Our Orchard Bees

In a hidden space in our orchard you will find some different types of bee hives.  The bee hives are surrounded by an organic orchard, wildflowers, fruiting trees and bushes and a large wildlife reserve on the hillside above with plenty of heather and gorse so have plenty choice of flowers throughout the year to collect their pollen and nectar.

All the beehives are top bar hives which means that the bees create the comb from the top bars like they would in the wild as opposed to frames which is what most commercial beehives use. Honey is only taken when there is more than enough for them to survive on through the winter, so no sugar water is needed to be given to them and there is minimal interference of the hives.

The orchard beekeeper, Duwayne Langley, follows the principles of the Natural Beekeeping Trust and built three of the hives there; the log hive from a hollowed-out log, a Kenyan Top bar hive with a viewing window and the Warre hive. There is also a National beehive.

The first beehive to be installed, a Kenyan Top Bar hive, received a swarm of bees on 30th May 2017 that was collected from a house in St Ives by bee expert Jenny Lewis. The initial two 'Warre' beehives were occupied by swarms that Duwayne Langley captured in early summer 2018 from the Towan allotments in St Ives.  In 2019 Duwayne built the log hive and it was very exciting as a swarm of bees moved in on their own in the spring and a swarm also moved into the National hive of it's own accord in spring 2020. Since then he has captured numerous swarms and transferred them to a few other hives that he built.

The log hive has been mounted on legs as bees love being up high so they are safe from predators and it can be opened up from below to have a look. There is no plan to take honey from this hive, but rather to leave them to live as they would in the wild. Log hives are the perfect home for a colony of bees as it's so well insulated keeping it warm in winter and cool in the summer.  The Kenyan topbar hive has a viewing window that can be opened up so you can see the bees and comb within.

Many bee species are in dramatic decline with some lost forever from Cornwall & UK. Changes in habitat, landscape, use of pesticides and climate change are all taking their toll. Loss of good quality habitat across the UK has had a catastrophic impact on bees. In recent decades, UK managed honeybee hive numbers have decreased by 54%, three bumblebee species have become extinct, 52% of solitary bees have declined and over half of UK bee species have declined in the last 50 years.

This is mostly due to a broad use of pesticides and loss of wild habitats. Since 1930s we’ve lost over 90% of our wildflower meadows in the UK along with 50% of ancient woodland, 40% of lowland heaths & 60% of raised bogs.

Read more about the decline of bees and other pollinators and what we can do to help on our 'Save our Pollinators' page.

It is important to think about all the pollinators though, not just the honey bee as explained here.