back to its roots around 20 years ago as a primary producer of heather honey with some 1500 colonies, a position from which it has grown greatly in the intervening years.
The business has a rich and varied history which could fill many pages, and some of this may be added as time goes by.
Denrosa Now
Denrosa Apiaries today is the trading style of Murray McGregor Ltd, and remains a family enterprise, with 3 of the next generation, Helen, Ross, and Linnet, all active full time in the company, which in summer has over 25 employees.
We manage around 5000 honey producing colonies and sell, via bulk trade, in the vicinity of 100 tonnes of Scottish heather honey every year, most of which goes on to be packed by major packers and beekeeper packers under their own brandings. We also supply cut comb heather honey and Scottish Blossom honey.
We have queen bee breeding unit operating autonomously as part of the company and also produce and sell package bees and in excess of 1000 nuclei per year, although for now this is mostly for our own use.
The company has also diversified into the supply of robust but sensibly priced equipment, the same grade we use ourselves (see relevant sections for description).
Over the course of the year we will use in excess of 300 lowland sites, mostly on agricultural crops for either honey production, crop pollination, or a mix of both, then all moving to around 100 heather locations. At various times of the year we are active in Perth and Kinross, Angus, Aberdeenshire, Inverness-shire, Fife, and the Lothians, and form long term relationships with our landowners and farmers. Our fleet of very distinctive Unimogs out on bee work are well known throughout our areas.
More detailed information on each of these activities is available at the relevant sections.
Key People at Denrosa
Murray McGregor
Helen J. McGregor
Helen is very good with the bees and is now the point of contact for all but the most long standing landowners etc.
Assisted as appropriate by various staff members.
Linnet K. S. Røre
Ross McGregor
Jolanta Modliszewska
A native of Poland, Jolanta arrived here as a ‘gopher’ almost 20 years ago and very quickly became a key part of the team as her natural ability with bees became apparent. Since 2013 she has been developing our breeding and queen rearing unit, and our ‘Jolanta’ lines of queens have transformed our own unit, and are well liked by customers. Jolanta has been for training to several places and in 2022, together with Helen above and Kasia her queen unit assistant, went to the USA to Sue Cobey.
Shop for Bees or Equipment
We stock a range of Queens, Nuclei and beekeeping equipment. Visit our Shop to see our range of stock.
Denrosa News
Visit our News page to keep up to date with all the latest news and special offers at Denrosa Apiaries.