On Tuesday, Kate Middleton made a surprise visit to London’s Natural History Museum, and while she was there, she revealed a bit about what life is like at Anmer Hall, the Norfolk country home where she spent the coronavirus lockdowns with her Prince William and their three children. It turns out that Kate has a beehive, and on her visit to the museum, she gave some of her honey to a group of preschoolers.
“This came specially from my beehive,” she said, according to Hello. “Every time you see a bee, say thank you so much because they make delicious honey.”
This is the first time that Kate has shared anything from her own apiary, but beekeeping is apparently a Middleton family hobby. In 2020, James Middleton wrote an essay about his backyard bee colony, adding that his first beehives were a birthday present from Kate, sister Pippa, and their parents.
Kate has been a patron of the museum since 2013, and her last visit took place last October, when she filmed a spot awarding 2020’s Nature Photographer of the Year during regular hours. Her Tuesday visit was spent learning about their new Urban Nature Program, which will transform parts of the land surrounding the museum into outdoor classrooms later this year.
“As part of her long-standing work on early childhood, the Duchess of Cambridge believes that spending time outdoors plays a pivotal role in children’s future health and happiness, building foundations that last through childhood and over a lifetime,” said a Kensington Palace spokesperson.
During the visit, she helped the students make spiders out of pipe-cleaners and participated in a story-telling session. She also helped attach an acoustic monitoring device to a cherry tree, which will collect data about bird, insect, and mammal activity for students to analyze in the fall.
Last Friday, Kate launched the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and released the results of a years-in-the-making study into the state of childhood mental health in the U.K. In a foreword for the study, she emphasized how her passion for early childhood grew out of the encounters she had during royal engagements.
“I was struck by how often poor mental health but also early childhood was the focus of our conversation. It was the recurrence of these conversations that drove me to want to learn more,” she wrote. “Because by understanding the data, observing the practice and listening to lived experience, it became clear that if we want to build a happier and mentally healthier society then one of the best investments we can make is in the relationships, environments and experiences that make up our early childhoods.”
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