Welsh Country cannot but help celebrate Bees Needs Week we have previously looked at the co-operation between the Bee Conservation Trust & the organic farming group that supplies Calon Wen. Read: www.welshcountry.co.uk/bumblebee-friendly-farmers-lead-the-way-in-wales/
Caring for bees tends to go along with environmental thoughts in relationship to agriculture. Welsh Country takes a look at a beef and sheep farmer on the slopes of Snowdonia who has recently started keeping bees. Read: www.welshcountry.co.uk/the-environment-and-our-management-of-it/
Bee keeping has been active for over 5000 years and the use of honey 10,000 years before that. The Egyptians uses terracotta pots but in 1770, an Englishman Thomas Wildman published A Treatise on the Management of Bees, in which he described the invention of a new kind of hive (skep) that did away with the “inhuman and impolitic slaughter of the bees.” It was good news for beekeepers. It was even better news for bees.
Skeps are a woven basket in which the bees lived, where they were protected from wind and rain by being placed in a bee bole – a niche or alcove in an external wall. This splendid C19th example is at Cristionydd Farm near Pen-y-cae. (image Courtesy of RCAHM Wales) Mainly found across the UK and France, these alcoves can still be spotted around farms, gardens and estates, some reused for different purposes such as one at Troy Farm, Monmouthshire, now used as a memorial. (images Courtesy of RCAHM Wales) .
We can all do our bit to help maintain and expand bee numbers there are some good sources of learning more:
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust: established because of serious concerns about the ‘plight of the bumblebee’
The British Bee Keepers Association which educates and trains beekeepers of the future and supports vital research.
Bees Wales:- a non-profit distributing organisation whose aim is to help develop a vigorous, healthy and environmentally responsible beekeeping industry in Wales run from the Bee Keeping Centre Wales in Conwy.
