Manchester - urban beekeepers + a city working with nature

Manchester - urban beekeepers + a city working with nature

Written by Emma Kajiyama
Photos by Emma Kajiyama

A beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives in the Manchester attack. There are 22 bees to represent each victim. The bee is also the symbol of Manchester.

In 2015 I wrote a blogpost about urban beekeeping, little knowing that two years later my third year honours project would be about urban honeybees (Apis mellifera). This progression however, seems a natural one as it has followed on from the creation of the Urban Nurture Project, my affection for these pollinators and the current health status of our planet.

Bees evolved 100 millions of years ago in comparison to our relatively recent arrival a few hundred thousand years ago. Beekeeping followed, and even the Ancient Egyptians were drawn to the practise as evident from the pots of honey that have been found in the tombs of pharaohs.

Humans are hugely reliant on pollinators (such as the honeybee, solitary bees, bumblebees and butterflies) for crop pollination. Unfortunately global land-use has changed dramatically, resulting in drastic losses of vital natural habitats and reduced overall biodiversity. A major factor has been the changes in farming practises, where the expansion of monocultures and increased use of pesticides have had a negative impact on wildlife.

The role of beekeepers is a fascinating one. They ensure that diseases are kept in check which helps to reduce the risk of them spreading to other pollinators, especially those in the wild. The position also comes with the privilege of learning about these insects who have complex social structures and are capable of forming beautiful patterns in their hives like the honeycomb. It can also help us understand how we can reduce the decline of other species of bees such as the bumblebee or solitary bees.

Having had very little experience with bees, I set off with slight trepidation as I collected my first sample. The destination was Blackley golf course, north of the city centre. It was a case of learning by experience as the poor beekeeper tried valiantly to capture 30 bees in the insufficiently tiny sample tubes I had brought. I also had my first lesson in bee behaviour, where after standing too close to the hives I was rapidly chased around the golf course to the complete astonishment and amusement of the golfers.  The stings did not deter me from my collections and thankfully I have not been stung again!

As a beginner, these books are excellent.

Learning from those lessons I quickly bought larger containers which proved successful in the trips that followed. Each bee collection has been immensely enjoyable, and I have really loved meeting all the beekeepers, each with their own story of why and how they started. I have visited busy allotments dotted around Greater Manchester and beautiful wildlife gardens. One beekeeping couple have transformed their front garden into a lovely flowering haven for wildlife, with their hive and a pond which had recently seen the spawning of frogs.

A lovely beekeeper in Sale gave me some fresh honeycomb as a keepsake. The texture is a bit like gum or it can be melted into cooking.

Another garden in Heaton Moor was transformed from a large field that was once used as a football pitch into a charming garden straight out of a fairy-tale. Vibrant blooming blossoms tumbled over walls and archways. A pond, fruit and veg patches were all obviously carefully tended and an orchard, chatty chickens and beehives completed this magical outlook. It felt like we had stepped into another world, a far cry from the urban sprawl and grey tarmac just minutes away.

Manchester city centre led me to explore the roof of the Printworks – a covered area which had seen a much younger me stumbling out of their nightclubs. But on this particular sunny day, armed with my containers, I was led by the chaplain of Manchester cathedral who was also their beekeeper, to the hives at the top of the Printworks. Volunteers had helped to create a wildlife garden and a comical looking scarecrow stood guard watching over the busy bees flying from flower to flower.

I also took samples from the roofs of Manchester cathedrals 6 hives. Balancing containers full of angry bees in one arm was no mean feat and holding onto a rope with the other, I cautiously descended the steep and narrow stone staircase back down to the chaplain’s office. I made sure I packed the bees away quickly as the chaplain who shared the office was deathly afraid of bees!

On my way to these collections I have noticed pockets of wildlife that have been carefully thought out and planted by people who are trying to make Manchester a greener city. I think they are succeeding because as cities go, this one seems to becoming more environmentally friendly each time I come back. It’s quite apt that the symbol for Manchester is the worker bee, representing the Mancunians hardworking nature but also the evident efforts to work with nature. Manchester has a way to go to become a truly sustainable city but it is definitely going in the right direction and it makes my heart glad to see it.

A wonderful initiative by Incredible Edible Manchester - spotted as I walked along from Fallowfield to Levenshulme.

