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 SHANVAUS APIARY

Manorhamilton , County Leitrim

DEAR VISITOR, WE RECENTLY FOUND OUT THAT THIS GUESTBOOK IS OCCASIONALLY ABUSED BY SOME POP-UP HIJACKERS. PLEASE IGNORE ANY UNWANTED ADVERTS THAT APPEAR ON YOUR SCREEN AND CLICK THEM AWAY IMMEDIATELY.

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For many years I have been urged to write a book on our way of bee-keeping. However, more important undertakings, which would not brook any delay, have hitherto prevented me from giving my attention to the request indicated. Realising that it was a case of either now or never, I have made an effort to meet the widely expressed wish. Bee-keeping at Buckfast can look back on a long tradition. Indeed, the bee boles in a part of an ancient enclosure wall seem to indicate that bees have been kept at the Abbey before the dissolution in 1539. Anyway there where bees on the property when the monks returned to Buckfast in 1882. My own recollections go back to 1910, and my direct participation in our bee-keeping commenced just five years later, when in March 1915 I was appointed to assist Br. Columban, who had been in charge of our bee-keeping since 1895. My introduction to bee-keeping could hardly have come at a less propitious moment. The ISLE OF WIGHT DISEASE, or Acarine, was at its height, and in the autumn of 1915 the county bee-keeping officer predicted that by next spring we would have no bees left. However, of the 46 colonies, 16 survived. All the NATIVE COLONIES SUCCUMBED but those of ITALIAN ORIGIN WITHSTOOD the disease. The summer of 1916 was a favourable one and we were able to make good the losses of the previous winter, and in 1917 we increased the number of our colonies to 100. During the next two years we devoted all our efforts to helping the general restocking of the bee population by dispatching literally hundreds of colonies to all parts of the country. On 1st September, 1919, Br. Columban retired and I was given sole charge of bee-keeping at the Abbey. (Br. Adam, preface to "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey",Spring 1974)