Over recent years scientists have been telling us about the Bee population has declined this could be due to many things like man using chemicals on crops,climate change and the biggest problem was the varroa mite.
Here is one of the problems that has caused Beekeepers to see a decline in the population of Bees in recent years
The tiny little Varroa destructor.
The goverment in the UK has been trying to promote people to start beekeeping on allotments in fact any spare patch of ground the main reason being that we rely on the honey bees (Apis cerana) for most of the pollination of our plants and crops.
So is beekeeping easy or expensive well this is a good question we have been keeping bees for about 10 years we 1st started out by seeing a articale in out local newspaper that we receive every sunday and this provided us with the contact details for our local beekeeping club,on phoning to enquire more about this facinating hobby we had a invite to come along to a beginners class the following sunday.
On arriving to the Apiary we had a talk to give us some basic knowledge on bee keeping and provided us with basic equipment that we would need to go into the hive and show us how it all works.As you can understand although we wanted to go ahead and see how it all works you still have some doubt about it but we had no need to have any worried as they help you in every step of the way.
This is one of the most popular types of hives the original WBC.
So what happened after our 1st experiance with beekeeping well the local club provided us with a basic starter kit ie hive and bees and all we really had to do is buy the very basic veil and a few tools and the club provided us ‘on loan’ for a 12 month time duration the rest the main reason being is that if you decide after time that it is not for you then you are not stuck with equipment that will never be used again.This is very much like any other hobby or pastime if you decided to try golf that equipment can be expensive but once again if you dont like it you are stuck with all your equipment this is the main reason that belonging to a local club is a benefit and also a supply of help if you require it.