D F Morris

[Tina]

Hi - New to this forum & I don't keep Bees although I have been considering it!
The reason for my post is that I'm trying to do some internet research about my Grandad - Douglas Morris who was a beekeeper in Bramham, North Yorkshire. I have just read a short article written by Mr Jack Cox NDB President which mentions going to see my Grandad in the 1960's & purchasing some "morris boards" He also mentions an article written by Mr Michael Badger but I have been unable to find this on the net. Mr Cox's recollection of the Bee Farm in Bramham brought back some childhood memories of visiting Grandad & the wonderful smell of his "workshops" He was licenced to make & sell Mead in 1959 I think, in fact I am looking at probably one of the few remaining original bottles (sadly empty) now. I wonder if anyone on this forum has ever heard of my Grandad & would love to know more about his contribution to the world of Beekeeping. sorry for the rather lengthy post & thank you for reading

 

[wilderness]

Hi Tina, welcome to the forum.

I'm too far south and much too young to have any knowledge of your grandfather but I'm sure someone will be along soon who can help.

Have you tried to contact your local beekeeping associations?

 

[paulgeoffrey]

Hi Tina,
I recently made some Morris boards for Michael Badger for the prodution of a beecraft booklet on the subject. Shown here:
http://www.bee-craft.com/shop/bee-craft-booklets/the-morris-board-method-of-queen-rearing-booklet/
He also wrote an article on the subject in, I think, the February 2010 edition of beecraft.
I have a few of these boards in stock if anyone fancies having a go at this particular method of queen rearing.
Paul.

 

[Tina]

Hi Wilderness,
Many Thanks for your reply I will try to contact the local bee keeping associations, this was just the first one that I came across while looking. This seems to bee a very busy forum!!!
Thanks Again
Tina

 

[Tina]

Hi paulgeoffrey,
Many Thanks for your reply, sorry haven't been able to post back sooner - long shifts at work Do you think the "morris" boards may have been named after my Grandad?? That would bee so cool! What is the purpose of them in the hive?? I have found the booklet on line & I will purchase it asap, as it apparently contains a short cv about DF Morris - which may give me some more answers. I'll post anything I find out
Thanks again
Tina

 

[dilys]

Hi Tina

You Granddad invented a very good way of breeding queens and his board is the only bit of special kit needed. For some reason I thought the Morris of Morris board fame was a New Zealander but I must have been mistaken. Roger Patterson has done a lot of research recently regarding the board and built some for testing last season. His method is slightly different to the one used by Michael Badger but the board is identical. It seems that various people use the board slightly differently and Roger has found it difficult to find the exact method developed by your Granddad.

Roger does not frequent this forum but can be found on another:

Britishbee.og.uk/forum/index.php but remember the www.

If I get chucked off this forum for mentioning the other I'll blame you

Dil

 

[iball]

Britishbee.og.uk/forum/index.php but remember the www.

If I get chucked off this forum for mentioning the other I'll blame you

Dil

and the r between the o and the g!!

 

[Tina]

Hi dilys,
Thank you so much for the info. I have now joined said forum & am waiting to be "checked out" I think, before they will let me write a post. I have however found a contact for Mr Patterson & will use that if I can't get anywhere with the aforementioned site
I have just called my Mum who tells me that the article that started my quest;
headlined in the Wetherby Express 13th March 1959 claiming that my Grandad was the "only professional Bee Farmer left in the NE of England" (obviously at time of writing) & that he had been granted a licence to commercially manufacture mead (thought to be the only commercial supplier of the day???). It would Bee great if family folklore of Grandad being one of the biggest Bee Keepers (up North) in his time turned out to Bee true , I know he kept some Bee's on the Castle Howard Estate. As I remember seeing him there when on a trip - Buzzing around in his old VW Pickup LOL
Thanks Again
Tina
PS I'm sure you won't get kicked out of here - everyone seems really friendly LOL

 

[dilys]

Tina, your last comment has probably saved my bacon. The "r" was left out for a good reason, by the way.

I think you can be proud of your Granddad even if he wasn't the only NE bee farmer in his day. His board alone will give him a rightful place in beekeeping history as it's known the world over by his name.

Dil

 

[keithgrimes]

You could try contacting the Harrogate and Ripon Beekeepers Association. I believe they used to keep hives at Castle Howard (they may still do). The association has been around since the '20s so they may have some history on grandad.

 

[propolis]

Hi - New to this forum & I don't keep Bees although I have been considering it!
The reason for my post is that I'm trying to do some internet research about my Grandad - Douglas Morris who was a beekeeper in Bramham, North Yorkshire.

Hi, Yes I met your grandad on several occasions, not too sure of the date but probable around the late seventies early eighties. I had initially approached him with a request to purchase some bulk honey from him and he agreed on the understanding that I would return the favour when I had honey to spare.

I found your grandad a very knowledgeable beefarmer and successful honey producer and quite willing to pass on some of that knowledge to others.

Most of the conversations that I had with your grandad were beekeeping related, so may not be of much interest to you, but I will mention them out of general interest.

A number of his apiaries were situated on large estates in Yorkshire with a probably better than average potential for honey production, this was also reflected in the quality of his honey often containing a fair proportion of lime tree honey giving the honey an excellent flavour.

