After a busy and productive summer both bees and beekeepers are starting to getting ready for winter. We’re grateful to our bees for a good harvest of honey, which resulted in a well-attended demonstration of honey extraction in September, The resulting jars of pure honey once again sold out in hours through our shop.

Last week, in preparation for winter the CHC beekeepers checked the two hives to see that the bees were healthy and if they needed feeding or not. Hive 2 was fine, but Hive 1 seemed to be a little more lively than we’d like. Some of the bees followed us after we’d closed off the hive and were quite aggressive. We took the decision to take Hive 1 to a more rural setting and swap it for a more docile colony that better suit the Heritage Centre environment. Our experienced beekeeper Tim came after dark, when all the bees are settled and closed off within their hive, and swapped the two hives over. We hope our new bees will enjoy their new environment and behave themselves when they become active again in the early spring.

We’re fortunate to be able to manage the apiary like this because we’re part of an active beekeeping community in Beeston. We’re a group of supportive beekeepers who meet monthly to discuss issues and provide help and support to our fellow beekeepers.

If you’d like to learn more about beekeeping and potentially get involved, please feel free to come to our next meeting at the Heritage Centre on Thursday 24th October at 9.30am. All welcome!