swarm catchers

Last Saturday I was working on my allotment, near my bees, and heard a loud hum. I looked up and saw a swarm of bees that quickly moved over my head towards the woods beneath Landport Bottom. I jumped on my bike and tried to follow them but they were too fast and disappeared quickly towards their destination. They were not my bees but from another colony, excitedly and purposefully creating new life.

The air is warm, the nectar flow is on and swarming season is upon us again. Perhaps because of the decline of the honeybee, we now have over a dozen new natural beekeepers in the Lewes area. They keep their hives, often home made, in gardens, allotments and on roofs. Seeing themselves as ‘bee guardians’ rather than ‘honey farmers', they work on a very different basis to conventional beekeepers. They leave most of the honey for the bees to overwinter on, they try not to open up the hive without good reason – especially taking care not to disturb the brood chamber - and allow their bees to swarm as a natural part of the cycle. As a result, swarming is on the increase, thanks to natural beekeeping, as well as from the increasing number of wild bee colonies in Lewes trees, chimneys and eaves. So swarming in May and June will become a more common occurrence.

There’s fear and projections attached to swarming bees but really they are almost always docile. For example, last year I captured with my bare hands a perfect swarm hanging low from a small tree on Talbot Terrace; the children loved watching me do that; it was a community event. Swarming is abundance itself, the honeybees’ natural way to reproduce and break disease cycles. So if you see or even hear about a swarm of bees, stop to celebrate and marvel at them, and note where they land. Then ring one of Lewes’s swarmcatchers, who will transfer the bees to one of the many Lewes people who are waiting to start keeping bees naturally. Write these numbers down: swarmcatchers Adrienne Campbell 07774793158 or Mike Millwood 07971216075

photo: Natural Beekeeping Trust

a riot of flowers

There’s a riot of flowers going on and it’s hard to ignore. Roses and honeysuckle hanging over the twitten walls flood my senses with their smells and gorgeous appearance. It’s blissful – just imagine how a honeybee feels on a day like this.

I’ve been so distracted by fear for the future of life on earth that I’ve been hooked out of the pure pleasure of existence. And yet I’m getting reminders that the future isn’t a linear scenario. Although I feel sad that the starlings who normally chatter in the lime tree near my house are no longer there, and the housemartin who has inhabited my neighbour’s roof for a decade hasn’t returned this year, I’ve also been pleased to see some species return. In my woods, the small pearl bordered fritillary, a butterfly that had shrunk down to only a few mating pairs in Sussex, has made a delightful comeback – I saw about 30 on one day last week.

My friend Persephone sent me an article about the reappearance of a red tree rat in Colombia which had been thought to have become extinct a century ago. And I’m over the moon to hear that the Great Bustard was reintroduced to Wiltshire from Russia in 2009 after a long absence from the UK. I last saw one of these amazing birds, which can grow to a metre tall and weigh 20kg, a while ago - stuffed - in the Booth Museum in Brighton and had never forgotten it. So perhaps, even if species  withdraw, they can return given the right conditions, and this has to be one of the future scenarios.

The problem with fear is that it makes me (us) ill and that’s why I got cancer a while ago. I choose to live. So I’ve come up with a plan: no newspapers, keep the internet to a minimum, and take a break from the stories of mass extinction for a while. Of course, I’m still going to live simply, because that’s what makes me happy anyway. I’m going to smell the roses for a while.  

Picture by Nick Robinson

web site

Take a walk towards the bridge out of town, preferably with spookable children, and you’ll come across an enormous web created by ermine caterpillars over entire trees. A notice from Lewes District Council warns us not to touch the exotic caterpillers, which have stripped bare the trees and are hanging in clusters of web bags.

I find the notice, like the one at County Hall I mentioned last week, rather condescendingly human-centric. The reality is that we humans are as endangered as those beings we well-meaningly seek to protect. We utterly depend on all life to sustain us, not simply as ecosystems services, such as soil to purify water, plants to anchor carbon and willows to soak up flood plains, but as beings in their own right.

A Guardian editorial this week wrote that ‘although the cost of conserving biodiversity will be considerable, the price of not doing so could be truly terrible’. And the Funeral for Lost Species being held this weekend by my friend Persephone is all about remembering the ones who have gone and perhaps cherishing a little more the ones who are being obliterated by us.