He moved most of his bees later in the season to the North York moors for the heather harvest and was a successful heather honey producer, selling a large amount throughout Yorkshire.
While on the subject of heather honey and it's marketing, his pet gripe at that time was the ever increasing amount of heather honey from north of the border appearing on the English market, this being the result of a large honey farm that had been built up on the back of grants from the Highlands and Islands development Board, hardly a level playing field.

The type of bee he favoured was the Buckfast bee, and being a firm believer in the value of the supersedure impulse in bees being a real cost saver to the commercial beekeeper, he had tried to breed this impulse into his strain of the Buckfast bee.

He seemed to be a very astute businessman as well as beekeeper, one of the
episodes he mentioned to me relating to honey marketing was the time that he and a good friend of his, a honey packer with premises at Bingley I believe, decided that the price of comb honey selling in the local area was far too low, so he and his friend did a tour of the shops getting the names and addresses from the packs of comb honey, contacting the beekeepers concerned and offering to buy their entire stocks of honey. Needless to say that where their offers had been accepted that same honey appeared in the same shops at a slightly later date at a much better price.
Hope that's of some interest.

 

[Tina]

Hi Keith,
Thanks very much for your reply , I will try to find a contact for them. I'm sure he must have belonged to some association.
Regards
Tina

 

[Tina]

Hi propolis,

WOW Thank you so much for the reply, It's made my day to know that there are still people out there (still keeping Bees) that remember him. I am interested in the conversations & his opinions & what he as like as a Bee Keeper as that was his life.
I only ever remember seeing him at the Bee Farm (or at Castle Howard) & don't remember any conversations with him. As usual when we get older we realise that we should have taken more notice of things the grown ups we saying!!
I do remember that every Christmas present was the same - 6x jars of Heather Honey, 2x Cartons of Honey Comb & 2x bottles of Mead
Many Thanks again for your kind & informative reply
Regards
Tina

 

[Cazwilo]

Hi
Just chatting to my Dad and he was talking about his cousin who was a bee keeper at Toulston so out of interest googled his name and saw that you were looking for info about your Grandad. I couldn't give info about the Bee keeping side of things but he told me that your grandad had several brothers and sisters where the name Fred was predominate, your grandad had a sister called Freda and he thinks your grandads Middle name was Fred named after his father. My dads dad (or my great grandfather)and your great grandmother were brother and sister, that's if I've got the generations right. Funny old world???

 

[oliver90owner]

Likely wasting your time, unless the OP looks in as a guest. Profile shows last activity March 2011.

 

[Cazwilo]

Very long shot I know

 

[pargyle]

Very long shot I know

Worth trying a pm ... If op has set up an email notification set up might get through ...

 

[DavyB]

Hi Tina

You Granddad invented a very good way of breeding queens and his board is the only bit of special kit needed. For some reason I thought the Morris of Morris board fame was a New Zealander but I must have been mistaken. Roger Patterson has done a lot of research recently regarding the board and built some for testing last season. His method is slightly different to the one used by Michael Badger but the board is identical. It seems that various people use the board slightly differently and Roger has found it difficult to find the exact method developed by your Granddad.

<link and some info snipped>

Dil

Dilys, you are confusing it with the (Harry) Cloake board, who was a Kiwi.

However there are some similarities, the Cloake board has the whole internal area as a queen excluder, the Morris board does not, although there is no reason a home built one could not, the major difference is the Morris board is set up to have a pair of nucs on the topside, which allows 2 offset cycles of queen rearing to go ahead, one of the nucs is made queenless for a day or two, then made queen-right to make the rearing more successful, after about 10-14 days the other nuc can be made queenless so a second set of queen cells can be generated and allowed to mature. There is a company in Cornwall that sells them.

 

[pargyle]

Dilys, you are confusing it with the (Harry) Cloake board, who was a Kiwi.

However there are some similarities, the Cloake board has the whole internal area as a queen excluder, the Morris board does not, although there is no reason a home built one could not, the major difference is the Morris board is set up to have a pair of nucs on the topside, which allows 2 offset cycles of queen rearing to go ahead, one of the nucs is made queenless for a day or two, then made queen-right to make the rearing more successful, after about 10-14 days the other nuc can be made queenless so a second set of queen cells can be generated and allowed to mature. There is a company in Cornwall that sells them.

Ahhh ,..... Dilys hasn't been seen since April 2014 .. If you double click on the members name and then go to View Public Profile it will tell you when the member was last active on the forum. You are talking to the wall here I'm afraid.

 

[Andrew Gibb]

Hi - New to this forum & I don't keep Bees although I have been considering it!
The reason for my post is that I'm trying to do some internet research about my Grandad - Douglas Morris who was a beekeeper in Bramham, North Yorkshire. I have just read a short article written by Mr Jack Cox NDB President which mentions going to see my Grandad in the 1960's & purchasing some "morris boards" He also mentions an article written by Mr Michael Badger but I have been unable to find this on the net. Mr Cox's recollection of the Bee Farm in Bramham brought back some childhood memories of visiting Grandad & the wonderful smell of his "workshops" He was licenced to make & sell Mead in 1959 I think, in fact I am looking at probably one of the few remaining original bottles (sadly empty) now. I wonder if anyone on this forum has ever heard of my Grandad & would love to know more about his contribution to the world of Beekeeping. sorry for the rather lengthy post & thank you for reading