ALAN Deeley — The Honey Man from Burton Green Honey — was our February speaker and he had us buzzing, reports Bidford on Avon WI.

Alan got into beekeeping following his retirement and was incredibly passionate and knowledgeable about bees.

He gave a fascinating talk about setting up and getting into beekeeping, talking us through the life cycle of the hive, the variety of threats, its survival including the invasive Asian Hornet that has been decimating bee colonies in France and some things we could do in our own gardens to help them, such as No Mow May and June and the planting of early spring and native UK flowers.

He talked us through the history of beekeeping all the way back to the Egyptians and the development of the beehive we see today.

Bees fly a whopping 50,000 miles just to collect one 1lb jar of honey and communicate the best forage areas to the rest of the hive through a fascinating ‘waggle dance’ that gives the other bees direct co-ordinates to the source of pollen.

He also brought along a delicious selection of different honeys for us to try from wild flower, heather and even ivy as well as other beeswax products such as candles and furniture polish.

All of our members thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had lots of questions for Alan that he was happy to answer.

Bidford WI meet at The Crawford Hall at 7.45pm on the second Thursday of the month.

The next meeting is on Thursday, March 14 with the talk The Life of a Smallholder by Cymbre Baseley.