Beekeeping in the Lake District has received a welcome boost with the arrival of a set of beehives at Wild Boar Estate near Windermere.
Staff at the country estate hotel have been learning about beekeeping techniques and honey production, as well as the impact the bees have on the surrounding woodlands and wildflowers.
Wild Boar Estate now has three burgeoning beehives which are allowing the rural estate venue to produce its own honey for guests to enjoy at breakfast or purchase to take home as a tasty memento of their stay.
The beehives have been carefully stationed in the estate’s private woodlands to give the bees the best chance to flourish on the its 72 acres of rural land and produce some top quality Cumbrian honey.
At the peak of summer, each beehive will contain up to 60,000 bees committed to the welfare of their queen and the colony as a whole. Wild Boar Estate gives the bees acres of high quality rural landscape in which to roam and forage, with good sources for a continual supply of food and water throughout the spring, summer and autumn months.
The busiest time for the budding beekeeping team is late spring and into the early summer when they are routinely checking on the hives and the welfare of the bees. This is important to prevent swarming, to monitor their health and to ensure there is enough space for them to store their honey. In the winter, the team keeps a check on the hives to ensure the bees have enough stored food and remain healthy.
“This is a wonderful project to get involved in and a chance for us to give nature and sustainability a helping hand. Our seasonal countryside cycles and natural rhythms would be broken without the humble worker bees. As major pollinators, we simply couldn’t live without them.
“So it’s fantastic for us to see them buzzing around from flower to flower and meandering through our woodland glades and meadows. Then there’s the added benefit of harvesting their honey here on site for our guests to enjoy. We are even planning to use the honey in the microbrewery for the production of small batches of mead which visitors no doubt will be keen to sample.”
General manager of Wild Boar Estate Adam Bujok
English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues has been working with experienced apiarist Jackie Kerr to install the hives and teach members of the Wild Boar Estate team the basics of beekeeping. Who knows they may become the Cumbrian beekeepers of the future!
Jackie says: “It’s been a pleasure to be involved in setting up the Wild Boar Estate apiary which continues to flourish and grow. The estate team’s enthusiasm and commitment to protecting pollinators is both inspiring and wonderful to see.”
The taste and texture of honey depends on many factors including environmental variations and the types of wild flowers and plants the bees visit. For example, honey harvested from bees frequenting large swathes of heather moorlands has its own distinct flavour.
The history of beekeeping in Cumbria is thought to go back at least to the middle ages. According to the Eva Crane Trust which seeks to help us better understand the science and history of beekeeping, Cumbria has a good number of surviving bee shelters built centuries ago.
These bee shelters typically had drystone end walls and a slate roof or lid, beneath which were one or more shelves. ‘Skeps’ or ‘bee baskets’ of straw or wicker were put on these to make a cosy home for the bees. It’s a far cry from the modern, neat and structured beehives which help bee colonies to thrive in woodlands and meadows today.
These types of stone built bee shelters seem to have survived better in Cumbria than anywhere else in the country. Indeed, Cumbria has 37 of them – over 30 more than any other area and representing around 50% of those recorded in England.
Only time will tell whether the team at Wild Boar Estate can start producing some of the best honey in Cumbria.
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