Bee Farming in Edinburgh.

Rooftop Section of Margaret Forrest’s Edinburgh Home Apiary

What is Bee Farming?

In the UK, large scale bee farming involves managing 150 colonies or more. In the USA, having around 3,000 colonies defines large-scale bee farming. Criteria for membership of our Bee Farmer’s Association are no longer figure-based. Eligibility depends upon demonstrating that beekeeping is practiced for profit from which income is mainly or partly derived.

Margaret Forrest- Bee Farmer.

Resources.

Margaret laughs when I call her a bee farmer. She is modest. Bee farming in a city requires resourcefulness along with good networking and communication skills. I’m invited to spend a day bee keeping with Margaret and I learn loads. Margaret manages 21 colonies and numerous nuclei between several sites. One is at the Gallery of Modern Art in the city, and she manages more somewhere else for a city restaurateur. Margaret just asks landowners in areas where she has checked for good forage and where she wants to keep bees. They usually say yes. She is an active mentor with several novices relying on her guidance. Margaret is happy to mentor someone for around a year but encourages them to become more independent after then.

Bee Keeping in Castle Grounds.

The Disused Five-Acre Walled Garden of a Midlothian Castle–Perfect Forage.
Garden Anchusa (Anchusa azurea) –Borage Family.

Plants.

I’m excited about the wildflowers and other plants in the garden. We discuss and debate the plant that looks like borage and I discover from my “Picture This” app that it is closely related but a little different.

Castle Apiary.

Margaret has 7 colonies here and all but one have been managed for swarm control so we find several newly mated queens. Margaret likes to mark and clip her queens as soon as they have proved themselves to be good layers and she doesn’t wait till spring. When you have so many colonies you don’t always get back to do tasks when you might plan to. So, Margaret gets things done as the opportunity arises. She lets me loose with marking pen and scissors, though I am rather critical of the enormous pair she hands me. I later find her a small pair of Sheffield steel scissors at the Royal Highland Show on Sunday, and present them to her at the end of her very busy day stewarding in the SBA honey tent. Margaret has given me a free ticket to Scotland’s largest agricultural show and invites me to stay on till Monday. How amazing is this! I’ve never been to the RHS before.

Record Keeping.

Needless to say, with so many colonies you need to make notes after each inspection. Margaret has a comprehensive record system with a page a season for each colony. Unlike me, she doesn’t write “War and Peace” in her notes. Memo to myself is to condense and be concise.

Health & Safety.

I’m advised to be careful walking round the apiary as there are numerous holes and ditches hidden by grass that could topple the unsuspecting beekeeper. Another thing I learn from Margaret is to throw the tie down straps in front of the hive when opening up. Why have I never thought of that instead of trying to tuck them in under the back where you are still likely to trip over!

Last Apiary of The Day.

I love this apiary tucked away in an orchard in Ford not far from the castle. The landowner has several acres of land covered in natural forage for grazing sheep. A public footpath runs along the side of this property and a family pass by. They stop to watch from a distance and the children seem interested. I shout hello and wave. They return my greetings and go on their way. Margaret and I finish up here and go back to the city. It’s early evening and we have had a brilliant day. There’s more to come, in another post. On Monday as I prepare to leave Margaret’s, in rain of monsoon proportions, she shows me her workshop, honey room and storage space and I am blown away by the sight of such organisation and endeavour.

7 thoughts on “Bee Farming in Edinburgh.”

  1. And Margaret handles the bees so gently she almost tickles them. The castle is full of dandelion in the spring when I visited. I was very impressed by her diligence to take containers of washing soda to wash between hives. I was very blessed to go when I did my beekeeping introductory with EMBA.

    1. Yes, Rachel, Margaret is a very good beekeeper. I forgot to mention the soda crystals in the blog. I was impressed by her putting varroa insert scrapings in a bucket too.

  2. Great news on how small but excellent apiary sites can be found near urban areas and how very competent beekeepers can run these sites

  3. Sounds like a fascinating tour of Edinburgh’s secret spots. How does Margaret keep her bee suit so pristine white. I’ve moved on to a grey suit, perhaps I just get mucky more easily. ❤️

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.