OKEHAMPTON Beekeepers kept visitors to the honey and bee tent well informed with fascinating facts about the habits of bees.

Robert and Sandra Blackmore have been keeping bees for about four years and currently have six hives.

Robert said: 'We were lucky, most of our bees survived the winter and we were actually able to sell one hive, but one chap we know who had only ever lost one hive, this year has been wiped out completely.

'You can lose bees to a combination of things, environmental issues, pests, and the weather. Bees need warmth to fly and also we've had very cold winds. They don't like to go out in the cold because if they do go out, they lose too much energy.'

Luckily, beekeeping is a hobby which is growing more popular, given the importance of these busy little pollinators.

A species about which there is much to learn, Sandra said keeping bees was 'quite time-consuming' in the summer, although not so demanding in winter.

'There's a bit more to it than you are often led to believe,' said Sandra, whose bees last year produced about 29lbs of honey.

As for those fascinating facts — did you know that one bee will actually only produce the equivalent of one teaspoon of honey during it's life, in which it will also fly around 55,000 miles?