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Behind the veil: Roy Brocklehurst
So, let�s begin with the traditional question � how did you start beekeeping?
It was a combination of things. I had always been interested in natural history, and I became interested in photography. I started to photograph wild flowers, then started to notice that certain insects went with certain plants. Also, when I was gardening I saw bees on certain plants � they must have been coming from Dialstone, which is quite near where I live � in Offerton.
My interest gradually grew, until, when I saw an advert for a beekeeping course at Parrs Wood Rural Studies, I jumped at it.
Steve Guest, who is a long-standing friend of mine, was already keeping bees, and he and I went on this course tutored by Len Ross from Manchester. The year after, we both took the �Preliminary Certificate� exam, as it was known in those days. Steve went first, and I went second. I was going through the hive, and I noticed a red spot on a bee. I looked more closely and said �That�s a drone!� �Oh, yes,� said the examiner, �We�ve just been practising on drones!� I still think to this day that he was trying to catch us out.
In those days there were three examinations � the Preliminary which was not written, just practical, the Intermediate and then the Advanced. We were going to do the Intermediate, but the tutor became ill and the only way to continue was by correspondence, and I wasn�t keen on that.
So you did the exam before you had any bees?
Yes, and I think that is the best way round. I can�t understand that you have to have kept bees for a year before you can enter for the Basic exam. Surely you ought to know a lot about bees before you start!
So then I got my first colony � from Steve Guest - he had bees about a year before I did. He had picked up a swarm one day, and he rang me up to tell me he had got me a hive of bees. I am a joiner by trade so I had built myself a hive. I went to pick up the swarm, and he said �Oh it�s there in the car.� It was all over the back windows of the car! Anyway, I got most of them into my hive, waited until it was getting night and they had all gone inside and took them off home
Have you made all your hives?
No. At that time I could get timber, but it has got more and more difficult to get wood of the right thickness. One-inch timber always lost 1/8 inch through planing, so it was 7/8 inch thick. Nowadays it is � inch thick and that lost quarter of an inch makes a big difference in terms of the dimensions of the hive and how the parts fit together, but also in terms of the thermal quality of the timber. It is not as good in terms of heat retention. I made my hives from old shelves that were the correct thickness!
You didn�t make them of cedar, then?
No. You are paying a premium price for cedar, and it�s not Lebanese cedar, it�s from the west coast of America and not nearly as good. I haven�t made hive-parts to any great extent. If I want anything which I can�t get off the peg, some other equipment, like, recently, mesh trays for icing sugar dusting � then I make them. There are things you can make for yourself which make it so much easier. For example, when I�m migratory beekeeping I have folding stands. They are a real boon when you arrive at a temporary site.
So what type of hive are we talking about?
I weighed up WBCs but decided that uniformity was the way to go, and since the majority of the hives in the area were Nationals I went for Nationals. I got my first colony about �86 and this soon developed into three, as it does! I ended up with about twenty colonies, moving bees to OSR and to the heather. This was back in the good old days before Varroa arrived. In fact I had ten years� beekeeping before Varroa.
Where do you take your bees for the heather?
To a place near Hayfield � �The Nook� The heather is just below the Nook � at Carr�s Meadow.
You were still working at this time, I imagine. So when did you retire?
I was construction manager for Manchester Corporation, but took early retirement and continued working for myself until I was 65. I stopped then.
So you�d be good at climbing ladders to collect swarms?!
Well�! I remember one swarm which was up a tree. I carried a honey bucket up the ladder and knocked them off into that. But it was such a big swarm, it filled the honey bucket. I nearly fell off the ladder with the weight of it!
So have you got yourself a vacuum swarm-collector for that type of swarm now?
No, I use Jim Tucker�s method. I put a hive down on the ground below the swarm, and then tie a frame of honey onto the end of a long pole. Stick it up near the swarm and collect as many bees on it as possible, bring it down and pop it into the hive. Nine times out of ten, the rest will go in. It is a good method where the swarm is fairly inaccessible.
Sounds a bit lucky to me!
No, sometimes they abscond, but nine times out of ten it works!
Now the thing you are most known for is showing, by which I mean winning all the awards at honey shows! Did you start that straight away?
