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Colwall Orchard Group – Bee Keeping
Colwall Orchard Group consists of 17 committee members and 60 active volunteers, they conserve
and promote and celebrate traditional orchards in Colwall (and beyond). An element of this is the
development of Colwall Village Garden, where we have created allotments and community facilities
within our new community orchard.
Bees are an orchards best friend so a couple of the volunteers attended our Bee Keeping course in
June 2013, the group have kept bees in the past but they wanted more of their volunteers to be
properly taught.
The group were successful in their application for a grant of £500 to buy two nucleus of bees and some
bee keeping equipment. Having lost all of their bees the previous year and having some of their kit
stolen this grant enabled them to get back up and running with two colonies.
One of the first items the group purchased was a blow torch, this
was used to sterilise the wooden parts of the old hives ready for
the new bees. The bees were delivered on the 30
th
June 2014 and
were transferred straight into the cleaned up hives and they have
settled in nicely. The bees will be helping to pollinate the orchard
trees and allotment vegetables.
There is a small team of beekeeper volunteers who look after the
bees with a couple of allotment users considering joining the
group too who will want to attend a future bee keeping course at
Trafford Hall.
The group are looking forward to taking some honey this year,
which they will then sell to fund on going management costs of keeping bees.
Aside from the beekeeping the group are very busy with plans to –
Repair their old Apple Packing Shed
Infrastructure improvements around the site to make it more accessible
Think about other new enterprises including the possibility of keeping chickens
“We are really grateful to Trafford Hall for your continuing support. All the volunteers who have been
to courses have come back energised, through a combination of learning from the course, meeting the
other participants and also, quite importantly, taking the time out from the everyday grind in such
lovely surroundings. The beekeepers are delighted to have 2 more colonies, after our disappointing
year last years”.
Quote from Helen Stace, Volunteer with group.