Plan Bee for Howbery

Two Honey Bee colonies were installed at Howbery Business Park earlier this year.

The WBC Hives are the archetypal style hive you see in Winnie the Pooh stories and have been positioned on the lawn not far from the main house. There will be two ‘nucleus colonies’ consisting of approx. 5000 bees on five frames, each colony containing one Queen.

We will allow them to settle in for a season and carry out all aspects of good husbandry, pest and disease control, winter care, feeding and extracting honey if required.

Most beekeepers expect 20 -30lb of honey per established hive but this is entirely dependent on the weather and available flowers to forage on. Head Gardener, Ben has recently embarked on his LANTRA training to become a qualified Bee Keeper. On award of this qualification he will be assisted by our other trained Bee Keepers managing all of these processes, so keep an eye out for men-in-white-suits.

howbery-bee-colony

Nurture Landscapes will deal with all aspects of good husbandry, pest and disease control, winter care, feeding and extracting honey.

The hive setup includes 2 brood boxes and 3 supers per hive which is adequate space for most usual colonies and conditions.

We always strive to comply with the RSPCA’s five freedoms that we benchmark our bee management against.

The Bee colonies should show good establishment and provided CR and biodiversity opportunities to the Park over the forthcoming years.

howbery-bee-colony

A cautionary note: although bees are normally docile and will only sting as a last defence, please do not approach the hives without the correct protective equipment and the accompaniment of one of our Bee Keepers.
We look forward to getting some of you suited up and involved with our bee education events in the future.
Look out for ‘Howbery Honey’ – the bees are already hard at it!

To view more information please visit www.nurturelandscapes.co.uk