Craig Hughes, Head Apiarist

Craig Hughes is a beekeeper with over 30 years experience of keeping bees and 30 years of bee stings. He is a qualified and classically trained chef with many years in the industry. He is also a qualified lawyer specialising in European and Islamic law. It was after his brush with cancer that he changed his lifestyle and returned to beekeeping full time.

He is ambitious, desiring 4000 active hives in the next 5 years, driven by quality and service but retains a common touch. He is gentle with his bees, trying not to move them too much, considers his livestock as an extension of himself and promotes animal welfare and safety.

Craig Hughes has an on-line programme of countryside interviews on BBC Radio Lancashire called Lancashire Country file. He is always looking to improve on quality and customer service.

He is married, lives in his beloved Lancashire, and is a keen promoter of local food.

He also collects antique working fire engines, much to his wife’s annoyance. 

Maureen Little, Crossmoor Farm Preserves

As Crossmoor Honey went from strength to strength it seemed only natural to branch out. Hence the establishment of Crossmoor Farm Preserves in 2009. It is headed by Maureen Little whose earliest memory of making jam was watching her mum standing at the Aga in their farmhouse kitchen, stirring a pan of raspberry jam made from the fruit that she and her sister had helped her mum pick from the garden only a few hours before. Maureen says she was never really taught how to make preserves but she just absorbed the knowledge much like the very fabric of the house absorbed the fragrances of fruits and vegetables being transformed into her mum’s delicious preserves. She took it for granted that only the freshest, seasonal ingredients would be used, and then only those which had been grown either in the family garden or donated from neighbours’ gardens. This philosophy of fresh, seasonal and local is still at the heart of her recipes, some of which she has kept with her over the years.

As well as being brought up surrounded by preserves Maureen has also acquired a good deal of expertise in growing herbs. Her family owned a market garden which grew, amongst other things, culinary herbs. During her spare time and especially during the main growing season, which coincided with school summer holidays, it was Maureen’s job to tend them. She ended up with green fingers in more ways than one!

A long period away from making preserves saw Maureen, at various times, joining the Navy, bringing up two wonderful children, lecturing at University, practicing garden design, and, more recently, setting up a farm shop selling local, seasonal vegetables, fruit and her own herbs. It was during the latter venture that she met Craig Hughes, bee-keeper extraordinaire, and, as they say, the rest is history.