A HAYFEVER sufferer and her husband have transformed a hobby into a buzzing business.

Jo Nickless has suffered from dreadful hayfever since she was in her early twenties, and would spend weeks out of every summer with all the symptoms of a heavy cold.

But in 2006, her husband Rob persuaded her to take up beekeeping with him, so that she would have a supply of local honey to help her hayfever.

The pair did a course in beekeeping at Newbury College, before setting up their first set of hives.

Mrs Nickless said that although there is no medical evidence a lot of people believe eating honey made with local pollen can help tackle hayfever symptoms.

She added: “I got it when I was about 21, although I never had it as a child. It was dreadful, it was like having a heavy cold.

“Rob was always keen to have bees and he persuaded me we should take up beekeeping on the basis it would give me local honey for my hayfever.”

The couple, from Didcot, started off with five hives at their holding outside the town, but sales of their honey and beeswax products were so successful that Mr Nickless gave up his full-time job in IT to keep bees full time in 2010.

Now their business – Meadow Honey Farm – boasts between 100 and 150 hives across South Oxfordshire and West Berkshire and produces between four and six tonnes of honey a year.

Mr Nickless, 40, is also chairman of the Newbury Beekeeping Association, which has nearly 200 members from as far afield as Andover, Marlborough and Didcot.

Mum-of-two Mrs Nickless said she was surprised by how well the business has taken off, and her five-year-old son Charlie is even looking after his own bee colonies.

She added: “Business is great actually. The demand for honey and beeswax is never dying. Selling our products is very easy.”

Mrs Nickless, 40, said her hayfever had definitely improved, although she did not know if that was down to nine years of eating their homemade honey.

She added: “The theory is that there is pollen in the honey, so by ingesting the honey your body is building up an immunity to that pollen.

“My hayfever is definitely better, but honestly I have no idea if that’s down to eating local honey.

“Medically there’s nothing proven, but I have a lot of customers who swear by it – when the pollen count goes up you can see the sales increase.

“But whether it works or is a placebo I just don’t know.”

* Visit meadowhoneyfarm.co.uk