This is the Rolls-Royce of honey… literally!

Although car manufacturing has been temporarily suspended, production of another product is running at record levels at Goodwood, the home of Rolls-Royce: and that’s what could well be termed the world’s most exclusive honey, or the Rolls-Royce of honey!

Established in 2017, the Goodwood Apiary comprises six traditional, English-crafted, wooden beehives, each bearing a polished stainless steel nameplate handcrafted in the company’s Bespoke Workshop. Five are named after cars in the Rolls-Royce product lineup – ‘Phantom’, ‘Wraith’, ‘Ghost’, ‘Dawn’ and ‘Cullinan’ – while the sixth, the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’, celebrates the marque’s famed mascot.

In their third full season of production, the 250,000-strong workforce in the company’s Apiary are set to exceed their 2020 volume targets for the honey. Rolls-Royce’s English Honey Bees are forage on the half-a-million trees, shrubs and wildflowers across the 42-acre site.

The Apiary project is part of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars’ efforts to stem and reverse the threat facing Britain’s Honey Bee population. A shortage of suitable forage, primarily caused by habitat loss, has put their numbers under growing pressure in recent years.

Rolls-Royce isn’t alone at the top of uber-exclusive British honey producer list. In September 2019 Bentley’s swarm of 120,000 “Flying Bees” produced their first crop of Bentley branded honey.

The beehives were set up at Bentley’s Crewe site in May 2019, and the first harvest in September yielded over 100 jars of honey from just two hives. The jars and packaging included a label created by Bentley interior designer Louise McCallum.