Fred the Beekeeper
Words by Chipo Muwowo
For many of us, beekeeping is nothing more than a hobby to be observed from afar. A super niche interest at best; something dangerous at worst. But for local beekeeper Fred Sedgeley, beekeeping is a fun and fascinating area of work, a passion that has consumed him for over a decade now. Even after all these years, he still gets an obvious buzz from it.
Since starting in 2012, his love of bees has spawned a small business centred around bee products – balms, beeswax, and raw honey – as well as positive relationships with local community groups such as Grounded Community, owners of the Secret Garden in Boscombe (featured in PIER's Winter issue).
Fred started attending his local beekeeping association in the mid-noughties. He was keen to meet other like-minded people and to learn from more experienced hands. In 2012, he heard about a local beekeeper who was giving it up and selling his hives. “He was moving house and didn't want to take the hives with him so I bought a couple off him,” Fred says. “I managed to convince my uncle that keeping my bees in his garden was a good idea. Thankfully he was up for it.”
Fred, who is a firefighter as well as a drummer in a local band, admits that his passion for bees may have started to take over a little. “My original interest turned into a fascination, which turned into an obsession, and is now dangerously out of control!” he laughs. “When you get out there and you're hands on with the bees, there's a real emotional connection which is really calming. They're so connected with our whole planet and global ecosystem.”
According to Fred, the more you learn about beekeeping, the more you realise that all the different species of bees each have their unique roles to play. In any colony, the queen bee is hugely influential. He describes her as “an egg-laying machine.” Typically, she'll lay up to 2,000 eggs a day throughout the main part of the summer. “That's her sole job,” he tells me. “We look at a whole colony of bees as one body of bee; they're super organisms.”
The queen bee also releases a lot of pheromones which are vital to the health and behaviour of the hive. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, a pheromone is a species-specific chemical signal that incites a response in another organism. Pheromones are involved in a wide variety of behaviours such as mate selection, food acquisition, alarm responses, territory marking, and other social behaviours indicating social status.
With rising temperatures and more mechanised farming methods, it's not been an easy time for pollinators. Fields and meadows have made way for expanding towns and cities. Planting wildflowers in gardens and along road verges have huge potential to help pollinators.
According to the Dorset Wildlife Trust, “two-thirds of public land is short mown grass, but meadow habitats support eight times more wildlife.” It adds: “Greener and more biodiverse neighbourhoods provide health and wellbeing benefits for people. A network of small patches will help bees thrive in urban areas.”
Fred told me that single-headed flowers are great for pollinating insects. These are flowers that have a simple ring of petals with visible pollen covered anthers. Examples include the rose, sunflower, and lotus.
In 2020, he launched the Kind Bee Company. “It all came about from just making my own little products from it myself. “I make a polish, a lip balm, a pore balm for the pets, some rolled candles and the honey itself.”
And what about the usefulness of local honey for ailments like hayfever? Is that an old wives tale?
“The theory around hay fever isn't scientifically proven but it's a good theory,” he says. “As local hobby beekeepers, we extract our honey in a way that keeps it raw. It's not finely filtered or pasteurised; it's not overheated and so you get bits of the local pollen in your honey which can help your immunity to hay fever.”
Inspiring future generations of beekeepers is one of his passions. A big part of his work with Grounded Community is educational. “We have quite a lot of kids sessions at Grounded and the kids love it; they're totally fearless,” he says. “Getting the kids involved at that age is so important. They learn that bees aren't that dangerous and that they're not out to sting you.”
Website → thekindbeecompany.com
