A ‘hive’ of activity at Castan
Currently, eight members of staff are learning how to inspect our national and top bar hives, enabling more participants to experience our ‘Safe Place to Bee’ and visit the apiary at Castan.
Our beekeeping at Castan has been a ‘hive’ of activity!
Currently, 8 members of staff are learning how to inspect our national and top bar hives, enabling more participants to experience our ‘Safe Place to Bee’ and visit the apiary at Castan.
The bees have been extremely cooperative during our inspections and enabled colleagues to get up close and explore the hidden world of our pollinating allies.
The colonies are building in numbers as the queen will be laying some 2000 eggs a day at present and colonies are around 40-50,000 strong.
When the lid is removed, the aroma of sweet honey fills the air. It unveils the beginning of capped honey cells, stain glass windows of pollen which glisten in the sunlight (protein for the bees), capped brood where young bees emerge and which can be observed at close range, and cells with eggs and larvae. There is a continuous movement of business with each bee successfully going about its allocated duties.
We have had some ups and downs which is to be expected with beekeeping, however, we now have all 5 National hives and one top bar hive occupied following successful over wintering and operation swarm collecting in full flow.