 

 

For anyone interested in bees, there is currently an exhibition ‘After the bees’ on at Manchester museum (3^rd floor) on urban beekeeping by artist Megan Powell. It is on until the 1^st of July:

http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/currentexhibitions/afterthebees/

 

I have also found Stewart Spinks of  'The Norfolk Honey Company' to be a great help - his Youtube videos on beekeeping are very helpful and he has very kindly advised me on all sorts of bee-related questions:

http://www.norfolk-honey.co.uk/

https://youtu.be/rbUBswavuoc

 

 

 

Shell Collecting on Southport Sands

Thoughts from a conchologist - the study of shells

Written by Claire Duncan
Photos by Claire Duncan



Fig. 1 Three red whelks. (Photo: Claire Duncan)

In the holidays I tend to spend a lot of time on Southport Beach. Aside from picnicking at me and my fiance’s ‘spot’ on the seawall, using the gym equipment by the lifeboat station and dodging the mass migrations of tourists on Bank Holidays, I’ve also got into conchology. 

Conchology, or the study of shells, taps nicely into both my paddling around in the mud picking up interesting stuff instinct, and my higher, more academic nature, which meticulously researches stuff and jots down the Latin names. When I was small, my dad would take me ‘treasure hunting’, pootling along farm tracks gathering bits of pottery from the hardcore used to mend the potholes. We would then come home, me excited and covered in mud, to piece together our finds and deduce the different types and stories of each piece. Shell collecting’s very like that. It’s amazing what you can find amongst the mud and litter and coal. Although when the tide is out, the sea is famous for needing a half hour walk to see, when it comes in it brings a myriad of things from the surrounding coast, and often further.

One of the main finds at Southport is the edible whelk, Buccinum undatum. This spiral shelled gastropod is found on soft bottomed coasts where it preys on small bivalves. The shells are beautiful- delicately ridged and in a startling array of colours. I’ve lately found out that the colours can come from staining by the various colours of sediment.

Fig. 2 Clockwise from the top: Red whelk, Prickly cockle, Wentletraps, and Auger shells. (Photo: Claire Duncan)

 

In finer sediments (for example, the fringes of the Ribble estuary) lower layers become anoxic, with anaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulphide as they feed. Apart from a bit of a pong, this reacts with the iron found in the sand to produce black iron sulphide. So particularly dark shells picked up will have been dead some time, and had prolonged exposure to this iron sulphide rich sediment. On contact with the air, the iron sulphide reverts back to the iron oxide of the original sand, producing gingery orange shells in just a few hours.

Lately, though, the edible whelks seemed smaller, smoother and a more translucent. Odd. What with ocean acidification due to global warming (we’ve already managed to change the pH of the world’s oceans by .1 of a unit.) I was worried that, like many species, these too were struggling to form calcareous shells. With the help of a decent species guide, it turns out they were red whelks, Neptunea antique. These are very similar looking, but a completely different genus. They’re also poisonous. Why they suddenly seem much more common than the edible whelk is anyone’s guess, but it could just be a short term thing with the weather and currents. Or have they supplanted their edible cousins in these waters?

Amongst the smaller shells were periwinkles, cockles, necklace shells and the delightful little wentletraps (Epitoniidae family). From the Dutch for a spiral staircase, wentletraps are characterised by their unusual shells. The whole spiral is covered in ridges which act as protection from other predatory gastropods drilling into them. There are over 600 species worldwide, although I’ve personally only found two or three while out and about. Another personal favourite are the more common auger shells (Terrebridae family), which look like unicorn horns! Or more prosaically augers- spiral drill bits. Although not as common as cockles or the ubiquitous razorshells, they’re always something pleasant to look out for on the sands.

Fig. 3 Beachcombing on Southport beach. (Photo: Claire Duncan)

While most of the shells washed up are fairly easy to identify, I was thrown a bit of a wildcard earlier this week. It was grey, medium sized and was neither a spiral shelled gastropod nor showed any sign of a hinge which would indicate it was a bivalve. The apex was not only to one side, but curled into a little spiral. The closest thing it resembled were the now extinct Devils Toenails (Gryphaea spp.), which haven’t really been a thing since the Jurrasic. But it obviously wasn’t fossilized, and was the wrong shape anyway. I looked at every seashell guide I could find. I went through the Conchological society’s website and googled limpets, gastropods and obscure bivalves. Nothing looked plausible. And absolutely nothing seems to have its apex in a spiral.

The key to this now half solved mystery was the river Ribble. Southport is on the very edge of the Ribble estuary, with saltmarsh giving way to sand just a few hundred yards from the pier. I’m still not sure the exact species, but it seems to be something from the Ancylis genus of freshwater limpets. Apparently they like unpolluted, flowing water where they cling to the rocks to graze. So whatever this odd, lumpy, little grey thing is, it’s a very long way from home. A shellfish out of water, perhaps?