Beekeeper’s Notes: Meet Diana Jones, Beekeeper & Councillor

Published on: 1 Aug, 2019
Updated on: 1 Aug, 2019

Hugh Coakley keeps bees in Worplesdon.

Beekeepers love to chat with others about bees. And it was a great pleasure to talk to the new Green Party Guildford Borough Councillor, Diana Jones, about her bees and beekeeping in general.

Diana said: “Everything they do is beneficial. They are really interesting. I can spend hours just watching them.”

On a wet and blustery day, Diana Jones with her three beehives.

She has been keeping bees for five years now at her home in the beautiful Surrey Hills between the East Clandon and Shere.

We were hoping to have a quick look inside the hives (another beekeeper pleasure is to see inside other people’s hives) but the weather was against us. So we just chatted over a cup of tea instead.

She is very careful with her words. But you would expect that from someone who trained as a solicitor, is now a borough councillor and who also chairs a property company founded by her father. She is 71 and quite an amazing person, juggling a huge array of commitments and interests.

She joined the Green Party three or four years ago. “I was a paper candidate for Tillingbourne and very surprised to win the seat.

“But I will make the best use of this opportunity.” she added. “Now is a crunch time for the environment.”

The vegetable garden at Diana Jones’s home.

She has already stepped back from her business to focus on her council work. “I can’t do the business and the work on the council at the same time. I am down to one day a week now but will hand it over entirely soon.”

She shares her home with three lodgers and they all help to run the 40 acres of land around her home. including a vegetable garden and newly planted vines. Diana said: “I am trying to run it as a smallholding and organically. We will see what works here and then we will push that.”

Ducking out of the rain, Diana Jones in a poly tunnel at her home.

With all her other commitments, thankfully the bees don’t take up too much of her time. She inspects them weekly during the spring and summer. But that is an ideal and it doesn’t always happen if she is busy. She had taken the honey off her hives the day before, about 60lbs in total. Not a huge crop but she was very proud to show me a jar.

Honey from her bees and produce from the vegetable garden on sale at the gate outside the home of Diana Jones.

She is full of ideas. Photovoltaic cells came up in our conversation a lot. She has had them installed on the roof of her barn and they provide electricity for the house and the farm. “I push for them wherever possible when our company is renovating properties.”

Plastic free, zero waste refills is something close to her heart as well, especially as she seconded the Plastic Free Guildford motion at the last Guildford Borough Council meeting on July 23. “We need a bottle refill shop in Guildford and somewhere for a bottle deposit scheme as well,” she said.

When I was leaving, Diana mentioned that she helped out with the charity, Home Start, and that she was fund-raising by hosting Carmen by the opera company Rogue Opera in her garden.