BEEKEEPING - Learning and teaching
Interview with John Phipps, the editor of The Beekeepers Quarterly
part 3 (3 of 4)
7. I’m using this nice opportunity for conversation to ask you to say something about beekeeping in UK. Several decades ago we had an opportunity to read some reports about beekeeping in UK in our beekeeping magazine “Pcelar”, but I think it is not widely known in Serbia.
J.P. I did come across the
magazine in the UK, but my linguistic skills are poor and I never had anyone to
help me to understand what was written in "Pcelar".
Beekeeping for me in the UK had the one disadvantage that most of my honey came
from oil seed rape. I was running about 60 stocks and it was impossible with
school and writing to be able to take all the honey off before it went solid in
the combs. Eventually, I left all the honey on the hives until the first frosts,
then removed what honey the bees didn't need and melted the combs and honey. I
only used starter strips of wax and when I cut out the combs I always left about
a cm or so of comb on the top bar so that the bees had something to start on the
following season.
In the early years I had many problems with the spraying of crops with
insecticides and fungicides and I seemed always to be shutting up bees or moving
them around to prevent them from being poisoned. This meant being up at five am
and working before school, or last thing at night. It was a difficult time.
One of the joys of beekeeping in the UK was taking my hives to the heather
moors. Although it was a only a two hour journey it involved a lot of hard work
preparing the hives. However, to be there on the moors at dawn with the bees in
place and watching them make their orientation flights was a marvellous
experience. Then, when it was time to take them home again, a few weeks later,
there was the glorious smell of heather honey wafting from the hives. The bees I
took to the moors always overwintered the best and built up more quickly in
spring than the other colonies.
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Bees on a field of oil seed
rape. This is now one of the most important forage plants for bees.
Unfortunately the honey can granulate in the comb before the beekeeper has
the chance to extract it. The honey is white, very sweet, but no other
flavour. It is best used for creamed honey. |
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Heather moors - an excellent beekeeping pasture
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 A British Commercial Hive - the ones editor used in England
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 Glen hive |
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| One of editor's forest
apiaries in England. He kept the hives on high stands as he does not like
bending. The hives here are British Standard National and British
Commercial. The British Commercial has the same dimensions as the British
National, so National supers can be used on the Commercial which has a
deeper brood box. He could only keep about 6 hives in each apiary, there
isn't enough forage for more. The plant is rosebay willow herb, a good
nectar and pollen source in late summer. |
8. What do you think about popularizing beekeeping through working with children? Do you have time for this, and what are your experiences?
J.P. I always used the opportunity in school to educate children about bees. Once they overcame their fear they were always fascinated by the colony life and enjoyed dressing up, lighting the smoker, looking into the hive and particularly extracting honey. However, like many beekeepers I seem not to have interested my own children so far in wanting to take up the craft. I sometimes think that it's ok if beekeeping comes to many people later in life; maybe that's not too bad a thing - for bees demand more attention today if they are to survive and working with bees is a real stress buster, you just forget everything else when you are working with them.
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Catherine and Jim playing |
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part 1 (editorial work, BKQ magazine)
part 2 (beekeeping in Greece)
part 3 (beekeeping in UK, working with children)