Meanwhile, an eviction notice (court attendance Tuesday 17 May 9-11am, Brighton County court) has been served on the people occupying the land at St Anne’s School to prevent its demolition and sale, without consultation. If you care about this 3.5 acre of biodiverse wild land which should really be kept as a park or growing space for not only the humans but for all the other beings of Lewes, please come and help out (entrance at Rotten Row) or email stannesdiggers@gmail.com or turn up en masse at 9am outside the court.

Photograph courtesy of Abbie Stanton.

whose land is it, anyway?

At the climate camp last week there were discussions of what to write on a banner to drop off the side of County Hall. ‘Get off my land’ was a popular choice: after all, whose land and whose council is it anyway? 

The Climate Camp passed peacefully and met its main aims (see this sweet short video): to practice and demonstrate living lightly together on the land as well as carrying out peaceful direct actions against nearby climate ‘offenders’. But, as one interesting column asked, is that all that Climate Camp is for? Is there a call to work more deeply with locals on their issues? And a Lewes academic reminded us of the role of local in preserving things we value when democratic routes fail.

A consensus at the closing of the camp agreed that a group of people – activists, homeless people and local residents – stay on the site as long as possible to buy time for Lewes residents and councils to allow us to have a say in the future use of the three acres of prime ground in central Lewes. We put in some Freedom of Information requests, with the help of a government employee codenamed Puffles, for information about what has been discussed, planned and surveyed for its future. Rumours abound from within County Hall that demolition of the buildings had been imminent. We need to know. Whose land is it to dispose of for building, car parks and the like? STAND – St Anne’s Diggers – is forming around this issue and will be putting a call out for participation. The grounds are open for any resident visitors or campers as well as every Sunday a picnic from noon and community meeting at 3pm.

Last week, as I was scouting St Anne's boundaries with County Hall, I came across a little sign hidden in the undergrowth  next to one of County Hall’s car parks: ‘Designated Biodiversity Area’. This was a thin strip of cow parsley and long grass, a portion of which acted as a dumping ground for the clippings from the lawns. The huge County Hall site itself is probably 98% buildings, car park and lawn. It says a lot about the mentality of our council that it even trashes, unopposed by any employees, the tiny area allocated to ‘biodiversity’.

Because biodiversity means ‘wild’. It means the place that many other beings live, because they can’t live on concrete and lawns. That’s what’s so lovely about the St Anne’s site: it has been kept secret and virtually unused for seven years, allowed to grow and stretch into itself. Having spent 10 nights on this land, belly to belly, I have started to fall in love with it, as have other Lewesians coming onto it for the first time. Strong words, but a completely natural response to a gorgeous terrain. It’s this visceral response that helps us to care about natural places, especially wild places which are inhabited by the other beings such as trees, bats, birds, hedgehogs and bugs and which makes us grieve when those places are ripped up and turned into money. 

I’ve seen a strong desire to interact with this place, to tame it, plant it, inhabit it with treehouses – turn it into something for our use – and County Hall says it has a fiduciary responsibility to make the most money possible from land. But my personal sense is, for now, let’s leave it, let’s visit it lightly, let’s go gently and leave only footprints. Because, whose land is it, anyway?

pass it on

I’m sitting in the far corner of the grounds of the disused St Anne’s School in Lewes. It’s 6am and the blackbirds are just ending their chorus. I’m on gate duty, part of a 24 hour rota guarding three gates. Climate Camp South East, who is occupying (squatting) the 3 acres of unused land, is meticulous about security: past climate camps have taught us that the police can behave aggressively and unlawfully. 

Climate Camp came to Lewes last Thursday and is spending a week modelling how to live lightly on the land, working collectively using consensus; inviting local people to visit; and training in creative direct actions culminating in a non-violent direct action on one of the many climate crime scenes in Sussex: perhaps the proposed biofuels plant near Shoreham , oil drilling in ancient woodland in the National Park or the Newhaven incinerator. One of the benefits of climate camps is that people learn to self-organise and self-manage – an essential skill in the coming age of less stuff and more connection.

Bizarrely, soon after we occupied the site, we heard from several sources that East Sussex County Council, the owners of the site, had recently condemned the building and that demolition was imminent – apparently common knowledge in County Hall. ESCC even, we were told, believed we had occupied the site in protest of the demolition. 

