As busy as a queen bee

Bee venom and beauty might make strange bedfellows, but, as Jane Wheatley discovers, they are a combination fit for a Queen

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DEBORAH MITCHELL, beekeeper and beautician, opens her front door a few inches. Two Jack Russells pogo around her feet, ignoring repeated commands to 'go to your beds'. Giving up, she ushers me in and, after a cursory inspection, the dogs trot away. I've come to hear the story of how a dyslexic teenager with bad acne and limited formal education built a multi-million pound beauty empire endorsed by The Queen.

We talk in the kitchen of her West Midlands home, all pale stone floors and sleek worktops, converted from a barn on her husband's family farm. Light floods in through glass doors and there is a faint, delicious scent of rose and neroli. We start at the beginning. 'When I left school, I really wanted to be an actress, but in case I didn't get parts I trained as a beauty therapist,' confides Mrs Mitchell. 'Then I found that treating people gave me a powerful feeling of coming home.'

On the bus, she would hide her face, red with acne: 'I found a leg-waxing lotion, chamomile maroc: I put it on my face and it worked! We use it now in our chamomile hydrogel.'

When she got a job, Mrs Mitchell moonlighted treating private clients in their homes. 'I bought packs of nail extensions for $10 and sold the individual nails for $1 [each] — from that I built my business. I made my own skincare products with natural remedies from the pharmacy and the garden, steaming rosemary and lavender. I made a cleanser with boiled milk and rose petals—later, it became the basis of our hydro cleansing milk.'