Gwenynwyr Cymru The Welsh Beekeeper
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Royal approval of the<br />
Pembrokeshire Beekeeping Centre<br />
Paul Eades<br />
Royal approval of the work being undertaken by<br />
the Pembrokeshire <strong>Beekeeper</strong>s’ Association was<br />
forthcoming at the Royal <strong>Welsh</strong> Show in July.<br />
<strong>The</strong> PBKA has been extending its operations for<br />
some time by developing the new ‘Pembrokeshire<br />
Beekeeping Centre’ at Scolton Manor, near<br />
Haverfordwest; a four phase project intended<br />
to be a centre of excellence for beekeeping in<br />
Pembrokeshire.<br />
<strong>The</strong> centre, when completed in 2014, will include<br />
two apiaries; one for training and public viewing,<br />
and a second for production and queen rearing. In the converted stable<br />
block is a catering standard honey processing facility for hygienically<br />
extracting and bottling association honey and an adjacent exhibition room,<br />
which includes monitors fed from live ’hive cameras’. Both rooms are<br />
linked via a large observation window, so the public can watch the honey<br />
processing as it actually happens, before buying some in the Scolton Manor<br />
shop.<br />
As the result of an invitation to a special<br />
reception held at the Royal <strong>Welsh</strong> Show, I<br />
was fortunate to meet HRH the Prince of<br />
Wales, for what turned out to be quite a<br />
lengthy discussion on the Pembrokeshire<br />
Beekeeping Centre and the plight of the<br />
honeybee!<br />
HRH is a very engaging man with a great<br />
sense of humour and he demonstrated a<br />
real interest in bees and the work the PBKA<br />
is involved in. He was very pleased when he<br />
heard what we had achieved so far with the grant of over £37,000 received<br />
from the Prince’s Countryside Fund. This was in addition to a previous grant<br />
from Environment Wales for over £9,000,<br />
which kick started the project in 2011.<br />
HRH was very well informed, genuinely<br />
interested to hear about the various<br />
problems pollinators had been contending<br />
with and concerned about how the bees<br />
were faring after the poor summer last<br />
year and the subsequent drawn out<br />
winter. I explained that there had been<br />
serious colony losses across the UK as<br />
a whole and a number of other risks<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Welsh</strong> <strong>Beekeeper</strong> #182 24<br />
Autumn 2013
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