Beekeeping courses at Canonteign with Tim Hall and Jessie Watson Brown 

A bee garden has been designed for the orchard at Canonteign Falls and the planting is well underway. 

 Canonteign Falls provides the perfect environment to sustain and promote a healthy colony of bees.  No artificial fertilisers are used on our land, consequently wild flowers, particularly clover thrives.

There  are be 6 hives in the Canonteign bee garden.  Four are National hives and two horizontal topbar hives.

The bees at Canonteign are housed in the old orchard, with a dozen old apple trees.  The bee garden is being designed so that the bees will have flowers to forage from for  as much of the year as possible, March through to October.  Honeybees can struggle to find early or late flowering plants, at these important times of year.  Early forage such as willow and crocus means the bees can start raising their young on the collected pollen and nectar.  Plants that flower late into the autummn such as ivy and gorse mean that they can ensure their honey stores are stocked up ready for a winter inside the hive.

The garden  includes native wildflowers such as oxeye daisy and musk mallow, culinary and medicinal herbs such as thyme and mint, climbing plants like hops and honeysuckle, as well as a sea of bee-friendly flowers like phacelia, borage, geranium and roses.

 The garden is a calm haven, with the gentle sound of buzzing bees and the breeze in the apple trees as well as a place to find out what you can do in your own garden to support these special insects.

Tim Hall from Embercombe in Higher Ashton will be managing our bees, along with Jessie Watson Brown.  They  will be offering guided walks through the bee garden.