|
|
March 22nd, 2008 - Back To School With much excitement, anticipation and associated trips to the toilet, Dan started school today - bee school, that is.
Earlier in the week Dan had prepared his training hive by painting it in a special preserving paint which is a rather fetching shade of silver.
He'd also read his "Bee Keeping for Dummies" book and become quite a bore - or should I say oracle - on the subject. Those that know Dan will know that when he's reading a book he's quite antisocial and doesn't talk to anyone until he's finished reading!
That aside, at 2pm today armed with his freshly painted training hive, smoker, hive tool and clothes off he trotted full of hope that he'd be playing with the bees.
Unfortunately, the weather was bloody cold and wet and in bad weather the bees can't be handled otherwise they'll die.
So, instead of putting the hives in situ and filling them with bees, the bee school was a theory lesson in bee diseases and treatment.
Having been quite excited about bee keeping learning what could go wrong did put a slightly damp squib on the whole affair. However, at the same time, it was reassuring to know that diseases are common and there are remedies - and if things do start to go wrong with our bees, we won't take it personally.
Apart from discussing various bee ailments, there was a big discussion about farmers who use pesticides when growing sunflowers (there's a lot of sunflower fields around here) and the knock-on effect that it has on bee welfare.
This is not the place to rant and rave about pesticides (although it'd be really easy), but suffice to say, bees are having a tough time at the moment and consequently honey yields are significantly lower than 20 or so years ago.
One thing that was quite astonishing at the bee school was the age range.
The school has 15 places (there are 2 other English at the school as well) and the ages went from 16/17 (a boyfriend/girlfriend couple) up to 80ish.
There were easily 3 generations there, all wanting to learn about bee keeping and everyone had their own reasons for wanting to keep bees.
The next lesson is in 3 weeks time which will hopefully mean that the crappy weather will have gone and then Dan gets to play with the bees as well as get our own hive started in the garden.
It also gives us plenty of time to get hold of antihistamine creams and ointments!!! View The Blog Read All Bee Stories |
