Bee boles and Skeps

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Drystone walling expert Donald Gunn is undertaking conservation work on a lovely archeological site close to Rosedale Abbey.

The North York Moors National Park Authority has discovered a drystone wall in our neighbouring valley - Glaisdale - with the largest number of ‘bee boles’ ever recorded in Great Britain.

Bee boles are purpose-made stone structures designed to accomodate bee-hives (called "skeps") during the summer months.

Bee - Tracey Phillips

This important conservation project aims to protect these extremely rare nesting places for bees, which could be hundreds of years old.

The Glaisedale bee boles are made of 77 recesses for skeps which were then constructed of wicker, heather or straw.

The skeps were brought to the North York Moors in summer, so the bees had a short flight to the flowering heather in late summer.

The large number of recesses suggests that their use was communal and shared use of a site by local bee-keepers is not unknown, especially at moorland sites with access to heather.

The construction of such a large quantity of bee boles is, however, extremely unusual.

Bee boles were very important to local people because honey was the only source of sweetener in the pre-16th century diet.

And bees wax was also needed to be used to make candles.

A farm above Danbydale is still known as ‘Honey Bee Nest’.

And in 1891, Canon Atkinson wrote about the local custom of “telling the bees” of the death of their master.

Local practice was to tie black material around each hive.

The hive was then tapped three times with the key of the house before the bees were informed of the death and who the new master was to be.

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