The 20th May is World Bee Day and Blossom Fields invited along Sue Hutton, secretary of the local British Bee Keeper’s Association.
Local Bee Expert Talk
Sue was very knowledgeable and passionate about bee keeping; originally it was her husband’s interest, but on his first attempt at beekeeping, he got stung and had an allergic reaction! This left Sue to take over and she got the bug for being a beekeeper!
Bee Facts
The talk was so interesting with some amazing facts including that a baby bee is the size of a grain of rice. Bees work together to build a family within a hive and that hive is looked after by one queen bee and her colony. The hive can typically produce around 55 lbs of honey every year, but 25lbs of that honey is kept within the hive, for the colony to survive the winter.
Bees travel some distance, up to three miles from the hive to collect pollen, and different pollen collected dictates the taste of the honey. This is why honey can taste different, in different regions of the country. A swarm of bees are safer than one or two lone bees, as they are trying to find a new home and that is all they are thinking about. Sue wore her beekeeper suit and showed everyone how it works to protect against stings, it is made of a very heavy-duty cotton fabric.
Resident's Feedback
Everyone said how much they learnt from Sue’s talk. All the residents greatly enjoyed the talk with one saying - “the lady had a way of holding our attention and was very clear. She obviously wanted others to know about how important bees are to our environment. I like to hear what people do as a job and it’s fascinating to see different people’s lives and how they come into these jobs. There is more to beekeeping than I realised. The overall experience was interesting, factual, and I will now eat honey with a better understanding of the amount of work it took to make a jar.”
Blossom Fields' Lifestyle
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