Tim Whittingham

I am a beekeeper who has never bought a bee, not a package or a nucleus or a queen in a cage. All my bees have been taken as swarms and I have never requeened a colony with a mated queen. I recognise that I can only ‘keep’ my bees in this way if there is a good stock of local bees in the surrounding area. Some beekeepers have considered feral colonies to be unhygienic or a source of nuisance swarms or bad genes or even to have died out altogether but I want to see wild colonies thriving and plentiful both for myself and for the health of all the natural environment. Round here that means providing cavities for them to occupy, like nesting boxes for birds. Inspired by the Abbé Warré and his low cost Peoples Hive, Sam Comfort’s dumpster hives, log hives, refuge hives and Jonathan Powell’s Lockdown Pallet Hive I have made a prototype hive with the following characteristics: A refuge type hive for wild honey bees without the need to inspect. Minimal cost and easy to build. Made entirely fr...