No, I wanted to know what I was doing before I went in for showing. Bob Parsonage, John Tipping and Steve Guest all used to be mythering me to show, but I said �I�ll start showing when I�m ready.� The first time I showed was �93, I think, at the Cheshire Show, where I entered honey and wax. And I took the Blue Ribbon!
So you really had been waiting until you knew what you were doing!
Yes, you have to. By this time I had stewarded for the judges at a few shows, and I was disgusted by the stuff some people entered � dirt under the lids, in the honey. You can learn a lot from being a Judge�s Steward. A good judge will show you everything. With John Tipping, Steve Guest, Terry Ashley, you learn everything.
It was a couple of years later that I started showing at the Stockport Branch show, later I did Shrewsbury, Nantwich Eventually I went to the National and won several prizes there. I am pleased when I get cups at the National. But the best cup was Canon Evans. It was a total surprise� well, OK, I did get a hint � if only to make sure I would be there!
So how does the standard nowadays compare with twenty odd years ago?
The standard has improved immensely, and I am not just saying that because I win! Alan Woodward said that the ten-jar-class here was the best he had ever judged � and that is saying something.
Why do you think it is that things have improved?
When I started showing, if you asked a question, they wouldn�t tell you the answer. �Find out like I had to!� they would say. Generally now, people will help � because they want competition. What is the point if you win because the others don�t know how to do it? I want other people to win, or if I win, I want it to be against stiff competition. And the standard in Cheshire is known to be very good. When Cheshire members go to the National Honey Show, they do well. Showing helps to improve the product. The filters I use for showing are the same as those I use for preparing honey normally.
How do you stand on the use of chemicals?
I prefer not to use any, or to use as little as possible. But at the end of the day, if you don�t treat your bees, they die and you have no bees. What we are using now � oxalic acid and thymol � are naturally occurring substances, so I have no problem with that.
Talking about avoiding chemicals - I was astounded at the effectiveness of the shook swarm method when we tried it out � not against EFB but against Varroa. We had a colony which was just not pulling away. We did not know what was wrong,so we tried a shook swarm. The effect was amazing! We fed them Ambrosia and they soon had comb drawn out. They soon recovered from the loss of brood. That was what had put me off the shook swarm method � discarding all that brood, but if the aim is to get rid of disease that is in the comb and the brood, then you have to get rid of it. I would now say that the shook swarm is a far more effective way of renewing comb than the Bailey comb-change � which we also tried.
The Stockport beginners� course, with which you�re heavily involved, is a real success story, and has shown the rest of us the way.
This last year we have had more beginners than ever coming along to our meetings. But the beginners� course goes back a long way before this present influx of new beekeepers. I think it was Jim Tucker mainly because he had had bees at Dialstone when he was a teacher. He set up the apiary there as a teaching apiary. You have got to train beginners otherwise they will struggle and have a bad experience and give up. The majority of people go on from the Theory course to the practical. Then we might lose the odd one if they have a bad experience or can�t give the bees the attention they require.
A lot of beekeepers when I started were quite old. Now our membership is getting noticeably younger, and there are more women than men coming in. I really enjoy tutoring on the beginners� course. It raises money for the Branch, but the tutors really enjoy the work.
There was a question mark over the future of the Dialstone Centre wasn�t there?
Yes, there still are plans to redevelop the site. So we still are looking for a piece of land to buy. We have enough money saved up. We could then put a container on it or a shed and we would be self-sufficient. Of course we would still need a hall for meetings. Dialstone Centre is pretty good however, it is sheltered, and there are parks nearby with lots of forage as well as the local gardens. And the person in charge there wants to develop the beekeeping.
What about the future? You go back a fair bit, how do you compare the situation now with the situation then?
Varroa is the big difference. The bees are dependent on beekeepers to keep them alive. Of course, on the other hand it is because of the greed of beekeepers that we are in this situation with Varroa. And it has really destroyed beekeeping as we knew it. But I am optimistic. The past two years have been about the worst ever for beekeeping. If we can keep people going through that then they will survive anything! I am quite impressed by all these beginners. If we train them and support them in their early years I think it will be brilliant. I�m looking forward to all these new people queen-rearing and breeding the bee for the future.
Everybody talks about being green - �environmentally friendly�. Well, that�s just what beekeeping is.
Roy Brocklehurst was talking to Pete Sutcliffe