Dysgu am gadw gwenyn yn yr Ŵyl Tyddyn a Gardd
Visitors to this year’s Royal Welsh Smallholder and Garden Festival can learn how they can help to save Britain’s declining bee population by taking up the craft of beekeeping.
Many colonies have been wiped out by disease, notably by the parasitic mite Varroa, and a report by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has revealed the economic impact their disappearance would have on this country. Without bees, says the report, many crops which rely on them for pollination would need to be pollinated artificially and this would cost £1.5 billion a year.
To find out more about how they can help, visitors to the Festival are being urged to call on the Bee Tent, located in the showground’s Forestry Area, where the Swansea and District Beekeepers’ Association together with members of other Beekeeping Associations in Wales will explain the many good reasons why beekeeping can benefit the natural environment and also the beekeeper personally.
“To anyone with an inquisitive mind beekeeping will provide a lifelong challenge. There is always something new to learn or a different way of managing bees,” says Wally Shaw of the Welsh Beekeepers’ Association which will have a stand in the Floral Hall.
“Beekeeping is not quite like anything you have done before, but with perseverance and a little help from others, you will soon acquire the basic knowledge and expertise to be successful.”
Apart from producing delicious honey, smallholders, particularly those growing soft and top fruits, can benefit greatly from a few on-site beehives. The bees will also benefit neighbours’ gardens and many species of wild plants through pollination.
All the information needed to learn about becoming a beekeeper will be available at the Bee Tent – how to begin, where to enrol on a beekeeping course, what equipment is required and what are the costs involved in making a start on a lifetime of interest and fascination with the remarkable organisation of a honey bee colony.
Those who want to get closer to the action can ‘have a go’ at beekeeping. They will be provided with protective clothing and can actually assist in opening a working colony of honey bees. This experience will be organised by the Swansea and District Beekeepers’ Association who will ensure all the necessary safety precautions are taken so that visitors can concentrate fully on the activity in the hive. Alternatively, visitors can observe what goes on through mesh panels in the side of the tent and anyone with questions to ask will find the answers at Speakers Corner in the South Glamorgan Exhibition Hall where Wally Shaw will give talks on beekeeping on both days of the event.
The Festival, with its garden and horticultural sections, is also an ideal place to find out more about what plants and wild flowers are good for bees. Since the 1930s Britain has lost an estimated 97 per cent of its old wildflower meadows and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology is recommending that planting new wildflower meadows in towns and cities and along the borders of agricultural land will greatly help to restore this loss.
The Smallholder and Garden Festival takes place on the weekend of May 15 and 16 on the Royal Welsh Showground at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells.
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