Beekeeping

Bees are essential for pollinating fruit trees, so that they produce a strong, healthy crop during harvest. Over the past few years beekeeping and the art of making honey has become more popular. Some of this is as a result of the increase in ‘grow your own’ and people’s desire to get ‘back to the good life’, but one of the other main reasons is the promotion of the decline in the bee population over the last few years and its importance in food production – particularly fruit.

Honey Bees

Honey bees are particularly sociable insects and they cannot survive without their colony.  Each bee has a role to play in the upkeep of the hive, some of which are built naturally, whilst others are provided by beekeepers to encourage honey production.  The key roles in the hive include:

• Queen Bee – responsible for laying eggs and ensuring the reproduction of the colony
• Drones – Responsible for fertilising the queen bee
• Worker Bees – Responsible for making, cleaning and filling the cells of the comb with pollen and honey, looking after the young bee larvae, guarding the hive and searching for pollen and nectar.

The beekeeper’s job is to keep the colony at its maximum strength to get the best harvest of honey, whilst not allowing the hive to become overcrowded; at which point the bees may decide to swarm. A strong hive can produce up to 80kg of honey per season.
The main reasons to encourage beekeeping are:

• Bees provide 80% of fruit tree pollination, which improves crop production
• Honey bees provide honey which can be used as a sugar substitute in cooking and which is much healthier than refined sugar
• Honey is often used for medicinal purposes, especially manuka honey.  Hot honey and lemon is advised when you have a cold and honey is also said to relieve stomach troubles
• Beeswax produced from the hives is used for candles, as a lubricant and to increase waterproof qualities of leather
• Soaps and skin-care ranges often include bee products, as they are rich in vitamins, minerals and antibiotic properties.

So what can you do to support the British bee population?

If you are interested in beekeeping, then the British Beekeepers Association is a good place to start.  They can offer you lots of advice on buying the right equipment, how to set up your first hive and where there are introductory courses to get you started.

However, if beekeeping really isn’t you thing then there are other ways in which you can support the beekeeping industry -  you can buy honey, candles, soaps and other bee-related products locally (or even better produce them yourself from local honey).

You can also get out in to the garden and help. If you can plant bee-friendly plants like lavender or allium and look at reducing your use of pesticides then all of these activities will help support the British bee population.