The ladies of the Ullesthorpe W.I. met in April on Zoom to hear an interesting talk by Julia Wallis about Honey Bees and Beekeeping. The United Kingdom consumption of honey is 43 tons per annum, of which 95% has to be imported. Bees are very important for their role in pollination in agriculture and horticulture, and our gardens and pesticides are a real threat. Without pollination land would become prairies. There are not many wild hives these days in the U.K., where hives are built in tree trunks. All the worker bees are females who fetch the food and clean up. It takes 4000 bees to make a pound of honey. The Queen makes a nest in Spring in 6 sided cones of foundation wax in a frame and produces workers throughout summer, potential Queens appear later and mate. The male drone bees only mate and then are kept out of the hives and die.
Our next Zoom meeting will be on the 13th May, when we will vote on the resolution to raise awareness of the subtle signs of ovarian cancer. As holding a plant auction on a Zoom meeting would be tricky to say the least, we are are hoping to hold a plant swap with donations in the Ullesthorpe village hall carpark on Thursday afternoon 20th May.
Our speaker in June will be John Florance, a retired BBC Radio Leicester presenter who will talk about John Betjeman, the poet who saved St. Pancras.
New members are welcome (Tel. No. 01455 209254).