a buzzy saturday afternoon

On Saturday, I went along to Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire to meet our bee competition winner Julian, Tim the beekeeper and Neil the Head Gardener for an afternoon of bees, bees and more bees.

 

Julian, Neil and Tim

We had a tour of the beautiful gardens and grounds from Neil (including the mushroom house) and then Tim gave us an introduction to bee keeping.

 

 

Tim has 8 hives at Hanbury Hall which this year yielded 250 jars of honey. He taught us how to hold a frame, how a hive works and how to mark a queen bee when you spot her.

Bee pens

Then it was on with the bee suits

 

 

Julian got to wear the suit as paid for by the proceeds of Buy One Get One Bee whilst I had to wear a suit for a 10 year old as there were no adult bee suits left.

 

Once suited, we then got to inspect the innocent hive and meet some bees.
 

  

 

The innocent hive 

After meeting the bees and asking more home beekeeping questions, we all got given a jar of Tim's honey

 

 

And then Julian and his wife, Nicky went off for a proper afternoon tea (though sadly the chocolate potato cake had sold out).

We've made a little film of the day (including Tim answering lots of your questions) so watch this space for the official premiere.

For now though, massive thanks to Tim, Neil and the catering staff at Hanbury Hall for such a brilliant afternoon, to Julian and Nicky for being such enthusiastic winners and to my mum for being an excellent camera assistant.

 

Here's to Buy One Get One Bee coming back again next year.

Comments

[Julian]

Thanks for a great day out!

[David]

I think the question on everyone's lips is:

How many scones did Julian eat?

[Nikki]

Also thanks for a really great day out. I enjoyed it immensly, and it was wonderful to feel so special.

David - I believe it was 5, but the scones were TINY! We did discuss that he would have to change his original answer - I would guess he could have managed atleast a dozen of these!