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Wrongfoot

New Bee
Joined
Feb 24, 2015
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Location
Northumberland
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I have some of these in my garden they're a nice feature. I'd post a link but I'm not allowed to yet until I post some more - 2 more posts). If you replace the "xx" in the link below with "tt" so it reads "http" I think the link will then work.

hxxp://ibra.beeboles.org.uk/search_detail.php?beeboleIBRARegNo=0261

My Dad's researching the property history here and so we might be able to update the dates depending on his findings.

Relax - I've read some posts here and I'm not going to start my beekeeping with a Skep and controlling 4-5 swarms per year. It seems a bit full on, I've close neighbours who might not want to put up with such a swarm intensive traditional method in the centre of the village :D :D and I think I'll try and get permission to locate my freestanding hives where a beginners impact will be limited.

Does anyone have these and operate Skeps from them in a traditional way? It seems they're not considered brilliant from a disease control perspective or a practical method, but perhaps someone still does this in the UK as a historical labour of love? A blog or something like that.

Down the line I might make/buy a couple of full size Skeps to put in the boles as a feature, probably blocking the entrance/base to prevent a garden colony, so they look a little more as they might once have done.
 
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Look at German skep beekeeping videos somewhere here on the beekeeping forum

Heligan were keeping bees in their BeeBoles up until a few year back, due to elfan saftey rule (+ a daft yummiemummie opening one of the skeps for her little darhling to look at the funny furry bees)

Also they had got the Carnie influence introgression factor and were to say the least quite defensive and swarmy!

Alas the Boles are now empty!

If I had the chance I would stick some skeps + nice native bees in the Boles up road from me!

Yeghes da
 
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There's seven or more of them - fascinating stuff - 'Heathland beekeeping in Germany' here's the first one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upbONroWPic
Fascinating - I watched all seven at one sitting! I note values of the heather honey (10-15 marks/kilo) and wax (15marks per kilo) are pre-euro so I wonder if the outfit is still operational because the bee-meister was age 71 at the time.
Has any forumite seen or used the pipe smoker? I wonder if the film was shot pre-varroa - there is no mention of bee diseases or treatments.
 
Those vids are brilliant. Thanks. I'd read about skeps producing swarms but that showed quite a reality!!!
 

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