Meet the beekeeping couple with 450 hives in their corner of France

Laurent and Virginie Vallauri, in Pirajoux, north of Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain), were enthusiastic amateur beekeepers for a decade before they finally took the plunge in 2020 and became full-time professionals.

“It is a mutual passion,” says Laurent. “We love working with bees.”

They used to have just 20 hives but now have around 450, dotted around a dozen local communes.

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Bees chosen for calm temperament

“We move them from time to time. For example, if we want to make mountain honey, we take some of the hives up to the hills. The bees don’t mind. We move them at night and after a couple of hours of exploring their new surroundings, they just start collecting food again.”

They gather honey from April to September, leaving enough in the hives to keep the bees going through the winter, with a small supplement of sugar syrup.

Their bees are mostly Caucasian honey bees, because they have a calm temperament and produce large amounts of honey.

Together the couple produce a wide range of honeys including acacia, springtime, pine, mixed flowers, linden flower, and sunflower.

Read more: French honey-maker and fourth generation beekeeper shares skills

Customers use royal jelly as a tonic every spring

They prepare and pack everything by hand on the premises. Virginie also makes dehydrated pollen, spiced bread, honey and hazelnut spread, honey caramel, and honey cookies.

“We also produce royal jelly. It’s not sweet like honey, in fact it’s slightly bitter, but a spoonful a day for ten days can act as a great tonic,” says Laurent. “Lots of our customers use it regularly every spring.”

The couple also work with other small businesses, to produce beer made with their honey, nougat, boiled sweets, soap and essential oils, as well as beer.

“We like everything to stay very local.”

Love being in touch with weather and the seasons

They don’t have time to run a shop, but do have a market stall where they sell their products, and are stocked by local bakeries, groceries and supermarkets including SuperU.

At the start they concentrated on producing honey, but they are now progressively expanding, and have begun selling swarms of bees to other bee-keepers.

“But we are fully occupied with the bees. We run maybe one guided visit a year, in partnership with the local Tourist Office, but that’s it.”

Laurent and Valerie love working outdoors, and are passionate about being in touch with the weather and the seasons.

“We love our jobs.”

www.lerucher-lmiel.fr

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