{"id":104,"date":"2023-06-06T16:49:44","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T16:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/?page_id=104"},"modified":"2023-08-14T14:46:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T14:46:56","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/?page_id=104","title":{"rendered":"About us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tucked away amongst the lovely and diverse art (and artists!) at Westbury Arts is a little known part of the Centre. With approximately 800,000 residents living there, it\u2019s hard to imagine how it manages to remain hidden, especially as most of those residents are working through the summer non-stop from dawn until dusk, yet somehow manage to pass to and from almost unnoticed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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If you haven\u2019t already guessed from the title, we are talking about bees! There is a well established apiary of honey bees dating back over 25 years run by Mike Bensley who also leads the Bee Group and teaches the Westbury Arts Centre beekeeping course every year.  Indeed, the apiary was started by Mike himself all those years ago, shortly after he was called in to relocate a swarm of honey bees who had decided that under the floorboards in the Westbury house was the perfect place to set up home.  The humans already living there not really being agreeable to doing a house share with thousands of bees, the swarm was collected by Mike and moved to 5-star beehive accommodation – and the Westbury Arts apiary was born.  Fast forward 25 years and it\u2019s still just as popular with the bees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the active season (April to September, depending on weather conditions) we run monthly hive tours, where you can watch the bees close up outside and inside the hives and learn about their life cycle.\u00a0 Those who want to can even handle the bees – although we\u2019ve noticed that our younger visitors are often much braver than their parents when it comes to getting up close!\u00a0 Protective bee suits are available to borrow for this fascinating experience, which this year costs \u00a310 per person and has proved very popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike heads the beekeeping course held every year at the Westbury Arts Centre from around April to September (again, weather dependent) where students learn the essential basics of keeping bees with time spent both in the classroom and hands-on outside in the apiary. The course is ideal for those considering keeping bees, or even just wanting to learn more about our most important pollinators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pure honey from the Westbury hives is usually available to buy from Westbury Arts Centre. Try some and you\u2019ll never want the supermarket stuff again! To do so, please contact The Westbury Bee Group use: WestburyBeeGroup@yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information on hive tours, beekeeping courses and the Bee Talks which we hold from time to time, please contact Westbury Arts Centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tucked away amongst the lovely and diverse art (and artists!) at Westbury Arts is a little known part of the Centre. With approximately 800,000 residents living there, it\u2019s hard to imagine how it manages to remain hidden, especially as most of those residents are working through the summer non-stop from dawn until dusk, yet somehow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-104","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/104\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/westburybeegroup.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}