Our Bee Project has already been much talked about, and work has already commenced on it with hives already been built by some of the volunteers. But this weekend, Rob, Gemma and Alison travelled across to North Wales for a weekend of learning about beekeeping. We arrived on the Friday evening and eventually managed to find the B&B (which served a huge and delicious breakfast) and had a wander down the country lanes to the pub.
On Saturday morning the hard work began. We spent the morning learning about all the basics and then the summer management of beekeeping. In the afternoon we then got dressed up in our very fetching bee suits and went to visit an aviary. Wearing wellies and a bee suit with all done up in the blistering hot sunshine makes for very hot and sweaty bee keepers! We got to look at the hives and practised what we had learnt in the morning. When we could endure the heat no more, we left the bees to it and went back for tea and to learn all about the equipment.
In the evening, we had a lovely stroll around some woods to relax after our hard day of work.
On Sunday, the sun was shining just as hot again, and we had a long morning indoors learning all about viruses and diseases and pests and everything that will kill off our bees. We also learnt about winter preparation and the honey harvest. The aviary we visited on Sunday was thankfully in the shade, so we were able to wear our bee suits in a bit more comfort!
We all are now experts on keeping bees, and now just await the arrival of the bumblers!
