Family

Mollie Morgan, Aged 15

The Gryphon School

During lockdown, Gryphon student Mollie decided to set up her own enterprise – Truly Bee – working from home; she was hoping to get a part-time job but obviously this wasn’t possible, due to Covid 19 restrictions, so she thought producing her own goods would be the next best thing! When she was 14, Mollie came up with the idea of making her own beauty products, using natural ingredients to promote conservation of bees in the county. By selling her products over the course of the last year, Mollie has expanded to five items which include lip balm and hand cream, candles and, most recently, soap. She sells them through her website trulybee.bigcartel.com, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and at local artisan markets.

In the short time of running the business, Mollie’s products have also been sold in newsagents and village shops across the local area. ‘At first, the business was started as a hobby,’ says Mollie, ‘but has gradually expanded into a challenging learning curve and creative outlet. It has also given me a great sense of personal achievement.’

Now in Year 10, Mollie has found it invaluable for her GCSE business studies course. Being the youngest stallholder at The Sherborne Market, she has gained valuable experience in trading and knowledge of how to successfully market a new product. ‘In a post-Covid world, I hope that I can continue to sell my products on a larger scale to new people and places, as I believe that we need markets in local communities.’ The Gryphon School is extremely proud of Mollie’s work ethic, resilience, independence and business acumen, and expect to see Mollie become a very successful business woman.

trulybee.bigcartel.com gryphon.dorset.sch.uk

TRULY BEE

Lip balms, hand creams, soaps and candles Handmade locally, by me, using natural organic ingredients FIND ME AT THE SHERBORNE MARKET SUNDAY 16TH MAY

Also available online at trulybee.bigcartel.com trulybeebymollie@gmail.com

Children’s Book Review

by Jennifer Gogoi, aged 11, Leweston Prep

Harklights, by Tim Tilley, (Usborne Publishing), £7.99

Sherborne Times Reader Offer Price of £6.99 from Winstone’s Books

The author of Harklights, Tim Tilley, grew up on the outskirts of Leicester, and spent every Easter, summer, and most half terms at a caravan in Pembrokeshire. He studied Illustration at Anglia Ruskin University and Central Saint Martins. He now runs children’s book illustration courses at City Lit in London. Harklights is a lovely book; it’ s a magical story about orphans who work in a match factory, making amazing matchstick buildings. But it’s not the life Wick, the main character, has planned. He wants to leave the orphanage and start a new life. That chance does come, and it takes you on a journey. With nice illustrations added, and some pages with a black background and white writing, this book is a bit different.

Wick is an orphan who lives in Harklights. He escapes and lives in the forest with the Hobs. He feels bad that he left Petal and wants to rescue her. I found this plot interesting because all he wanted was to find a home and leave the orphanage, but he felt bad that he left his friend, even though he found a home; this shows that leaving friends is not at all easy. The main characters are Wick, Papa Herne, Nissa, Nox, Petal and Old Ma Boggey. My favourite character is Petal because she helped Wick escape, even if she was to get caught, and she put his safety before her own, which takes a lot of courage.

I love the book and my favourite part is when Old Ma Boggey went down the well and when Wick escaped. I would definitely recommend Harklights. It is very interesting and my friends will love it!

'Independent Bookseller of the Year 2016’

We are open and full of books to inspire!

FULFILMENT

Beth Newport, Teaching Assistant, Sherborne Prep

As a society, we can become consumed by measures of perceived success such as financial, academic, or appearance, and we may be judged upon them. In my fourteen happy years of working at Sherborne Prep, I have helped several hundred children through the start of their journey in life, enjoying every moment and aspiring to nurture each child in every aspect. A childhood deserves to be rewarding; for this to be, children must be treated as individuals, encouraged to celebrate who they are and each small step they are brave enough to take should be praised.

The role of a teaching assistant is incredibly fulfilling with any perceptions of ‘standing at a photocopier and reading with children’ being far from illustrating the actual day-to-day! There cannot be many roles where the workplace is filled with such a magical buzz every day. Our children arrive in the morning bursting with a sense of life, energy and zest for the day ahead, every day.

