The gentle buzzing of the honey bee is perhaps one of the most evocative sounds of a hot summer’s day in the Kent Downs countryside. Yet, it doesn’t take great leap of the imagination to realise that in the not so distant past this small insect served a much more important service in the everyday lives of both country and city dwellers. Products such as beeswax and honey that we take for granted in our modern lives would have been highly valued in times past and used for a variety of purposes including the making of church candles and of course the provision of valuable food source.

Surprisingly, references to the keeping of bees are few and far between in historical records and documents in Kent although we know from certain sources that bees were chiefly in the hands of small farmers and cottagers. The will of a yeoman of Barham, a Mr William Cullinge, and dated 8 June 1585 includes ‘8 fattes (hives) of bees 16s’within an inventory.

Until the introduction of the movable- frame hive in 1862, bees would have usually been kept in skeps made of coiled straw or wicker. In most cases these skeps would have stood outside in wooden stands or benches. However, in exposed areas some beekeepers would have provided additional protection from the wind and rain by constructing special structures in which the skeps could stand. Traditionally these would have been made from wood and in some areas, Kent in particular, the skeps themselves would have placed in carefully constructed recesses in walls of buildings.

It is perhaps not surprising to imagine why most of these surviving features, referred to as bee boles, appear in the North Downs and north east of the county where exposure to the colder north east winds especially in winter would have been more marked.

Typically bee boles were built to face onto a garden, often situated in a free standing boundary wall. Obviously the aspect of a bee bole affects the amount of sun and rain reaching the skep of bees. This explains why most face either south or east to catch the morning sun and encourage the bees to start work early !. Although many bee boles have long since disappeared, a surprising number have survived in properties within the Kent Downs area. These include properties at Wrotham, Boxley, Kemsing, Eynsford, Charing and Chilham. Those who are interested in viewing bee boles in sites accessible to the public can visit Quebec House at Westerham (a National Trust Property), Canterbury Cathedral Close and Cathedral Memorial Gardens, and in Maidstone where a ragstone wall adjoining the museum has four bee boles.

For further information contact www.ibra.org.uk/beeboles