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BEES IN THE BOROUGH |
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Bees in the Borough |
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We are at the beginning of our new and exciting project, Bees in the Borough, and have taken on our Bee Breeder, David Rayner. David has been involved with beekeeping for 11 years and currently has 20 colonies of bees in various parts of the Ribble Valley. He is involved with the Blackburn and East Lancashire Beekeepers Association in the role of Education Officer. David also delivers the Association's training programme. David will be working alongside our Project Officer, Lisa Griffin, who has 8 years experience of working alongside honey bees. Together, they will organise the delivery of the project, including putting together the training programme, raising awareness of the plight of honey bees, arranging the bee forage plant nursery, organising planting 'bee friendly' plants across the Borough's parks and building honey bee colonies. For more information about the background to the project, see our PROJECTS page. |
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The overall aim of the Bees in the Borough project is to establish a thriving population of our indigenous Black Honey Bee, which is currently under threat of extinction, within the local area. This will be done by a programme of queen rearing, colony establishment and training. The British Black Honey Bee is now included on the Lancashire list of BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) species. The boundaries of this project are dictated by a belt of high moorland surrounding the Burnley and Pendle area thereby isolating our bees from those in the surrounding areas. This means we should be able to improve the quality of our bees by a programme of selective breeding of the indigenous British Black Bee, providing we do not import foreign bees. This work was initially started by Bill Ainsworth and Arthur Bickerstaffe, local beekeepers, under the heading of 'Black Bees in Pendle'. We are proud to take up the banner and continue this important work. Beekeeping courses will take place over the autumn and winter months. Training will be free to anyone interested in the project. However, because of the geographical reintroduction nature of the project, only people living in the designated area will be entitled to a free colony of bees, providing necessary training has been undertaken. |
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Training |
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Unfortunately, the Introduction to Beekeeping free courses available have been oversubscribed. However, if you are interested in the training, please still contact us as we can put you on a waiting list where places may come up through cancellation. For the benefit of course attendees, dates for the second course are as follows: Course 2 The remaining 2 courses will take place in Autumn 2012 and Spring 2013. Dates will be posted when available. |
We will be running a series of 1 day Introduction to Beekeeping workshops. Dates for these will be posted when available. If you have any questions, or are interested in the 1 day workshops, please contact us. Details are on the CONTACTS page. |
Web information on the British Black Bee: |
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Offshoots is supported by: |
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Offshoots is managed by Groundwork Pennine Lancashire |
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