Thomas, our first Greek beekeeper, has seen his family organic honey business devastated by Storm Daniel.

Here at The Raw Honey Shop we are launching a Crowdfund Appeal to help get his family's beekeeping operation back on its feet.

The above was The Guardian's headline two days after the storm.

Two days after the very happy day when our Greek beekeeper Thomas and his sweetheart Christina got married Storm Daniel hit Thessaly, where Thomas lives. In the space of a few hours a whole year's worth of rain fell. Thomas had just moved his hives from the mountains to a lowland area for the winter. His hives were all drowned.

This was the worst disaster in living memory in Thessaly. The scale is unprecedented.

More rain fell in one night than normally falls in a whole year.

As soon as the rain hit Thomas knew there was a problem for his bees but he couldn't reach the hives because the rain was so intense. When it was possible to leave the house the road to the hives was still impassable. It took a couple of days before the water had retreated enough for him to get to the hives.

When Thomas reached the place of the hives he was met with the image you can see at the head of this appeal. A lake. Some of his hives were floating, some were sunk and some had been carried by the waters. (Later he found one of his hives more than 7 kilometres from this place. He believes some were taken out to sea by the retreating waters.) Below is a photo from a drone of some of the hives he located.

The hives he found were sadly full of dead bees and mud. Subsequently, he has had to burn all the frames, they cannot be used again because of the risk of disease. He was ordered to burn them by the Greek Ministry of Agriculture.

This has utterly devastated the family. 300 hives were drowned. Tragically almost all the bees died in the flood.. Many of the hives hadn't had the honey frames removed - and that honey is full of mud and inedible.

He is trying to retrieve as many hives as possible but now nearly a month after the storm he has found maybe 100 that can be restored out of the 300 that he had originally.

This has put Thomas and his family in a very difficult situation. The Government is giving them a little money but nowhere near enough to replace the hives and bee colonies lost. That is why we are launching this Crowdfund Appeal.

Thomas and his family have been loyal suppliers to us here at The Raw Honey Shop since 2016. We cannot sit by and see Thomas and his family go without help. Your donation to this Crowdfund Appeal can get them back on their feet.

**£87 will pay for an entire hive and the bee colony that goes in it.

**£8.67 will pay for a honey frame - that is where the bees deposit the honey.

**£24 will cover the cost of the first floor of a beehive.

**£870 will buy 10 hives and bee colonies for Thomas

£8,700 is our initial target to replace at least 100 of the lost beehives.

Thank you for anything you can give.