Local people making their corner of rural Britain unique
This week
Saturday 2 August
Repeated ThursdayΜύ7 August
Matt Baker discovers how bees make the Devon countryside so special.
Would the countryside exist as we know it without bees? It's a question Matt Baker explores in this week's Open Country, from Devon. Beekeepers are struggling to control a parasite which can wipe out whole colonies, and which has become resistant to chemical treatment. Meanwhile, wild Bumblebees are in decline. Matt meets a 'barefoot' beekeeper who believes, if they're allowed to, bees can solve most problems for themselves. He discovers some of the secret life of the hive with the Head Apiarist at Buckfast Abbey, who escaped the brutality of the Iraqi insurgency through beekeeping. Matt gets to taste 'the mc coy of 'unnies' (sic) from the back of a pick up, and learns just how closely linked the evolution of bees and flowers has been over millions of years.
The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites
Contact us
If you know a special place in the U.K. countryside rich in natural history, history and landscape features then pleaseΜύdoΜύΜύcontact us
