Being With Bees – Natural Beekeeping , Saturday 29th April

After 12 years of spending much time with my many beautiful colonies, watching, observing, studying and listening while also learning from other bee people, scientists and experts in the field, I offer this course as an alternative, bee friendly way to learn how you can welcome these incredible beings into your life.

There will be lots of very practical, down to earth advice. What kind of hives and homes work where and why, what doesn’t work, what bees need to be able to do well, what harms them and what simply kills them. You will learn why just putting a box in your garden and buying a load of kit without learning their ways isn’t enough but also why interfering too much does more harm than good.

And there will be something about the whacky, incredible, breathtaking, mesmerising pull of their inexplainable differentness to any other creature we know, their warmth, sound and scent, their being many and one, their being wild -and still knowing you as their human, connecting. I believe we people can learn a lot from the bees.

This course is not for you if you want to make money from having bees, or if the above is just not your cup of tea.

But if you would like to responsibly welcome honeybees into your life or garden or simply want to learn how to be with bees, how they live and what they do and why and are open to a hint of wonder, do come and join us.

There is an incredible amount of wisdom and individual expression in each colony I have had the honour to meet. It is no surprise to me that they were revered throughout ancient cultures as sacred beings and many of their ways are still an enigma today.

Bees have been around for tens of millions of years and have adapted and survived many changes in their environment. Then we humans came along, stuck them in boxes, clipped their wings, killed their sons, poisoned their food and now are surprised that they struggle.

Unlike cattle and dogs, who are very much dependent on us, bees are, in essence, wild. We can meddle with their genome, mutilate them and abuse them but, as soon as we stop, they revert back and remember being wild and free, producing swarms and mother queens chosen and raised by the bees themselves- rather than a human being thinking they know which queen a colony needs and when. Bees like to make their own choices. However, as we have drastically reduced their natural habitats and unadulterated sources of nourishment, they do need our help, awareness and support. Come and learn if you like.