At their meeting on the 7th January the Garden Society Committee decided to make three grants. This was made possible by The Midcounties Co-operative Community Fund’s generous grant to us of £479.

Twelve people applied for the grants. All were interviewed by professional beekeeper Doug Isles of Hudnalls Apiary and me.

The successful applicants are Ruth Stockley of Hewelsfield Common, Corinna Arnold of St Briavels Common and Allison McCullough of Coleford. All three will attend the Dean Forest Beekeepers Basic Course which runs from the 20th February to the 13th May 2012.

As a bonus, I was able to get the fourth-placed applicant, Adrian Noble of Aylburton, onto the beekeeping course. He will fund his training himself. 

Additionally, a prominent member of the Society, Sally Secrett, has decided to take up beekeeping and has secured a place on the course.

So, hopefully, by the late summer we will have a few more hives in the area to add to those kept by “our” existing beekeepers: Mike and Judy Topp, Anna Bedford and Paul Mansell, and Andrew Blamey.

I hope you notice more and more bees visiting your gardens.

See more bee photographs by Max Westby here. (Also see our bee page.)

 

January Meeting Review - The Eden Project

Mike Weeks opened the well-attended meeting by welcoming new members.

Mike then introduced the speaker Nick Wray, who is curator of Bristol University Botanic Garden, as well as being a lecturer and photographer. He was the South Africa consultant to the Eden project, and this was his topic for the evening. He described the history of the project and the many factors that worked in its favour such as the need for economic development in the area, its value as an informal and formal educational resource to increase people’s realisation of the importance of plants and the necessity to protect their habitats.

Many of the audience were among the nearly 10 million people who have visited the project since it opened in 2001and it was fascinating to hear the inside story of how the place was built and the difficulties that were encountered, including the wettest winter on record and the instability of the terrain, a disused clay pit. The giant greenhouses or biomes, with their triple glazed polythene panels, are the largest scaffolding structures in the world.

Nick’s job was to furnish the warm temperate biome with plants from South Africa, but he realised that they were going to look completely out of place unless their African habitat could be recreated. At first he thought that this could only be done by importing thousands of tons of South African rock. This was financially impossible but clever artists were able to create a South African back-drop for his plants out of concrete and paint. It was difficult to tell sometimes which of his photos were taken in South Africa and which were taken in the biome in Cornwall. All the plants coming from outside Europe had to have a period of quarantine before being allowed into the project to ensure that no pests or disease were imported. However the biomes have their own rich insect life which includes bees and cockroaches.

I have added the Eden Project to my list of places to visit, along with Bristol University Botanic Gardens.

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