Hello from Coniston

[Green Housekeeper]

Hello

I am new (to here obviously) my name is Gill and I live and work in Coniston in Cumbria.

I just wanted to say hello and hopefully prove I am not a spammer!

As a family we are trying lots of ways of reducing our impact on the planet, some are really easy but others are proving quite tricky.

Lots of plans to set up the veg garden and we are soon to have some rescue chickens (from a battery farm) once we have those all settled we are looking to try to keep bees, we have some bee boles but I understand this is not the best way to keep them nowadays, still lots of research to do on this, any advice would be appreciated.

I do blether on, must apologise, I don't get out much!

Gill

[glenniedragon]

Hello there!
welcome to the site!

Bee boles are a great feature to have, but not the best way to keep bees nowadays. We have to monitor for diseases and mites which means moving the frames the bees are on to have a look, and treat if nescessary, which can't be done in skeps (the woven 'traditional' beehive).But you are very lucky to have a piece of beekeeping history on your doorstep, so to speak

Hope you like it here
kind thoughts
Deb

[ina]

Hello Gill, and a warm welcome to the site!

Bee boles - what a bit of luck to have that on your property - I've only ever seen photos of them! But I agree, I don't think I would use them as such nowadays... (There's me sprouting off, having been talking about beekeeping for so long, and still no bees of my own...)

[MKG]

Hi Gill

A question right away ('cos I'm thick when it comes to bees). How do you keep 'em out of the boles if they decide to go in and set up home?

[red]

hi Gill
welcome

we too have bee boles on our property.. lovely to have a bit of history like that.!

[ina]

Hi Gill

A question right away ('cos I'm thick when it comes to bees). How do you keep 'em out of the boles if they decide to go in and set up home?

They don't actually live in the boles themselves - the skeps were put into the boles...

[tim&fatima]

Hello Gill, and welcome.

[Green Housekeeper]

Hello,

Thank you for the welcome!

I have to be perfectly honest and when I first discovered the bee boles I didn't have the 1st clue what they were and my first thought was 'what kind of structure must have needed that many beams across, what on earth must they have housed?' Ooops.

I have some books on bee keeping but would really prefer to complete a course, if anybody knows of any I would love to attend.

Thanks again, how friendly you are!

Gill

[Shirley]

Hello from me too - and just in case any one else doesn't know what bee boles are - have a look at this link

[Rachel Squires]

Hiya,

How lucky you are - I lurve honey and would love to keep bees!

Welcome anyway, from one newbie to another!

rach

[marshlander]

Hi Gill!

OH and I attended a course organised by Thornes and very good it was too! They have links to courses all over the place. http://www.thorne.co.uk/courses.htm

Most bee keepers we know belong to a local club - here'sthe link for your area http://www.cumbriabeekeepers.co.uk/

My father had given us his hives as he'd given up beekeeping and we thought we'd better find out the right way of doing things. In the end we gave the hives away to another couple on the course as we decided it was not for us! We now get a few jars of honey without the worry!

[oldfella]

Hello Gill welcome

[ina]

There's a free course here locally, too - just ask the local association. Or you might find a mentor in that group, who'd let you accompany him or her for a season.

[Millymollymandy]

Hello and welcome!

[Thurston Garden]

Ahoy Gill!