Children, of course, are not perfect all of the time and our aspiration is to support pupils through their mistakes; to encourage them to dare to try, to fail and then bounce back to try again; to encourage a growth-mindset where praise targets the efforts made to improve, rather than judging the end result.

Children will be a little loud and be a little too eager; they will use a paintbrush overzealously or launch into the bubble mixture and they absolutely will, at times, eat their morning snack in a cascade of crumbs and/or water!

If we do not allow children to make mistakes, to be – dare I say – a little naughty, how will they know when they are making the right choices?

I firmly believe that learning should be fun and exciting. It is incredibly important to set up the conditions for pupils to thrive and establish secure relationships with each other as well as with the staff. Our aim is to instil a love of learning, to lay foundations for their future.

Opening up children’s imaginations to all the possibilities of what they can make happen: a make-believe journey on the magic carpet, led by the children, to far-off places, encountering new and wonderful worlds where dinosaurs take the Eurostar to visit the moon and eat rainbow-coloured ice- creams all day. The sense of wonder and enquiry amongst children is both remarkable and inspiring and they should be able to thrive as the individuals that they are, within a supportive community. Watching the children grow and seeing them develop is incredibly rewarding and I feel privileged to have supported them through their early years. With many of our pupils going on to local senior schools, I often see ‘old Preppers’ in Sherborne. Watching the children grow, seeing them thrive and grow into adults is an absolute pleasure and one that makes my role as a teaching assistant incredibly special.

I learn, laugh and smile a lot and every day is an adventure. If I can inspire our children to pursue our Dragon values of kindness, perseverance, awareness, generosity, honesty and encourage independence, then, in my eyes, they will be successful, wherever their journey takes them.

Sometimes, I have to pinch myself and say, ‘I am the grown up’. Gosh, who wouldn’t want to be a child again?

elizabethwatsonillustration.com

EVIDENCED-BASED MEDICINE AND WHY PLACEBOS WORK

This lecture was given to Sherborne Science Café on 26th April 2017 by Dr Jeremy Howick, BA, MSc, PhD, Nuffield Dept. of Primary Care Health Services, University of Oxford. This aspect of medicine is increasingly relevant today in 2021, as the current global pandemic engulfs the world’s population. Problems affecting the supply and efficacy of the vaccines, especially in the poorest countries, may well lead to the widespread use of placebos. Rob Bygrave, Chair, Sherborne Science Café

Africa Studio/Shutterstock

Placebos (Latin for ‘I shall please’) were first recorded – though no doubt used much earlier – in medical textbooks in the early 19th century ‘… an epithet given to any medicine adapted more to please than to benefit the patient’. A more modern, but less quaint, working definition is ‘… a substance that is objectively without specific activity for the condition being treated’.

One hundred years ago, placebos were part of the usual toolkit of medical practitioners. Pills of bread and sugar were commonly dispensed, as a ‘necessary’ deception, to neurotic and inadequate patients. Placebos were beneficially used by doctors treating patients in the brutal Japanese PoW camps during WWII and, on occasions when morphine ran out in battlefield hospital conditions, saltwater injections masquerading as opiates were given, achieving the desired effect of deadening pain.

The definition of ‘placebo’ allows a wide variety of things to be considered placebos and thereby to demonstrate the placebo effect. A placebo is not restricted to chemical application – besides being a tablet, a placebo can also be administered by injection or as sham surgery (presented in order of increasing effectiveness). The size of the placebo medicine is also important: the bigger, the better and more tablets have a greater effect than fewer. Sham surgery involves apparently performing a surgical procedure.

Jeremy related a story of a doctor with the Houston Rockets, a professional basketball team, a sport where knee injuries are commonplace. The doctor performed sham surgery (by making a physical incision but no further intervention) on knee-injured players as though performing his usual knee operation and followed the cases for 2 years. This follow-up indicated little, if any, benefit of actual surgery compared with the placebo variety. Similar results have been found for back surgery. Other forms of treatment can qualify as placebos. For Parkinson’s patients, stimulation with implanted electrodes can have a placebo effect. In fact, the placebo is part of the response to any active medical intervention.

