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Posted by Editor on 10th August 2010 at 01:53 PM
A Taste of Honey in Winton - Part 2
by Tony Flynn and Tom Rodgers

Here is the second part of our bee keeping video, which was to be entitled the Bee movie, or The Sting, however we have run out of puns and have decided instead to just let beekeeper Bob Marshall tell us the story.

Here Bob tells us why Salford is the best in Greater Manchester for bee keeping.

We also hear how to get started, the dangers bees face from the environment and more crucially what the other allotment holders at Cleveleys think of having 60,000 bees in close proximity to their plots.

We were given a guided tour of the hives complete with protective clothing whilst Bob and Ann guided us through the process of bee keeping, which proved to be really fascinating.

Each hive has a queen bee and up to 20,000 worker and drone bees both of which have a specific purpose.

The hives are basically a series of boxes placed on top of each other, each box holds several frames containing a foundation of wax which the bees will draw out in order to fill eash cell with honey, nectar or pollen.

The top boxes in the hives are called supers and the larger box at the bottom of the hive is the brood chamber, the strip between the brood and the supers is a queen excluder, this is to save the queen bee escaping.

When the honey is harvested a percentage of the honey is left in the hive to feed the bees through the winter months.

Not only do Bob and Ann maintain their hives at Cleveley's Allotments but they also grow their own vegetables including potatoes, onions, courgettes, garlic, runner beans they also have an apple tree and a plum tree which both yield plenty of fruit, making them virtually self sufficient, truly the good life.



Related Links

Watch Part 1 click here
Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by Guest  11th August 2010
It looks like summat from outer space with all that clothing on!, at least you wouldn't get vandals on your allotment.

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