GAS IT sets out to help the Welsh Honey Bee at its Head Quarters near Caernarfon in North Wales.
GAS IT's mission statement for over 20 years has always been to look after the environment for the next generation, to come and to reduce its emissions where ever possible. We do this by running LPG and low emission vehicle where possible, we operate electric forklifts, we recycle 100% of the waste generated by deliveries coming in to our offices. 98% of the packing materials used in our own deliveries leaving our warehouse is from incoming packaging to us. Our offices and warehouse, when built in 2013, was built using the most insulation possible, its electric lights are automatically activated, and we use low energy appliances. We even close at 4:30pm to help reduce our energy consumption and to make sure that our staff don't get stuck in traffic jams on the way home and we also close the full company down for 2 weeks holiday in summer so everyone is off at the same time which again reduces our energy consumption over the 12 months, compared to when staff would have various times off work and the company would still be using the same energy all year round.
So, it might now make sense why we have chosen to help the little Welsh Honey Bee's by having 3 bee hives sited permanently at GAS IT H.Q..
This idea was put into play last year when GAS IT's own Managing Director Nick Farrow, who has been a beekeeper for many years, thought it would be a perfect siting for some of his own breed Welsh Black Honey bee's. Nick's increasing passion within beekeeping is for the breeding of the small numbered Welsh Honey Bee which differ greatly to the mongrel bees that are imported from Europe every year. It made sense for him to breed new Welsh Bee stock for 2017 and put them in 3 new hives sited on the large space on the rear of GAS IT H.Q..
Our first of Nick's own Welsh Black Honey Bees was sited in a temporary bee hive on the 6th June, and the 2nd and 3rd lot of bees will follow in the next few days when weather permits. The hives of choice are quite unique in that they are Long British National wooden deep hives, which incorporates 24 frames of 14 x 12 size frames, compared to 12 frames of a shorter size in a normal national bee hive. These National long hives have been chosen because Nick has a damaged lower spin which means lifting heavy boxes of bees is a no-no. Using these long hives, with also bigger frames of comb, means he has less lifting and moving to do when he needs to work the bees. The Long hives are a great bee hive as they have lots of options available to it, depending what the bee keeper wants to achieve. It has a moving centre board, so it can be moved to make one big hive of bee's or when it comes to swarm prevention or hive increase it’s a simple case of sliding the comb frames from one side to the other and putting the centre board back in place to make them 2 hives again.
We will keep you all updated throughout the season on how they are getting on via this GAS IT news feed, our Facebook and also our twitter account @GAS_IT .
You can also follow what Nick's up to via his personal twitter account @NickyboyFarrow .
9th June 2017 The temporary bee hive in place at GAS IT HQ.