The first major scientific review of the placebo effect was performed by Henry Beecher in 1955. He claimed that, after reviewing several placebo-controlled trials, 35.2% of patients benefited from the placebo effect. However, he lumped all conditions in together and made the error of considering any improvement in the patients’ conditions as a placebo response, thereby failing to consider improvements patients could attain through no intervention at all. Nor did he account for the so-called ‘Hawthorne effect’ whereby improvements can be obtained by being part of the rigours of the

experiment itself – that is, the self-motivational effect on patients due to interest being shown in them by medical practitioners.

In contrast, in 2001, Asbjom Hrobjartsonn and his team suggested that in most clinical circumstances, the placebo response has a very minimal, if any, effect. However, recent studies unequivocally indicate that the placebo effect, for some conditions (e.g. ADHD, pain, IBS, depression), is markedly beneficial.

Placebos should be inert chemical substances, but care must be exercised in their selection. A trial looking at the effect of placebos on symptoms of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) concluded there was a substantial placebo effect. However, the placebo in this case was bran, which, whilst innocuous, may not be entirely inert within the bowel. The conclusions of this trial had to be carefully reconsidered. Alternative therapies also show a placebo response, even though there is no mode of action (e.g. sham acupuncture, by placing needles in non-acupuncture points).

A major question for researchers is, how does a placebo achieve its effect?

There are three influences:

1 Expectation - treatment by a trusted clinician encourages a person to recover. A key point is that the patient knows they are receiving medication or treatment. Research suggests that painkillers such as morphine and tramadol are much less effective, if we don’t know we are taking them. 2 Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning – whereby a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a previously innocuous one. An active medicine could be administered with a highly distinct taste. After several administrations, the active ingredient is removed but the medication is otherwise physically identical and still has the same distinct taste. The body links the distinctive taste with the effects of the active ingredient, thereby conditioning the body. 3 Two further essential components to a positive placebo effect are a strong practitioner-patient confidence and belief in the treatment and an effective and empathetic patient-practitioner communication. Jeremy was critical of current trends in GP/patient relationships for emphasising form filling rather than patient interaction. Even in random controlled trials, there are suggestions that doctors who demonstrate higher levels of empathy elicit an enhanced placebo effect. Research indicates that the placebo response may not be just psychological. The act of taking a placebo can cause physiological changes. For example, the use of a placebo analgesic can cause the secretion of endogenous opiates. Similarly, placebo medication can increase motor performance in Parkinson’s Disease due to anticipatory release of dopamine and in the depressed, placebo effects are linked to serotonin release. These changes have been physiologically confirmed by brain imaging. Interestingly, because of endogenous releases associated with placebos, the placebo itself can give rise to negative side-effects, the so-called ‘nocebo’ response (‘nocebo’ Latin ‘I will harm’).

The advantage of placebos is that whilst drugs are expensive and have side-effects, a well-directed placebo can lead to a reduction in medication needed to achieve a particular effect with correspondingly fewer sideeffects. Author, Jo Marchant, notes the widespread prescribing of opioid painkillers for conditions such as arthritis and lower back pain. However, such painkillers, because of their potency, also lead to emergency admissions to hospitals. Placebo painkillers – in whole, or in part with the active ingredient – can mimic the effects of the actual painkiller, making them much safer and equally effective, even when dose reduced.

The major disadvantage of placebos is that deception is used in their administration. In consequence, the GMC and NHS disallow their use. There is also concern from the same bodies that placebo use is unreliable and unpredictable and that it may encourage pill popping. A survey of GPs showed that a surprising 97% of doctors have, at some point, administered a placebo, believing it in the patient’s best interest. Clearly, the benefits of a placebo are well appreciated by GPs at primary care level, even if not welcomed by their professional regulators.

In conclusion, Jeremy advocates a paradigm shift in medical practice. The body can produce its own drugs; relaxing, positive thinking and comfortable environments can improve health as much as a blockbuster drug. Doctors should retreat, in part, from their function as drug dispensers, and take time in a healing role. His forthcoming book, ‘Dr You - Introducing the Hard Science of Self-Healing’, aims to empower people to make the right choices about their health.

