We are very pleased to have embarked on some co-branding with Seedball which is part of Project Maya (their aim is to provide meadowland in urban spaces throughout the world! Inspiring!).

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We published this picture of Brian, our Potter, at his workshop in Stoke on Trent on our Facebook page and got a lot of “likes”. Everyone likes a happy face! He’s a fantastic potter running a family business with a real passion for producing good pottery. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a strange year from the bees perspective! There they are working their socks off and producing a load of goodies for us humans and they read in the Bee Times that we have lifted restrictions on pesticides that have been linked to their “genocide”. Thanks a bunch! Then evidence emerges that even organic pesticides can be harmful to them! Good grief! What kind of world is this they wonder where insects that do so much good are treated with such distain! Then they look at the other Times and think goodness, it isn’t just us, they try and destroy each other too! I’m making light of some serious problems, but oft a true word said in jest!

Luckily the forces for hope and optimism are incredibly strong so we continue to do what we can to ensure humanity and common sense prevail.

This is the time of year when many, many people show their generous and caring side and we often enter the new year with a renewed desire to make changes to body size, fitness, general consumption and to the world. And what a glorious, fantastic world it is despite the challenges!

A lot of people will receive beepalaces for Christmas and maybe some of them possibly will read this!

If you have received a beepalace for Christmas then someone special thinks you are too and thinks or knows that you will appreciate one of the most amazing wonders of nature that can be found on your doorstep, as well as knowing you appreciate design and style!

Your beepalace will allow you to get very close to the fascinating world of the solitary bee – a bee that can be 80 times more productive than a honey bee, plus it doesn’t sting or swarm – a benign, hard working creature that we need to sustain our world.

We hope you enjoy your gift and that if you are unfamiliar with this aspect of the natural world you will be stimulated to find out more about it and to encourage the education of others. We hope also that you will use it as it is also intended, as an eye catching piece of garden architecture.

We will close for Christmas until mid January and would like to wish everyone a very  Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful New Year!

Early in the year things are quiet on the nesting front and whilst we are busy preparing the new stock for the Spring, we much prefer the warm weather and the buzz of the bees. Even to-day when we were expecting the solar eclipse and what an amazing experience that would be – it was just another grey overcast day!

Our new nesting tubes have arrived and as well as providing a better combination of tube sizes for bees to chose from they allow us to pack the beepalaces more tightly and they look even better!

The reaction we have had from people seeing the beepalaces has been fantastic. There is a huge amount of work to be done to explain the importance of solitary bees to our food supplies and our general well being and the beepalace is a wonderful vehicle to help do this.

We were particularly pleased when Alitex (www.alitex.co.uk), a very established maker of Conservatories and Greenhouses expressed interest in having one in their garden. Alitex, a near neighbour of the beepalace,based just outside Petersfield have an outstanding reputation and work closely with The National Trust and The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew so we are extremely chuffed that they are going to blog about the beepalace they have recently hung up. We have given it a head start by inserting some full nesting tubes from last year – in a month or two we should see some action!

This is a picture of Sam Duke from Alitex taking the first picture of their new beepalace – she will be blogging and tweeting about their experience of it. Thanks Sam!

Thanks also to Mandy at Wild Damson in Petersfield (www.wilddamsom.co.uk) for suggesting we contacted Alitex and also for letting us have some space for the beepalace in her incredibly busy shop.

The new colours should be arriving next week just in time for the Garden Shows we are attending, the first one being at Firle Place, Firle, near Lewes BN8 6LP 24 – 26th April. Its a ovely part of the country with a great pub and superb walks – in case you want a change from looking at gardening products. Charleston House, home and retreat to some of the “Bloomsbury Set” is a short distance away – in case you want a change from the pub and walking.

Chris Evans was talking about solitary bees on his BBC2 morning show recently – solitary bees will be coming out of the woodwork!! Yes, quite literally!

Happy new year!! It’s never too late!

The beepalace team are planning a busy and exciting 2015.

Nick and family are back from Oz from where he posted some nice pics on Twitter. We were in India where the only reference to bees we saw was that the Hindu god of love is always accompanied by parrots, bees and a warm breeze.

But reading a little bit about bees in India it comes as no surprise that they are under threat. The Times of India reported a while ago that the decline in bee activity might be a worrying result of mobile phone usage :

“Frighteningly for India, the crisis (in the decline of the bee population) may now just be hitting home. Kerala has recorded a similar phenomenon (loss of bees), as have other parts of the country. But what’s causing this bizarre natural phenomenon could have something to do with the way you talk. Researchers investigating the trend say radio frequency radiation RFR) emitted by mobile phones and towers is the real culprit.” 

Also, the Indian rock honey bee, the largest honey bee in the world, is reportedly in decline. These bees are particularly sensitive to air and noise pollution, so their decline can be seen as another casualty of modern living. But at least there is research into these issues so we can hope that there will be solutions forthcoming.

