Friend to the bees keeps ancient skill alive with woven hives of gold
From his iron age-style straw home in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, Chris Park is preserving an ancient craft by weaving skep hives for his honey-producing swarms
ASOFT BUZZ OF insects fizzes through a secluded valley. In the distance, carved into the surrounding chalk hills, the ancient White Horse of Uffington is bathed in sunshine. But deep in the shadows, a gentle breeze rustles through the leaves of a sacred grove. Each tree is rich in spiritual and folkloric connections: rowan, hawthorn, spindle, apple. The hedgerow bursts with burdock, thistles, rosebay willowherb, teasels and brambles; all eyed hungrily by the birds hopping through the undergrowth. This natural cornucopia is also a haven for pollinators, including the honeybees kept by Chris Park.
Nestled into the valley itself, almost hidden by graceful willows and a forest garden brimming with vegetables, an iron age-style house is guarded by an eager Irish wolfhound and clucking, tubby chickens. Chris built this cosy, ecologically-friendly home for his family in six months. “It’s a straw-bale building, rendered with lime mortar, with a living roof. The bees love the sedums,” he says. Chris, a practising Druid, first came to Westmill Organic Farm in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, in 1997, to attend a Druid camp. He had always enjoyed exploring ancient ways of life, and, in 1998, he joined a TV project that recreated an iron age village in Wales. “We were dressed in woollen garb; the shoes were awful, but I think the experience might have changed my life,” he says. “I realised we still live really close to nature. We didn’t have a chemist down the road, so we looked to the past for medicine.
“We still use ‘bee medicine’ today. When we get a cold, we have honey and lemon, and some hospitals use honey wound pads. They’re brilliant on burns too.” Honey was not just medicinal; it was nutritious and also the base for mead; an old alcoholic drink made from honey.
In 2002, Chris made the decision to settle in the area. He began to research the folklore and heritage of bees, and the ancient ways of keeping them, and decided to try one of those methods himself.
Bees in a basket
Bee skeps are simple, coiled-straw, upside down baskets for bees. “Think of the second syllable of the word ‘basket’ and you have ‘ba-skep’; a very similar word,” says Chris. “It’s also close to the old word ‘scoop’, as in an animal coop or keep.”
Chris believes that the skeppist method of beekeeping provides the best environment for his bees to thrive. “Skeps are the opposite of conventional beekeeping,” he explains. Unlike that method, there is minimal inspection involved in a skep. “Bees can become stressed through constant manipulation: taking the roof off, lowering the temperature, dispersing the hive, letting light in. This just doesn’t happen with a skep.” He adds that this lack of human disturbance helps to reduce disease risks, along with the small, lithe colonies kept by skeppist beekeepers. “We allow the bees to swarm and draw their own fresh, virgin comb,” Chris says. Skeps are also made in a sustainable way, using local materials where possible.
Starting out
Having decided to try skep beekeeping, Chris contacted his local beekeeping society. The bee masters there recommended old manuscripts and books, which he devoured. These included The Feminine Monarchy, or The History of Bees, by Charles Butler, dating from 1623, which recommended culling bees each autumn, a practice Chris has not revived. Butler advised culling the lightest skeps without enough food to make it through the winter and the heaviest, which would bring the biggest harvest.
“For so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom”
William Shakespeare, Henry V