This was originally written for the Apiarist’s Advocate, an online beekeeping magazine (January 2025). You can read it in that publication HERE.
During a twenty-year “OE” in the UK, restauranteur Ken Brown discovered a love for local seasonal food—including honey. Now back home in New Zealand, he finds himself well immersed in the world of honey and beekeeping, and taking great pleasure in introducing others to it too. Chris Northcott spoke to this Auckland-region beekeeper’s roles as an educator, club president, and assistant chocolatier.
Chef-Turned-Beekeeper:
Ken’s fascination with bees began during his twenty-year “OE” while he worked as a restauranteur in West Sussex, UK. Aiming to deliver a dining experience with a seasonal flair, he got into foraging locally sourced supplies for the larder, including game, seafood, mushrooms—and honey. Keeping honeybees for himself was not something that was possible at the time, but upon returning to New Zealand seven years ago found opportunity to dive right in.
Brown considers himself a hobbyist beekeeper, but with 28 hives technically comes under the “semi-commercial” category. Based in Waimauku, just north-west of West Auckland, his hives are on a range of sites in the area – a golf course, a berry farm, and a macadamia orchard, to name a few. He produces some honey from these hives, most of which is gifted to friends and family, and has recently been trying out the heart-shaped honeycomb kits sold by BeeQuip Beekeeping Supplies.
But most of the hives are used for teaching—education is Brown’s other great passion. In addition to his 2000+ books on food from his cheffing career, his personal library includes 227 (to be precise) and counting on beekeeping related topics. Evidently very active minded, Brown loves to share what he learns. One outlet for this is his writing—regularly contributing articles and book reviews to local magazines, Auckland Beekeeper Club publications, the New Zealand Beekeeper journal as well as his own “Ministry of Bees” Substack page. He also teaches with Land Based Training Ltd, and uses many of his hives for the hands-on experience that student apiarists need for their training.
Mr President
After a year of “training” as the vice-president, Ken Brown is now in his second year as the president of the Auckland Beekeeping Club. Like many clubs, this one has suffered a drop in members since the Covid era. Brown notes that name people come for a while to learn what they need about beekeeping, but then stop once they have acquired the basics. Rebuilding membership is one focus at present.
To help to attract and retain members, Brown is aiming to engage intermediate and advanced level beekeepers by organizing regular seminars on interesting beekeeping topics that go beyond the basics. Each fourth Wednesday evening of each month, different speakers present on topics such as an AFB recognition refresher course hosted by Kim Kniejber and a forthcoming seminar a seminar on honey tasting by Ken Brown, sharing what he learned from Maureen Conquer’s workshop in March (read about it HERE).
The best part about the role for Brown is the opportunity to engage with enthusiastic new beekeepers who are keen to learn. He loves the time for talking and discussion during the club “field days” when they open the club hives. Brown also notes the great committee he serves alongside. Everyone has different specializations and is willing to put those to good use for the club.
One special highlight came after hosting beekeeping icon John Berry during a visit to Auckland’s club. As a thank you gift alongside a frame of his own honey, Berry passed on a handmade heavy-duty hive tool, crafted from the leaf spring of a Morris Minor classic car!
Artisan Chocolatier … Assistant
Although Christmas is passed, it is not too late to bring up the Browns’ honey chocolates. Ken’s wife Sandra is a chocolatier—a professional creative chocolate maker (Ken assists by providing the honey and the taste-testing services!). Ken and Sandra met through shared food interests in his role as a restaurateur in the UK, and married before returning to his home country here in New Zealand. Their chocolates are made from imported “raw” ingredients of cocoa solids and cocoa butter, rather than simply melting down pre-made chocolate from the supermarket. Due to some steep price increases in the past year (four-fold!) due to droughts in West Africa and investor speculations, they are looking at acquiring from emerging new supply markets in Samoa and Papua New Guinea.
Sandra crafts a range of boutique chocolate products—including hand painted edible chocolate dragons! (The dragons are definitely worth at least a look on their website). For beekeepers, the most interesting are the “honey chocolates.” These are made in moulds shaped as faced domes with a bee on top. Inside there is a filling of liquid Waimauku multifloral honey from their home hives. Sandra and Ken had to run a lot of trials to get the recipe right (resulting in plenty of gifted chocolate concoctions for friends). Initially they had worked with a chocolate ganache but found that this had only a short shelf life and tended to absorb the honey into it and subsequently leak the honey inside the packaging. After further experimentation they perfected the recipe: keeping the honey both liquid and inside!
Two other chocolate products involve honey. One is the “honey chocolate” which is made with honey in place of sugar, while the other is “crunchy Manuka bar” made with dried honey pieces. These are decorated with a hexagonal pattern on the top together with several chocolate bees.
Trading as “The Chocolate Room”, Ken and Sandra sell at local farmers’ markets and through an online store. Two years into the venture, business is growing and they are now looking at the possibility of exporting. Ken explains that adding value to their chocolate products, building a good customer base, identifying niche markets, and not over-extending are key considerations as they develop their business.
Hard, Hot, but “Cool” Work
As a beekeeper, Ken Brown loves to learn and to educate, and is enthusiastic about the work. His professional restauranteur days may be behind him, but he sees the work of a beekeeper being akin that of a chef: the work is hot, often painful, with low pay and hard working conditions and long hours. “But people think you’re really cool for what you do.”