Our newsletter keeps
you up to date with all
our forthcoming shows
and attractions.
Click the button below to
subscribe.
Beekeeping in a Nutshell Before wooden framed hives came into use European and British beekeepers either used inverted straw or wicker baskets or hollow logs to house their honeybee colonies. The straw "skep" proved the most portable and adaptable to beekeepings' improving techniques, slowly the log and then the wicker skep went out of use. 
In continental Europe, where traditional agricultural systems survived until after the second world war, the straw skep retained some popularity, but in Britain where land use lost its traditional forms in the 18th century, the skep came to be seen as part of the old order and by the 19th century was no longer regarded as a suitable permanent home for the honeybee colony. Although it still retains a powerful symbolic meaning for beekeepers, who find in practice that it is excellent for catching swarms. The straw skeps neat cylindrical shape and light weight commends it over the wooden angular hive. After taking a swarm the modern beekeeper transfers the bees to a "proper" wooden hive before comb construction commences. The regularly used skep has an advantage over any other container in that it retains and becomes impregnated with the scents bees emit to indicate they have found a suitable home; they do not know that soon they will be transferred elsewhere. As the old ways of farming, and the beekeeping that went with it, gave way to industry, skep making became the preserve of a few specialists in areas where straw goods manufacture was concentrated, such as Luton in Bedfordshire. This stimulated the evolution of the British skep towards a lighter and smaller basket; beekeepers did not want heavy baskets for swarm catching and the makers were happy to use less material and make them smaller, thus increasing their daily output. When regular manufacture ceased in the middle of the 20th century the British skep bore little resemblance to its ancient ancestors or its European contemporaries. In Northern Europe well made skeps are still obtainable although the trends once seen in Britain are working towards lighter ones. For some years only poorly made Middle Eastern skeps have been obtainable but now a surge of interest in skep making and their use has developed. Not however by regular makers but rather, as in the old way, by beekeepers themselves. We see a return to the European position where the skepmaker is also a beekeeper. |