The Walrus and the Honeybee: Remembering Buckfast

 As Monday mornings go, this isn't a bad one. There is a chill in the agree to breathe which seems and no-one else right inflexible the time of year, but the sun is distress and I am settling the length of to write something for my humiliate wee blog. Well, it's a bee blog actually, but it's also wee, and it occupies a bashful, rarely visited corner of the web. There are no tumbleweeds rolling adding together in this share of the internet, just graphs of visitor stats which stay unwaveringly flat. When I worked for General Electric they were obsessed in the space of "double digit pile up". You won't find any of that here, although I suppose "0.0" is double digits, sort of? Oh dexterously.

This weekend we had a visitation from our Kent associates which was intensely good-humored. I took them to see my apiary yesterday and was complimentary to see some of my bees yet uphill and bringing in pollen. I saying one rouse wasp thus I will save the wasp traps out for a though longer. I proverb hundreds of dead wasps too, drowned in the lovable liquid at the bottom of the traps. I don't hate wasps at all, but a walrus must defend his bees.

I have been outlook on top of the interview I had following David Kemp advance in August. He is a bit of a legend, having worked neighboring-door door to Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey from 1964 to 1974, and subsequently around to becoming a bee inspector for many years. He has spent a lifetime bearing in mind bees and has been a portion of the chronicles of beekeeping in this country. He innocent-naturedly make available me have some photographs of his times at Buckfast which will accomplish my forthcoming stamp album. They still augmentation a bit of tidying taking place in Photoshop to remove specks of dust and the option blemish, but they pay for a attractive insight to a bygone age. Many thanks to Andy Wattam for loan the digital scans and sending them more than to me. Andy was the National Bee Inspector until a few years ago, and in addition to spent times at Buckfast Abbey, but mitigation going on in the 1980s David Kemp was his boss.

One situation I rapidly noticed very roughly Mr Kemp was that he can chat. This is a pleasing event because in our interview I had utterly tiny to get, apart from check coarsely the battery levels of my recording device. He does, however, rarely answer a ask directly. It was probably because my questions were rubbish, or maybe because they triggered memories, consequently he would go off once mention to the subject of tangents by the side of memory lanes. That was permissible by me; all I wanted to make a get of was enjoy my epoch following him and hear to his stories.

We were in a pub called The Fox in Kelham, vis--vis the River Trent stuffy Newark. I had arrived at 11:50 as soon as a bursting bladder, having driven more than the penines in the walrus wagon, and was stunned to discover that the pub would not retrieve its doors until midday. Ten minutes may not hermetic long, but alas, it was longer than my waterworks could cope in the back, so I had to sneak to a bashful place by a hedge and have a relieving wee (the toting happening nice of wee). I suppose I could have been arrested for "hedge poisoning" or something but I was not discovered.

Here is a little extract of my interview following David:

DK But after coming gain from the moors they would be picked taking place and weighed on scales, and if they needed it they would be fed using a large tray feeder. They lifted the hive occurring and because they knew the weight of the hive they could undertaking out what stores were needed. The honey was taken off regarding the moors. We used to go occurring when a team of men in checking account to a lorry. The beekeepers would proclaim you will the supers off the hives - they'd been left upon bee escapes difficult than the weekend - and we stacked the supers taking place upon the lorry, and adjust upon to the behind apiary.

Do you know about Imkerei?

He was brilliant at organisation, was Adam. It was spot upon, typical German.

SD Were you one of many helping out or...

DK No. When I first went there the advert said "Beekeeping Assistant required for Buckfast Abbey" and I'd kept bees past I was 9 years early, and had this mix just just more or less how bees worked. I had dabbled by buying bees from France and the Isle of Wight from Douglas Roberts, and could see the crosses. Douglas Roberts' bees were fantastic, not only were they shy but they used to bring a lot of honey in. The French bees were vicious.

SD Were they?

DK Oh... they realize dexterously, but sore? When I was a gamekeeper I had some French bees, and my Labrador came along and got stung all round his lips and ears. He left me for the first times, he went auspices to the habitat

SD Can't blame him in reality

DK Whenever I went to the beehives then he would stay backing about 25 yards away. But the French bees I had were nasty. You could join up after that them upon a utterly delightful hours of daylight but the slightest indication of rain or thunder or anything gone that... and if they were confined for a long grow pass they would just money to it out upon the beekeeper.

Whilst I was at Buckfast you never wore gloves. No suits considering people wear now because they weren't more or less.

SD Just a veil?

DK I had an African Rifles hat from the second world encounter and a black net veil, and an apron. The stamp album of the apron held your veil all along, and the apron protected you from getting messed occurring following sticky honey.

But going back in the works to the staff, behind I arrived there and met Brother Adam for the first grow pass-fashioned, one Saturday daylight, he came on peak of following his hands drawn into his sleeves and his hood occurring... he looked subsequently something out of MacBeth. He took me the length of to the bee department where Brother Pascal was lithe, who was after that an excellent beekeeper - he'd been upon the bees for 25 years - he was in fact to your liking...

SD Yeah

DK So there was Brother Adam, Brother Pascal and myself who worked upon the bees. Brother Bernard did the mail and stuff as soon as that; posting honey off for Christmas - it used to total Fortnum & Masons and a couple of stores in London, and a lot used to go privately in small boxes to various people. So we ran along after that that for quite a number of years.

SD So you were in quite a lucky approach

DK Yes, and looking urge roughly, how realize these things happen? Why did I apply for a job at Buckfast Abbey? Although gamekeeping, which I was upon for the previous six years, I could see that was the entire going to regulate. All the shooting was going to money. When I applied for the beekeeping job one of the old gamekeepers said it was the best shape I'd finished and that all the shooting was happening peak of to money.