We are so lucky, friends from Chulmleigh have set up a hive on our land so now we have honey bees collecting pollen and fertilizing our plants. Andrew and Lynda are new bee keepers and with only a small garden were on the look out for someone with a bit of land so they could site their first hive. We have chosen the area on the way out of the Collecting area. It’s really private there, sheltered, near some of our fruit trees and accessible for Andrew and Lynda without them having to come on to the main holding. We are all learning loads: my lesson today was to find out how short lived the worker bees are, they spend time in the hive doing various tasks and then about three weeks only collecting pollen in the summer before keeling over - and in that short time fly hundreds of miles. The phrase 'busy as a bee' is most extraordinary apt!
And in the autumn we may just be eating our very own home-grown honey!!!