Bee boles and orchard restoration at Collinfield

With funding from the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) programme, Gordon Stevenson retained important habitat and traditional farm features, helping provide fruit and food for pollinator insects at Collinfield, Cartmel Fell.

Gordon restored a traditional orchard and 10 native damson trees through replanting and restorative pruning. He also restored a stone wall to support traditional bee boles. Bee boles are cavities built into a wall for the purpose of housing and protecting bee skeps,which historically contained bees for pollinating fruit trees. Gordon said: “The boles represent a part of the story of bee keeping, as such we feel they are a really important part of the farm’s story.”

As well as restoration works, an ecological scoping survey was conducted to provide advice on future site management, covering habitat features such as grasslands containing yellow ant hills (a sign of low scale management intervention), small stands of broadleaved woodland, hazel dominated corridors, a veteran yew tree and two veteran ash fodder trees.

Gordon said: “Our intention is to make the farm available to Heritage Open Days, which is a national scheme where property not normally accessible is opened to the public with free entry over several days each September.”