The full report of Dr Howick's lecture is available online at sherbornesciencecafe.co.uk

Alex Hennessy, Marketing and Communications Officer, Dorset Wildlife Trust

There’s something incredibly special about spotting the shining curves of a slow worm (Anguis fragilis), whether it’s coiled in a tucked-away area near your garden compost heap or basking in the sun on a heath or in grassland. Neither a worm nor a snake, this legless lizard might inspire some trepidation at first, but they are completely harmless for humans.

Adult slow worms can grow to around 50 centimetres long and are greybrown in colour. Females are browner, with darker sides. A slow worm’s body is smooth – much different from the overlapping, ridged scales you’d find on a grass snake or adder.

The mating season for slow worms begins in May, with males courting females by biting on the female’s head or neck, then intertwining bodies. This courtship can last for around ten hours and, if successful, females incubate their eggs internally. The young then hatch inside the female and stay there, feeding on the yolk of their egg, for a short time. Pregnant females give birth to an average of eight live young in the summer.

Slow worms thrive in tussocky grassland and at the edges of woodland and heathland. They can also be found in mature gardens and on allotments – slow worms enjoy the warmth and fertile hunting ground of the compost heap. Their diet is mostly made up of invertebrates like slugs, snails, spiders and worms.

If you’re visiting a Dorset Wildlife Trust nature reserve and see pieces of tin or roofing felt, please don’t move them as they are likely to be part of our survey work for reptiles. Slow worms will burrow slightly beneath the soil, tuck themselves under rocks and hide out amongst vegetation, so keep this in mind if you’re disturbing these areas of your garden or allotment.

Many things you can do to provide safe areas for slow worms also benefit other wildlife, such as leaving log piles and stretches of long uncut grass. If you are mowing your lawn, walk the area you’re going to cut beforehand to help disperse wildlife to sheltered places. Find more ways to help wildlife from home at dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/actions.

Slow worm facts

• Blinking with their eyelids and shedding their tails are tell-tale signs that the slow worm is a lizard rather than a snake or worm. • Slow worms commonly lose their tails as a tactic to deter predators, which inspired the ‘fragilis’ part of their Latin species name. • They use their tongues to ‘smell’ nearby predators, including snakes, and can tell the difference between a predator snake and one that is harmless from scent alone.

THE WISDOM OF YOUTH

Peter Littlewood, Young People’s Trust for the Environment

Iwas recently asked to give a radio interview about Waitrose’s decision to ban the sale of children’s magazines that had plastic toys on the cover as an inducement to buy. At that point, I hadn’t heard about it – in fact, the story was embargoed until the following day, which excused my ignorance! But when I started doing some research to prepare for the interview, I realised that this wasn’t a decision that had been taken spontaneously by Waitrose.

Rather, the catalyst for Waitrose’s decision was a letter from a ten-year-old girl from Gwynedd, whose name was Skye. Skye had written to ask them to stop allowing magazines for children to be sold if they had, what she described as, ‘plastic tat’ on the covers. She made some very good points in her letter. Anyone who is a parent has no doubt at some point suffered the whining of a small child, desperate – for that moment in time, at least – to own the poorly-made, obviously low-quality ‘toy’ of limited or non-existent play value, and with a life expectancy you can count in not even hours, but minutes. In fact, they’re almost like singleuse plastic, but specifically made for children!

As I investigated further, I found that some of the magazines for children have weekly circulations of 150,000 copies or more. So, if they have a plastic toy on the cover as standard every week, that’s potentially almost 8 million pieces of plastic each year. And some titles have up to seven ‘giveaway’ items each week, all wrapped, of course in a non-recyclable plastic bag. Some estimates would suggest that up to 3,000 tonnes of plastic waste is created each year by the freebies from kids’ magazines here in the UK alone. So, the reality is that it’s a pretty serious issue, and Skye made a very good point!

