IN December you published the Garden Society's offer of a £300 grant to someone who wished to take up bee-keeping within the parishes of Hewelsfield and Brockweir and St Briavels.
Five residents applied and after interview the grant was awarded to Mike Topp who, with his wife, Judy, will establish a hive at their home between Sandy Lane and Coldharbour Road on Hewelsfield Common.
The grant is funding Mike's attendance at a basic bee-keeping course run by the Dean Forest Beekeepers and Judy is attending a similar course with the Newent Beekeepers Association. Doug Isles, who interviewed the applicants with me, has promised them some bees and they expect to have a hive in operation by the end of the summer, hopefully the first of many.
As an unexpected spin-off from the publicity given to the grant I had 19 enquiries from people outside the two parishes and was able to put them in touch with Dean Forest Beekeepers. Some of them expressed a firm intention of taking up beekeeping.
I am sure we all hope Mike and Judy's venture will be a success and that our gardens will benefit from it. – Alan Robertson.