"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...


In my early 20s I
used to help a couple of elderly ladies (then well into their 90s and
sadly no longer with us) with their gardening. They had a plot of
land equivalent to that for three extra houses next to theirs near the
town centre. They grew vegetables, kept many hives (randomly placed)
as well as the proverbial chickens of course, and some rabbits for the
table. Visiting them was a delight because it was like going back
to the 1920s. Their house hadn't been redecorated since their father
had done it then and they saw no reason to change it or the orginal
lino everywhere.

Sounds like most of our house! What's the point of fixing it if it ain't
broke?

In the summer months they would often camp out on their piece of land
with an older army tent and camp beds.

Oh wonderful! I wish we had room for that. Especially these last two nights
:-(

I was shown the beekeeping equipment, the pride piece of which was a
mechanical extractor looking like a kind of spindryer with a big
handle like a mangle. How on earth they operated it, I don't know,
but they did.

There's a 'cage' inside into wish the wooden frames containing honeycomb are
fitted. The wax capping which seal the honey into cells is sliced off each
side first. When the handle is wound the cage turns and honey is thrown out
of the combs.

There are three types, the 'radial' holds combs at right angles to the
centre spindle. It's unlikely that theirs was that kind. The others are
'tangential', where the frames are parallel to the sides of the drum. In one
tangential type you have to remove the frames to turn them round to extract
the other face of the comb. There's an older version - I had one and loved
it, whereby when you reverse the direction of the handle an ingenious device
turns the individual cages to expose the other side of the frames to the
drum. It's not easy to explain ...

However, they would never tell me some of the Deeper
Magic of beekeeping, and hive placement was one of them.

Some people are very secretive, it's a shame but in a way I can understand
it. It does make you seem very clever, almost mystic, part of a secret cult,
if you don't give everything away!

Now I know, and I am pretty sure that they did as well.

I suspect so. The very fact that they randomly placed hives shows that.

Mary