Did you know that we have our very own Bee Hives on site?
These Hives were under the trees in the meadow and have now been moved so that our Bees are in a position to benefit from more sunlight. Their new home is in a small wild flower meadow behind the River Ivel, which can be seen from the main car park.
Our Bee keeper, Chris checked the hives a few weeks ago once the weather had warmed up and they were starting to become more active.
Smoke is used to calm the bees so that he can check everything is ok, it doesn’t harm the Bees, it just makes them go deeper into the hive.
The first job is to find the Queen Bee- this is not easy, but she is quite a lot bigger than the Worker Bees.
She was carefully removed, and one wing was clipped to stop her flying. If the Queen leaves the hive, it can make the colony swarm. A dot of bright red paint is put on her back to make it easier to find her again.
All the frames were removed, and some old honeycomb scraped off. One of the photos shows Worker Bees around egg cells on the left side, honey is on the right side.
Once everything was checked that the Queen was returned. A yellow frame is put in the top part of the hive which allows the workers through but not the Queen, this stops her laying eggs where the honey is harvested.