Basics

A beekeeper’s Year is spent with one eye up to the sky because many activities are weather dependant. THEREFORE, there may be occasions when your experience day is postponed due to bad weather. If the rain is constant the bees will not fly, opening the hive on a day like this will just make them stressed and bad tempered so should be avoided in all but the most urgent of circumstances.

Each session last approximately two hours but with a bit of preparation at the beginning and question time at the end, you will need to allow 2 hours 30 minutes. You will need to arrange your own transport. Please arrive with plenty of time for car parking, getting changed etc.

Everything is provided, except your footwear and refreshments. Please bring a snack, a drink and some sensible footwear. Wellies are good, as are rigger boots, hiking boots or old trainers and long socks. Bees have been known to sting ankles through socks so boots are the best.

If you are allergic to insect bites, please do not book onto Little House sessions. If you carry an Epipen please contact Kaye to discuss your special requirements.

No two sessions will be the same because every individual hive is unique. Each hive has its own colony of bees from a certain genetic pathway bred over the seasons and years. If you book two sessions you will most probably be looking at different colonies and this will give you a wider variation of circumstances to discover in the hive. Each month over the season brings different challenges for example a colony in April will be rapidly building up young bees ready to forage the spring flowers. The same colony in June will be busy foraging on the Blackberry blossom and in August most Little House bees are taken to the Heather to gather the high protein nectar from the Ling. If you have seen the hills turning purple in August, it is this flowering shrub that the bees love so much.