The beginning of the year is a time to check stock and prepare for the Spring. Brian, our amazing Potter from Stoke is preparing some new samples of green and yellows and we are also looking at an aubergine glaze. We hope to have some more great colours to offer customers this year.

We are also going to provide a slightly wider range of nesting tubes in each beepalace. We hope this will encourage more nesting activity and we can continue to monitor the success rates for various tube diameters in order to continue to provide the best nesting place for solitary bees.

We are greatly looking forward to a busier fair schedule in 2015 that currently includes:

Firle Place (April 24-26) – at the foot of the South Downs near the fascinating Charleston House, home to some of the Bloomsbury set

Stansted Park (June 5-7)

Loseley Park (July 24-26 July) – just south of Guidlford on the A3

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum (14-15 November) – a brilliant place for a day out

Stansted Park Christmas Fair (November 21 -22)

Petersfield Christmas Fair (December 6)

Plus we hope to be at Longstock again and at South Harting festivities and a few more venues to be announced.

Whilst the bees are sleeping the birds are feeding – here are some outside the beepalace offices yesterday:

We had a stall last weekend at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.  An army of volunteers make this place a proper living museum. Amongst displays of falconry, basket weaving, wood carving etc all sorts of locally sourced products are available. The weather wasn’t very kind but a good number started their Christmas shopping early. Lots of lovely people came and we sold a good number of Beepalaces. Here’s a photo of Nick smiling through a crowd of happy shoppers.

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Autumn Countryside Show 2014

Many glowing comments on the shape and design of the Beepalace were made. I’ll show a photo of the original concept in our blog shortly. The transformation is quite something. It did take a few years and the help of a great Product Designer – Imogen Lawson-Evans.

We will be attending a couple of Christmas markets in November, The Weald and Downland (15th and 16th November) and Stansted Park (22nd and 23rd November).

We attended the Longstock Plant and Gift Fair near Stockbridge, Hampshire. Set in the magnificent grounds originally owned by the eponymous John Lewis we had a great day. The sun shone and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Our day started with a wrestling match against an old style gazebo. Nick and I managed to win although the gazebo had some good moves.

The Longstock Plant and Gift Fair (now in its seventh year I think) is very popular for plant buyers and local nurseries provide a lot of the colour. Our neighbour at the event has a half acre nursery (that is small) and attends 50 Fairs a year!)  A band played what seemed like an 8 hour set of popular ballads and the queue for hog roast never seemed to get any shorter.

The event was really well organised and is a great day out. There is an excellent café run by Waitrose and a Farm Shop. The Water Gardens are worth a visit tho we didn’t make it there  so busy were we describing the life cycle of solitary bees.

We met a lot of lovely people a good number of whom bought Beepalaces (Dark Green was the favourite colour) and even more were quite gushing about the attractiveness of the design – all very encouraging.

Here are some pics of the day.

Our next big day out is at the Weald and Down Museum near Goodwood on the 11th and 12th October.

The Beepalace is beginning to get an airing. We have been delighted by all the positive comments and growing sales on line but felt that on-line sales were not enough.We really enjoy engaging with the public and have met some wonderful people when we have been out and about with the Beepalaces.  We are a commercial company so we are selling a product but we are also educating people on the importance of one of the most crucial pollinators on our planet. Most of the people we talk to have no idea what a solitary bee is. That isn’t surprising as it has always been the honey bees that have had the limelight. The unsung heroes ( and we should include all sorts of other pollinators such as bats, butterflies, and beetles to name a few) of the pollinating world are under threat as much as honey bees (debatable?). Somehow the solitary bee has a character and it is easy to observe making it’s nest.

The Beepalace was always meant to take the story about “unsung pollinators” to a new market. People who are not necessarily knowledgeable about wildlife but who are nevertheless fascinated  by the facts and want to know more.

To attract a solitary bee you could drill holes in a piece of wood and if it is south west facing and near the right sources of pollen and nectar you will probably see the holes fill with larvae. The Beepalace was designed to be stylish, last a lifetime and add a focal point to a garden. It is attracting interest from people from all walks of life but it is perhaps the professional City dwellers who show interest that we find most rewarding. People for whom the whole world of solitary bees is a discovery a new found land.

Research into the ways of bees, their predicament and how we can improve their life chances is becoming more important by the day. There is a a realization that we are dangerously close to destroying those things that we should hold most dear (enter King Lear!). We hope that people will find the Beepalace an education as much as a stylish object.

We will be attending the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Autumn Countryside Show and Christmas Market, the Stansted Park Christmas Fayre  (www.stanstedpark.co.uk) and in a couple of weeks we will be at the Longstock Park Nursery (in aid of the North Hampshire medical Fund).

In the meantime here is a picture of our display at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Shop (www.wealddown.co.uk). The display was made for us by some very nice people at Cathedral Signs, Chichester (www.cathedralsigns.co.uk).

A group of 5 red mason bees begin nesting in a beepalace.

The tubes which look sealed are the ones which have had up to

10 red mason bee larvae laid in them.