So the climate camp called a community meeting on Tuesday, attended by 70 people including a representative from all three levels of Lewes councils, to discuss the issue. We sat on the land, outside. By the end of the meeting it was dark but it was clear that although ESCC was evasive about demolition, Lewes District Council was prepared to do everything in its power to prevent the building from being demolished and that Lewes residents wished to use the land and start to vision for future interim uses, which ESCC said it would be open to proposals. 

Although it seems likely that ESCC will try to maximise the money it can make from (our) land by intensive development deals, possibly already in the pipeline, it does seem possible that Lewes resident activists can make a stand. Indeed, the residents at the meeting formed a group called STAND – St Anne’s Diggers. Their first events are a Royal Weeding this Friday and a Beltane Picnic on the land at noon on Sunday. Everyone is welcome. Pass it on.

escape like squirrels

It was incredible to witness the level of support for community energy generation at the launch this week of Ovesco’s share issue for Britain’s first community-owned solar power station (see photos here). The launch raised the amount pledged close to the £200,000 mark, with a total of
£306, 000 to be raised by the end of May. I feel so glad to be part of a community where big visions are held and then realised together – despite all the power struggles going on at government level. There’s still time to make a pledge at the Ovesco website.

For those who also like to agitate in a more physical way during these strange and disturbing times and the tipping points of climate chaos loom ever nearer while our leaders procrastinate, a week-long Climate Camp is coming to a place near Lewes this weekend. It’s shaping up to be a brilliant event for anyone who would like to become a little more radical. In true Climate Camp style, the venue will be a surprise: watch this  wonderful website closely for news and directions, and come along for a cup of tea and a spot of creative direct action.

DH Lawrence: ‘When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power. We shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper’.

solar so good

It was odd last week to have two Viva Lewes columns with opposing views about solar pv, with me singing its praises and The Trouble With feeling quite grumpy about it. At the risk of boring some readers, I’d like to address TTW’s concerns one by one.

Our demand for electricity is in the winter, when the sun shines less.
Sorry, but this is irrelevant. Every kilowatt hour of electricity produced by renewable energy, summer or winter, is a kilowatt hour not produced by fossil fuels. Both CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain and David McKay’s excellent online book Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air outline how Britain can power itself renewably through a spread of technologies, including solar photovoltaics (pv).

Solar PV is too expensive.
Partly because of feed in tariffs (FITs) being taken up with gusto in 40 other countries, prices are falling, fast. Industry statistics show that the price of modules has halved in the last ten years with most of that drop in the last three years (see graph here). There are plenty of developments documented in the technical press that ensure there will be further drops as long as the market keeps growing. Even without FITS, solar pv is becoming affordable: on a good, medium sized roof a 3kW system can be installed for £10,000. Given industry projections for the cost of electricity, the payback for that is 18 years. The cost of electricity is rising by 6% a year (the average over the last 10 years) and set to rise faster, as fossil fuels deplete.

The rest of us subsidise the Feed in Tariffs.
The total cost to date of the FITs has been less than 1p a month to domestic bills and meanwhile thousands of new green jobs have been created along with tax and national insurance income to the government. In fact the inverse is true: those people who continue to use electricity from fossil fuels are being subsidized by those of us who use renewable energy. The cost of climate change is enormous; according to the influential Stern Report, the financial cost to society of not going renewable is far greater than the investment costs of renewables. FITs are a way of shifting costs to the polluters.

We should spend the money on alternatives to fossil fuels.
To get off fossil fuels we need to invest in a spread of renewable technologies, including solar pv, according to the sources sited at the beginning. If TTW is talking nuclear, David McKay cites a 2008 statistic of the cost of simply decommissioning – let alone building - UK’s nuclear power stations as up to £73 billion or £1200 a person. Out of the Department of Energy and Climate change budget of £3 billion and falling, nuclear decommissioning alone will cost £850 million this year, £950 million next year and £1.1billion the year after. And that’s just the financial cost.

Is shareholding in a local solar power station a good bet?
Well, TTW, that’s up to you to decide. Myself, I am investing (£250) not just because of the money but because it’s something I want to help make happen. If you want to find out more, the full share documents will be issued at Ovesco’s launch of the share offer next Tuesday 19 April, 7-9pm at Lewes Town Hall. Anyone’s welcome, investors or not, to the event, which will include an Energy Question Time and free refreshments. There’s an incredible energy revolution beginning here and I’m proud to be part of it.