Romrodphoto/Shutterstock

And it’s not just the amount of magazine-related tat that ends up in landfill, or worse, in the sea, that’s the problem. All of the plastic toys have to be made in factories – probably on the other side of the world. No doubt the manufacturing process has its own carbon footprint. Then they need to be shipped to the UK, causing more unnecessary carbon emissions in the process. When you start to consider the whole picture, you realise how much of an issue a simple toy on the front of a kid’s magazine actually is.

Waitrose has set a great example and hopefully other supermarkets will feel the pressure to follow suit. Waitrose will still allow ‘craft’ items, like colouring pencils and non-plastic toys to be included with children’s magazines, so there will still be options available for magazine publishers. But hopefully, as a result of this ban, which is due to come into force in the coming weeks, the publishers will start to give greater consideration to the environmental impacts of their magazine giveaways in the future, and maybe get creative with alternatives.

I recorded a podcast last week (bit.ly/3u6KCUV) with actor, DJ and TV presenter Cel Spellman, who is one of the Presidents of the Young People’s Trust for the Environment (YPTE) and a WWF Ambassador. He was saying that he believed there was nothing more powerful in the world than a young person’s voice. And he has a point. Young people often have a way of asking very sensible and perceptive questions, like, ‘Why does it have to be like this?’ and ‘Why can’t we make it better?’ And if they’re lucky, like Skye was, sometimes they get listened to and, in a small way, the world changes.

In an attempt to give more young people an audience, YPTE has recently created the ‘Young People’s Voices’ section on its website (bit.ly/3dgCxX3). It’s devoted to articles and video clips, submitted to us by young people about the environmental issues they care passionately about. They show that young people really do care about this planet we all share.

In recent years, we have seen the increasing power young people have to make a difference. When a 15-year-old Greta Thunberg started her Skolstrejk för Klimatet (school strike for climate) in September of 2018, she probably had no idea just how much her voice would be listened to by the world’s leaders and media, or how the School Climate Strike movement would catch on around the world. Such co-ordinated and wellorganised demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of young people around the world reflects their desire for the world to listen to them, to realise that the world has to change in order to ensure that their future is a safe and secure one. The change probably won’t happen as quickly as Greta - and many others - would like.

But there can be no doubt now that change is coming, that increasing numbers of people – young and old – are demanding we treat the environment differently, in ways that will not only benefit the vast array of animals and plants that we share it with, but, ultimately, will create a better planet and a fairer society for us all.

ypte.org.uk

The opinions expressed here are Peter’s own and don’t represent those of YPTE.

Images: Dorset Wildlife Trust

HOLWAY WOODS RESERVE

Kevin & Val Waterfall, Dorset Wildlife Trust Sherborne Group Members

Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT) has 42 wildlife reserves ranging from large areas of heathland, to small village orchards. There are a wide variety representing the different habitats across Dorset and depending on the season, there is more or less interest in each. The one that is closest to Sherborne is Holway Woods, which is just a mile or so north of the town and to the east of Sandford Orcas. In 1965, it was the first reserve given to DWT, which at that time was called the Dorset Naturalists’ Trust.

Holway Wood is a 16-hectare area of mixed, mature and recently planted woodland, offering superb views over the surrounding countryside with Glastonbury Tor standing out clearly to the north. It is on a west-facing ridge of underlying Inferior Oolite limestone with a largely sandy soil overlying it but with clay topsoil near the bottom of the slope. Although the reserve is a fairly narrow band of woodland, it supports a good variety of birds, plants, insects and mammals. There are circular trails in both halves, but the paths can be narrow and steep in places.

The reserve is a mixture of mature woodland, with a scattering of impressive twisted old sweet chestnuts, and recently planted woodland designed to link the two older woodland blocks. The hawthorn and cherry trees will show us their colours this month. There are some fallen ash trees where you will find the black fungus ‘Arthur’s cakes’ (Daldinia concentrica) growing out of the bark. The fungus gets its name from the traditional tale of King Alfred, taking refuge from the Vikings in a peasant’s home in 878 AD. He forgot to watch some cakes baking on the hearth and was scolded when they

burnt. These black balls can be used as kindling to start a fire, which explains other common names such as ‘carbon balls’ or ‘coal fungus’.

