bee prog more4 tuesday 10pm

[victor meldrew]

You are too harsh, Jezd. The UK has never had much of a food culture and what little we had was destroyed by urbanisation when townspeople lost control of their diets due to lack of decent raw materials, sparse cooking facilities and ridiculously long working hours. By the time conditions improved the culture had all but gone. People had a good diet during World War Two because of rationing, but the younger generation associated home cooking with the war they wanted to put behind them so they were quick to adopt convenience food when it arrived. Most young people (under 40) nowadays don't consider making their own food because it's not part of their mind-set.

I suppose what I'm saying is that it's not just a matter of laziness.

What really is sad is that children rarely, if ever, cook at school. They learn loads about designing, packaging and marketing a product, but precious little about making wholesome food.

Steve J.

I can't agree about ww2 rationing leading to a good diet .
I lived through that period and believe me ,the diet was just above starvation, the only fat kid you saw usually belonged to a father in a reserved occupation , who could augment the family diet via the black market .
Now boils were endemic in the population (due to lack of essential nutrients).
The more sadistic kids used to home in on anyone holding their neck quite stiffly, knowing this posture meant the nape of the neck had a huge boil on it.
They had great fun giving the neck a hard whack with a ruler and watching the poor sod writhe in agony . Swings and roundabouts meant that their turn to become the victim followed quite quickly as boils were endemic in those years .

John Wilkinson

 

[BKF Admin]

The daughter who took her Dads bee's to the almonds,she had an 80% loss,do you think she remembered to tell them about dad?

 

[Somerford]

I think the point WBCHive was trying to make was that the WW2 diet, starvation or otherwise, led to a 'make do and mend' culture in food consumption - ie, you made do with what you had.left overs you had and made a meal out of it instead of relying on the present day 'throw it in a mircowave/boil in a bag/add to 1 pt of water' generation.

I think he touches on a lot of salient points, eg, marketing & design v actual food preparation.

I went to school in the 80s and 90s and I had to search and search to find out how to a. Gut a fish, b. skin and gut a rabbit .basic skills not even taught 30 years ago !!!! - mid 1980s!

Some/Most of us have lost touch with production and how to make a square meal from basic ingredients grown at home.

S

 

[Hivemaker.]

>>Some/Most of us have lost touch with production and how to make a square meal from basic ingredients grown at home.<<

Think this depends on where you come from,most young lads/girls around this way including my own sons are very good at going out and slaughtering there own food and cooking it, and can look after themselves very well,and you have not got to be Einstien to cook a cabbage.And they taught cookery in our local schools in the 80s 90s and still do,gutting fish ect.

 

[MuswellMetro]

>>Some/Most of us have lost touch with production and how to make a square meal from basic ingredients grown at home.<<

Think this depends on where you come from,

although i live in london, I was bought up in a small village and as i have a large garden i keep a few chicken, rabbits and a beehive

Had a complete Townie couple around for diner, when my kids were young, they remarks oh i did like that white hen you have, my girl 6 years old, piped up, yes she is in the stew, Dad plucked her this morning, she stoped laying eggs...they left most of the stew

recently even had townies walking out of the Kitchen while i prepare sliced liver and was washing off the blood ..though they ate the liver and bacon fry up later, we went to their house...M&S and Waitrose prepacked meals all weekend

 

[Onge]

recently even had townies walking out of the Kitchen while i prepare sliced liver and was washing off the blood ..though they ate the liver and bacon fry up later, we went to their house...M&S and Waitrose prepacked meals all weekend

Blimy thats sad. I'm a townie and I love to cook from scratch. Would love to have freshly killed chicken etc.

My Uncle in Belgium, showed me how to kill and skin a rabbit (when i was about 7) then we fed the entrails to the chickens. He had bees also

Sadly he passed away a year before I started beekeeping.

 

[Allotment Pete]

I would agree with the general theme of the posts so far. I was amazed at the treatment of the bees, it was all profit and no welfare as far as i could see. Especially when one of the keepers lost his bees, bought more from Australia and put them straight back into the same hives!!! I know we didn't see everything, so they could of been thoroughly cleaned, but the frames still looked old and full of comb. I realise that time is money, but the stress these bees must be under travelling around the US chasing pollen for money was unbelievable (did i hear up to 4 trips a year??). I felt more sorry for the bees than the keepers.

Pete.