The Wonder of Bees BBC4 Mon.14th. April

Martha Kearney in a 4 part series on beekeeping etc. 8 to 8.30 pm.

Thanks for that, will put that in the planner this evening

Repeated at 1.30 am and followed by "Who killed the honey bee"

Russel said:

"Who killed the honey bee"

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Bees are dying in their millions. It is an ecological crisis that threatens to bring global agriculture to a standstill. Introduced by Martha Kearney, this documentary explores the reasons behind the decline of bee colonies across the globe

theeggman said:

Martha Kearney in a 4 part series on beekeeping etc. 8 to 8.30 pm.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up!

Since she actually does keep bees herself, it should be a pretty good programme.

UK beekeeping on terrestrial TV ... wow!
Mainstream, here we come.

thanks for the heads up

No problem.
It's a spin off from being a boring old f**t who reads the Radio Times when it arrives in the post.
We used to miss a lot of progs. because we didn't know they were on.

a good highlighter pen essential

A tvo box plus the virgin media app allows you to browse way ahead and record episodes or indeed the whole series . Beats a highlighter
VM


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VM, that sounds too technical for me.
Down here in rural Devon we can't even get land based broadband, our interweb goes via space and lands in Turin.

Tim

theeggman said:

Martha Kearney in a 4 part series on beekeeping etc. 8 to 8.30 pm.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. In the planner

Thank you!

If we are going terribly mainstream and trendy, does that mean that we need to shave off our beards???

jd101k2000 said:

If we are going terribly mainstream and trendy, does that mean that we need to shave off our beards???

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No, but we may have to trim them to match the latest Hoxton styles.

Still got my beard
50% heat loss via head !dictates that I require a beard to compensate for my being a follicely challenged minority!
VM


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Thank you, just set my sky box to record it

Thanks

It starts tomorrow evening!

I know that the idea is for the presenter to "play dumb" and ask questions that she clearly already knows the answer to ... but there were a whole lot of questions (and eyebrows) raised, and not quite enough answers.


Didn't like the idea of taking the bees out into the barren British countryside before there was any forage about. Just one opportunity missed to make a worthwhile point. OK, the camera crew were booked for a specific day and Spring was late ...
The bees were left with a feeder of syrup (without comment), but also with a super-full of foundation (and no QX).
And having this morning visited some bees that had perpendicular ideas when given wide spaced foundation (10 to a national box), I was a bit disbelieving of the immaculately drawn comb seemingly produced in a WBC box with just 8 frames of foundation (even wider spaced than 10 in a National).

Shame about her gloves.
And her choice of WBCs for migratory beekeeping ...
And the fondant above the non-see-through coverboard holes, when there turned out to be plenty stores in the hive.
And a bunch of other details.


But the notes in the top of the hive suggested that she knew rather more than she was allowed to let on, DWV as the most notable example. She has actually fronted a "threats to the bees" documentary which covered varroa pretty well, so I'm pretty sure she is familiar with DWV.
However "her journey" seems to be the theme of the series, so they have to start her well back!


Overall, a view for the public giving a glimpse of hobby beekeeping.
And not too bad a shot at it. (Though there is a heap of material there for Association training discussions!)

At least beekeeping was on the TV but I agree it was not great viewing loads of bad practice and to admit to having bees for a long time with no training not a good example. Any seasoned beekeeping would be alarmed at the errors and malpractice anyone new to beekeeping would have no idea as to what was wrong with the programme