Honey bees in Badenoch and Strathspey find new friends after big starter course
Badenoch and Strathspey is recruiting in the great fight to save our bees. A weekend event in Aviemore was a huge success in motivating and instructing newcomers to the cause.
Sunday’s starter day course at Spey Beekeepers Association’s hives drew a healthy number of potential front-liners.
The event, sponsored by the Lottery Fund was open to all who booked for a £12 place in the ‘line-up’ where they were given a real insight into how best to tend for the honey-making pollinators who for so long now have been under fire.
Habit destruction, pollution, climate change and disease have all played their part in decimating bee numbers in so many parts of the world.
Here hopes are high that locally the insects have a better chance of recovery and those who attended yesterday’s course were certainly given reasons for being more positive about the future of the strath’s bees.
Even the weather - so suddenly cloudy, damp and cold on Saturday after an almost record dry Spring - changed in time to enable a full session of instruction, where newcomers were allowed to wear the safety gear for the first time and take combs from the hives as the busy insects went about their vital work.
As the association’s Jennifer Lobban explained: “The purpose behind the big day was to talk about bees and to give people an insight into what is involved in looking after them.
“We looked at equipment required, approximate costs involved and explained just how much time is involved.
“We were able to demonstrate precisely what is involved in setting up a hive and apiary, and point out and discuss some problems and limitations.”
The booking fee also covered new membership of the association, whose numbers have doubled to over 40 in a decade as fears for the future of the honey bee species have spread.
Contact can be made through email at speybeekeepersassociation@gmail.com and the booking will include a year’s subscription to the association, enabling bee lovers to attend further members open days and meet up with other beekeepers.
Participants will get to wear the kit and open a hive.
