DOWN MEMORY LANE: Whatever happened to bee keeping services?
Back in May 1949, West Sussex was experiencing something of a similar surge in interest, so much so that the county council’s education committee was prompted to establish the county-wide, monthly Beekeeping Bulletin, ‘due to the considerable growth of beekeeping and the increasing demand for educational facilities and advisory work for the craft of beekeeping’.
The first edition included a list of upcoming county council demonstrations to be held at Kingsham Farm in Chichester, at its apiary ‘in the orchard on the left-hand (north) side of the bypass immediately beyond the canal’.
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Hide AdThe first demonstration, to be led by Mrs EE Bisset – one of two part-time county beekeeping instructors – on May 7, concerned the establishment of a ‘queen rearing apiary’; other demonstrations were held throughout the summer, including a demonstration by Hampshire’s county beekeeping instructor on swarm control, on June 4.
Beekeeping Bulletin
The inaugural Beekeeping Bulletin also included information on the symptoms of the Foul Brood disease, a debate on the apparently contentious Demaree Swarm Control Plan, a report on the food required for wintering bees and no less than 25 ‘Notes for Beginners’.
‘For the Bee-Keeper’s Wife’, a regular feature of subsequent Bulletins, consisted of a selection of recipes involving honey, such as cakes, biscuits, tarts and salad dressings.
In March 1950, in line with many other local authorities, West Sussex County Council decided to appoint a full-time organiser of beekeeping.
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Hide AdThe successful candidate – a Mr Harry Spalding Thompson, who relocated from his home in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to take up the appointment – joined the council in May 1950, on a starting salary of £400 and with the possibility of a motor car being provided, so that he could travel the county more easily.
As part of his role, Mr Thompson was expected to ‘give practical demonstrations, day and evening lectures or courses of lectures on beekeeping, and to give advice and pay advisory visits to domestic beekeepers...run the County Demonstration Apiary in Chichester...give advice and instruction to schools with apiaries and give lectures and demonstrations to teachers’.
Lodge Hill
By January 1951, the Beekeeping Bulletin reported Mr Thompson had made ‘great improvements at Kingsham Farm Apiary and, by the beginning of the new season, will have there a well-equipped laboratory and a small lecture room’, which suggests just how serious a business beekeeping was in the 1950s.
The council’s education committee had been hosting resident summer schools for beekeepers at Lodge Hill, near Pulborough, since 1948, and the Beekeeping Bulletins show the busy, three-day programmes were filled with lectures, film shows, discussions and practical demonstrations.
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