Beekeeping Snippets

Research

at The University of Zagreb has indicated that propolis, royal jelly, honey, venom and caffeic acid, all found naturally in bee products, may help to prevent and treat cancer. Tests on mice showed that mice survived longer and growth of tumours reduced after administration of honey, royal jelly and propolis. Injecting the tumour with bee venom appeared to make it shrink. How bee products work isn’t known but this research may lead to larger scale clinical trials.

For a more everyday benefit from bees try a soothing honey and lemon drink to help ease a sore throat.

Alcohol

Evidence of honey found in 9000 year old pottery thought to be used for brewing indicates that Neolithic man knew how to have a good night out courtesy of the bees.

Bee boles

In 1990 John Willis inherited the neglected gardens at Heligan House in Cornwall. Tim Smith and John Wilson set about restoring the gardens to their former glory. Now the visually inspiring garden covers almost 200 acres.

The working garden provided food, flowers and wood for the house and features a wide range of flowering trees and subtropical foliage plants. The productive Victorian kitchen garden required the restoration of the bee boles (– a special niche for keeping skep beehives). Apart from pollination of the garden vegetables and fruit, the production of honey and wax was essential for self sufficiency.

The bee bole wall at Heligan is early Victorian and one of several examples of bee boles in Cornwall

Snippets from Beecraft magazine articles published  in 2005