Black Bee Combe

18/02/2019

Excited to have another course coming up with The Craft Revolution , be ready for welcoming some bees with this Spring course.

Bee-Centered Beekeeping is a course on bee ‘keeping’ which puts their needs first, guided by honeybee biology and behaviour in the wild.

Monday’s from 18th March
6:30 – 8:30pm
Evening sessions for five weeks

During this five-week course you will learn the art of gentle beekeeping, also variously described as; Natural Beekeeping, Bee-Centric Beekeeping, Balanced Beekeeping or Natural Bee Husbandry.

You’ll have the chance to taste local honeys and prepare a hive to welcome the bees.

We’ll explore how to help honeybees be less stressed and healthier, adapt to Varroa Destructor (a honeybee mite) and ultimately be more independent from us. We’ll question if and when it’s truly helpful for us to intervene.

We will focus on the Warré hive, but the bee-centric principles are applicable to a range of bee hives. You will get to handle an example Warré beehive and get some practical experience waxing top bars and preparing other elements of the hive.

Whilst harvesting honey isn’t treated as a given, we will discuss how to know if the bees have any to spare and taste some honey together in celebration of our relationship with the honeybee.

Participants will be invited to visit an apiary after the course.

“Excellent course, very informative. Don’t want this to end!” –
Molly

Book through the Dartington website:

https://www.dartington.org/event/crafted-bee-centered-beekeeping-5-week-evening-course/

11/09/2018

Looking forward to another course with the Craft Revolution in October, I hope to see you there.

Crafted: Bee-Centered Beekeeping - 5 week evening course |

28/10/2017

have done an amazing job of creating a magical spot in Dartington's North woods. Such a fun evening tonight. I look forward to many more nights amongst the trees!

21/10/2017

A really inspiring day at the & Community Homes Fair 2017 !

15/10/2017

Preparing for Ophelia.

08/10/2017

Vote with your wallet and buy organic as often as possible to say no to neonics and other poisons being used in our landscapes. The research increasingly shows neonics are bad for biodiversity and stick around for years!

A new study finds traces of neonicotinoid chemicals in 75% of honey samples from across the world.

07/10/2017

Getting the group hands on waxing top bars at the Warre Beekeeping course today.

07/10/2017

We've had a great day today at the Warre beekeeping course. Warre hives are a type of vertical top bar hive. Here's John demonstrating how top bar clothes are prepared with a flour "gravy" to stiffen them up.

23/09/2017

Keep your eyes peeled, some of our native solitary bees are rather small but we have over 270 types of bees in the UK and only 27 of them are bumblebees and one a honeybee. Here's a species of base banded furrow bee I spotted yesterday on the farm.

15/09/2017

Thank you to all you lovely people who supported me and the bees at the Local Economic Forum through numerous different pledges of support. Here's the pack of postcards, wildflower seeds & a certificate which "Blossom" and "Nectar" hive sponsors get as a thank you. I look forward to hearing of new mini meadows popping up as a result!

14/09/2017

A nice little mini meadow in

14/09/2017

In a friend's rather magical garden today, evocative of the secret garden, I came across a wonderful late blooming tree being enjoyed by honeybees and others. I believe it was a type of myrtle ? Some cuttings are coming home with me.