Bee Bole - Bee Bole Design

Bee Bole Design

Surviving bee boles are often made from easily-worked stone (such as sandstone) or brick. The base that the skep sits on is variable in design, circular, semi-circular or square and occasionally has a protruding lip for the bees to land on when they return from foraging. The hole in the skep faces onto this lip. The example at the Queen's Head in Tirrel, in the English Lake District, has sandstone slabs placed vertically and horizontally to produce several cavities for skeps. An ornate example set into a wall at Kersland House in Stewarton, Ayrshire, Scotland was an alcove with carved decorations.

Sometimes larger bee boles, or 'bee alcoves' are found, which would take several skeps. It may be that examples such as at Craufurdland Castle in Ayrshire were built for wooden hives and not skeps. South-facing walls with bee boles inserted ensured drier and harder-working bees, as the warmth lengthened the day for these 'cold blooded' insects.

Many farms and ordinary homes had bee boles, however, with the advent of the Stewarton and Langstroth hives, skeps eventually ceased to be used. Bee boles were no longer made and those that survived are often used for decorative purposes, their original purpose long-forgotten.

The arrangement of 'hedge alcoves' sometimes seen in formal gardens may be a form of bee bole, such as at Erddig Hall in Clwyd, Cymru.

At Hodge Close, near Tilberthwaite in Cumbria are square and rectangular bee boles set into a drystone wall, facing south to get as much warmth as possible; sheltered from the winds by the thickness of the wall.

At Ladyland Castle in North Ayrshire the bee bole recesses are square and set into the north facing surviving wall of the building, now a walled garden.