Become a volunteerA fun fact I found out recently is that Agnes Baden-Powell (the founder of Girlguiding back in 1910) was a prize-winning beekeeper. She kept a beehive inside her house and the bees apparently had access to the outside by a pipe through the wall. This is probably what prompted a bee farmer/beekeeper badge in 1912 which continued until 1978.
I have always been fascinated by the bees in my garden which pop from one flower to another and so I attended a talk by a very experienced beekeeper. He started beekeeping back when he was 4 and is now 87 and he has seen everything there is to do with bee keeping. With the bee populations worldwide rapidly declining due to the loss of habitat, insecticides and disease, I decided to join a beginners beekeeping course. The course ran from April 2022 until the end of September 2022.
We first started out with the theory about the structure of the beehive, the different types of bees and also the diseases and predators that affect bees.
Then I purchased a suit and a pair of thick leather gloves, and we got to go into the apiary and inspect the beehives and look at the different frames. Using the smoker to first calm the bees and using the hive tool to gently separate the frames. We needed to check the beehives every nine days to see how the bees were progressing and whether the Queen is laying and how the bees are getting on with their stores of honey for the winter.
We leave the bees plenty of honey so they can survive out the winter and we only take the honey when they have excess. I had the opportunity to cut off the caps and put the frames into a large metal spinner where the honey is spun at such a speed it comes out of the frames.
I have grown in both knowledge and confidence when dealing with bees. I am planning for the Brownies, Guides and Rangers to visit the bees next year.
