Leicestershire & Rutland Bee Keepers Association    www.lrbka.org  ~   UK Charity number: 510687

Much work yet to do The M&SW convention, was held at Brooksby College, I had been appointed as apiary manager in charge of demonstrations and set up a small Team of enthusiastic members to work on the site, the Late John Inchley gave us an 8' x 6' shed to keep our equipment in on site; this was a great help, the association only gave permission for 2 colonies of Bees for the demonstrations only, so I asked for a separate hive to try out and experiment with 640 cell size brood foundation, this was set up so that a lecturer we had booked from Belgium who was to talk on the subject could demonstrate it practically, it was a success because we used Black Bees from the Duke of Rutland's apiary at Belvoir Castle, his game keeper Peter Stubly was one of our members. In the late 1970s the College was expanding its Horticulture department and the spinney with our apiary in it was in the way of greenhouse development so we were asked to move to a new site, the college principal wanted us to still keep the apiary at the College, so we were given a new site on the front of the College behind the Church, the principal got the students to build us a retaining wall on 3 sides, the small apiary working party of our members finished it off with 2 tons of washed pebbles and slabs all round the edge to stand beehives on. At this period in time the Association was very short of funds, and I had to make do and mend with what old equipment we had, after taking a lot of flak from some of our Beekeepers about the rubbish comb and hives we had to use, and after a lot of hard bargaining in committee meetings I finally got some new pine hives from Boon & Wright at Derby, I had also got some good scroungers in the team who came up with spare equipment, so I set up 3 hives (to teach) honey production,

Raising the beams above head height	Now insulation and electrics

Derek Glover had joined the team and was teaching the new beekeepers, this apiary site grew and developed into a large gathering of new and experienced members, the committee wanted to open another City Apiary to satisfy the numbers wanting to learn more about Beekeeping, the Association had a teaching Apiary at Barwell which was run by Dick Sleath this was moved out of the City when the power station closed. Alistair Read was appointed to run it I offered one of my sites in the Demontfort Hall Gardens for them to use, this was accepted, they had my experimental bees because they were calm on the comb and were not aggressive. This is when the committee became aware that I had expanded Brooksby to 6 colonies, this caused a lot of strong talk in committee, as I had to justify this expansion by the need for more advanced classes. This site continued to develop with an observation hive in a special brick and slate roofed house, but this all came to an end when the Principal left and the new management wanted the site to build a golf course for the students, we were then asked to move the bees to another site, the college prepared an ash & gravel area for spring.

Add a bee bole or two

This site only lasted for one year as the Inner City youths who were now booking in to Brooksby courses and were not supervised during lunch breaks deliberately vandalised the hives so that the bees chased and stung the girls! In one month 24 girl students reported being stung, the new principal sent for me to see him about the problem, after visiting the site he understood what the problem was, as the staff could not supervise students during break periods, he found us another site far away from the students, in an old 1950's cattle yard, this was well overgrown and had been used for a farm implement dump, the principal offered to have the dump cleared and would help us to recover the yard with gravel, the team set to work on Tuesday nights with spade's and wheel barrow's to clear the shelter of well rotted cow dung the pile was about six feet high and twenty feet long by the time we had dug it out and was fit for us to bring the bees back.

Best have a floor too (beats the manure)

We moved the slabs with the help of the college tractor and trailer this was now the hay day for the scroungers on the team, building materials, sand & cement, + donations of timber the use of a big cement mixer, the enthusiasm and morale of the team was high and over the next 3-4 years the apiary changed to the Brooksby Bee Yard, over the second winter period two members braved the cold and built the BEE BOLE so we could show how skeps were used, also we have a log hive, we have a range of old beehives on show at Donnington-le-Heath museum with a working modified national colony of bees. We got some grants to equip the site with Educational material, from LEAF (landfill site tax) and the awards for all (Lottery money) none of this expensive material is stored on site, it is only taken to the site when needed.

The facility we have created is now recognised as one of the best bee training centres in the country, and it is still developing, some of the members of the team are no longer with us, and some have moved out of the area, but others are coming on board and we need them to expand and improve our experiments and beekeeping practices. The site now has an out apiary for established beekeepers to learn while practising the management of colonies through the beekeeping year. Brian Cramp. (Apiary manager.)

Brooksby Teaching Apiary: today outside

and... inside

Another inside view

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