The primroses have been in full bloom since midMarch, with little clumps of blue and white violets tucked in beside them. In May, the woods are carpeted in bluebells and the spires of foxgloves are reaching up ready to burst into colour. The whole understory is full of plants including golden saxifrage, wood speedwell and little mouse ear, which are some of the ‘Dorset Notables’. There are also low flowering plants which include wood anemones and pink purslane and the cowslips, which should now be in flower.

There are a variety of fungi species including a striking example of the Cerrenaceae family – ‘Mossy Maze Polymore’ (Cerena unicolor), which can cause white rot. The spores of the fungus are spread from being carried by a species of wasp which lays its eggs in the fungus.

Tawny owl, song thrush, great spotted woodpecker, treecreeper and nuthatch are present throughout the year. Usually buzzards are soaring over the ridge; you can hear them and their distinctive mewing call before you see them. The chiffchaffs have been singing for several weeks, since they returned from the Mediterranean and West Africa. From May onwards, spotted flycatchers should be around. If you are lucky, you will see willow warblers in the section of the reserve south of the dividing road, or maybe just hear them with their song that starts as a high pitch that falls in steps. They look so much like the chiffchaffs that you really need the song to differentiate between the species.

The rookery at the north-west corner has been busy since early March and the eggs that were laid from then until early April will now be scruffy-looking squabs needing lots of parental feeding trips to help them grow and develop that black sheen on their feathers.

There are lots of hazelnut shells split clean in two by the grey squirrels which are frequently seen. Badgers are sculpting the contours of the hillside as they extend their dens to cater for their growing families. Rabbits are obviously about at night and, in the daytime, you might well see a roe deer moving off silently through the trees. Summer butterflies include brimstone and speckled wood, but even in March we were seeing red admirals.

The reserve can be accessed from the Monarch’s Way footpath or there are two small parking areas. You can find out more by visiting the reserve website dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/nature-reserves/holway-woods

Specialists in building & fitting bespoke Orangeries, Extensions, Conservatories, Tiled Roof Conservatories, Porches, Replacement Warm Roof, Doors & Windows, Facias,Guttering & Roofline, replacement & Secondary Glazing.

FREE DESIGN CONSULTATION

ORANGERIES FROM £35,000

BOOK NOW - LIMITED SPACES

At Village Conservatories we can offer you a selection of window and door styles that will enable you to make the perfect choice for your home

Call us now on 01935 471111 for a free, no obligation, no pressure quotation

Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9.30am - 4.30pm Swan Yard | Cheap Street | Sherborne | Dorset | DT9 3AX www.villageconservatories.com VillageConservatories

‘NE’ER CAST A CLOUT ‘TIL MAY IS OUT’

Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer and Speaker

bond.aruke25/Shutterstock

It’s funny how you can hear a saying frequently, and yet gain a new interpretation suddenly in your 50s! Being a Dorset lass, this phrase has been in the backdrop of my life along with ‘spring is sprung’, and ‘Dorset born, Dorset bred’. I’ve heard many interpretations relating it to cold weather through May and underwear being stitched on, as well as May blossom, or hawthorn with its distinctive white flowers appearing during May.

It suddenly dawned on me that ‘ne’er casting a clout…’, could be interpreted that May blossom only comes into bloom when it is warm enough for us to remove our winter vests. This insight opens our eyes to the true wonder of nature – so many hints around us guiding us to make the correct decisions. I was also reminded that, prior to bees and herbal medicine studies, I didn’t really know the difference between blackthorn and hawthorn blossom, or their timing, despite my whole life living in the countryside.

I learned last year, when emerging queen

bumblebees wake up ahead of their favoured spring bulbs, they start nibbling on the buds and leaves, triggering the plants to bloom. We forget that flowering is a plant’s last call for procreation. As a plant nears death, it knows it needs to bloom to ensure pollination and continuation of the next generation. Science is disproving many things currently, for instance the fungi on old trees isn’t killing the tree; it’s the death of a tree that triggers the fungi to ‘bloom’.

