Tuesday 18 July 2017

The Hartpury bee shelter

A deviant route from Aberystwyth (Welsh: mouth of the wiggly river) to Wokingham ('Wocca's people's home') can take you past the Hartpury Bee Shelter. It's down a road beside Hartpury church, some way from the village.

Not perhaps a 21st century approach to bee husbandry, but how fascinating - a rack of skeps with beekeepers "looking out" for swarms to capture and re-skep.

I met two beekeepers there on the same mission - they told me something about foundation that perhaps is best not published.

The church is an ancient gem. In the graveyard is buried, lavishly tended, a victim of the 1999 Ladbroke Grove train crash, which was really a very sad thing to behold.