Writing this, with my gloves back on after a week of beautiful, uncharacteristically warm sunny March weather, I am pondering how nature appears to foresee and adapt to changes of environment and connect to the phases of the moon. The next step is to of course ask how far has humanity come away from this connectivity? May is also the time when bees naturally swarm. In 2020, due to the mild winter, swarming began in mid-April – taking some beekeepers by surprise.

Swarming, despite popular misconceptions, is perfectly natural and essential to a colony’s health and wellbeing. A swarm of bees usually consists of around 10,000-20,000 bees, including the queen. The bees will have filled their honey crops, with honey, ready to start making wax in their new home. The first, or prime, swarms of the season contain the ‘old’ queen. This is considered a valuable ‘catch’ – or loss, to beekeepers – due to the fact that the queen will be able to start laying eggs straight away. The bees remaining in the hive will be the young, non-flying bees, eggs and larvae, forcing the worker or maiden bees to select one or more of the eggs to be fed exclusively royal jelly, creating a new queen. Often, the process of preparing for a new queen begins before the old queen departs, ensuring that the colony can survive. Like the dying plants and trees, the old queen leaves, creating the opportunity for a new life and a new cycle to begin.

One of the many great debates amongst beekeeping is ‘condensation verses ventilation’ within beehives. When faced with any question, I ask myself, what would bees do in the wild? If a colony is living in the hollow of a tree, the most common wild habitat, due to the nature of the hollow, the base would most likely be solid. After extracting colonies of bees from fallen trees, I have noticed how the interior is coated in a layer of propolis, and the base would be a mixture of wood debris and propolis. Modern hives have been built with an open mesh floor. The idea behind this is to allow the pesky varroa mites to drop through onto a removable observation board/tray when chemical treatments have been added to the hive. It is assumed that the mites are unable to crawl back up into the hive. Some use a sticky board firmly fixing the mites ready to be counted.

Through my own observations, I have seen a large amount of pollen, and small wax cappings on the tray. The pollen will have dropped off the bee’s pollen sacs as they entered the hive, and the wax is from where the bees nibble the capped cells of honey. The odd dead wasp, and bee parts can also be seen. In the wild, or in my solid floored hives, bees will remove any dead bee parts from the base, keeping their hive hygienic. A mesh floor, without a board, will allow debris and mites to fall through to the ground. I have experimented with hives leaving observation boards in over winter and removing them. Then life, and weather, intervenes, and I had a WBC hive where the observation board was affected by damp and became stuck beneath the mesh floor.

This past week, I moved the hive, meaning that I needed to lift the brood away from the base. I was intrigued to see that the mesh floor had been completely coated in propolis by my bees. Now, if the observation board had been removed, we would assume that the bees didn’t like a draughty floor. With the board remaining in, it indicates that the bees didn’t like debris falling to the board, and not being removed. By placing a layer of propolis, the bees are ensuring that their hive remains healthy and hygienic, using the antibacterial, anti-septic and anti-viral properties of their magical glue. Naturally, I have been so excited by this observation, excited that this colony are able to produce so much propolis, as well as knowing that they have the freedom to protect themselves as they see fit.

This year, I am ensuring that my bait hives are up in good time and I’ll be keeping a close eye on my colonies. Returning to the month of May and my winter vests (or tights), I will keep them on until after the May blossom is out – just in case!

paulacarnell.com

___________________________________________ Bee Safaris Monday-Friday 3pm-4pm The Newt, Castle Cary Join Paula for a walking tour of The Newt’s rare, native and wild bee colonies. Discover the various hives hidden in the woodland and learn more about their fascinating behaviours. Advanced booking is required. £10 per person. 01963 577777 thenewtinsomerset.com

Hardwood Flooring Specialists Registered Farrow & Ball Stockist Bespoke In-Home Colour Consultancy Certified Bona Contractor

11 Dreadnought Trading Estate, Bridport DT6 5BU 01308 458443 www.bridporttimber.co.uk