Dear Friends
Big Green Day, Beaminster
As the poster says, BEAG is hosting this annual celebration of all things ‘green’, and invites everyone
to come to and join us. We have stalls ranging from county-wide organisations to community organisations. There will be demonstrations from students at the Hooke Architectural School, other
crafts, activities for children, information about green energy, bicycles of all kinds, and most importantly, refreshments available from the Clipper Caravan and also served indoors by Beaminster
WI. Do come and join us to celebrate and exchange ideas.
BAEG Community Fund Beaminster Area Eco Group (BAEG) is pleased to announce that we are launching a Community Fund, with the first round for applications open from 1 September 2024. The Community Fund currently available is £400. We invite applications in the range of £50 to £200. BAEG reserves the right to offer less than the funding applied for in the event of a high number of eligible applications. Information on the criteria and an application form to download are available on our website at:
https://beaminstereco.wixsite.com/beaminstereco. Further information and assistance is available
from, and completed applications should be sent to our email address at:
mailto:beaminstereco@gmail.com.
By providing small grants to local groups we hope to progress our aim of contributing to responsible stewardship of the world’s resources, and care for our local environment and its species. 

BAEG Tree Planting – Sheila Hawkins

BEAG was recently gifted a tree by the West Dorset Beekeepers
Association. In June, following discussions with the Groundsman, we
planted this in the wildflower area at the east side of the Memorial Playing Fields in Beaminster. We selected a ‘Joseph Rock’ Rowan that will produce large, beautiful, creamy florets to attract pollinators in the spring, and vibrant, golden berries in the autumn providing food for birds. The picture shows Deborah Childs of WDBKA and Nan Dower of BAEG at the tree planting

Red Mason Bees – Bill Pearson

For some years now, a friend had been telling me about her colony of red Mason Bees. This year I asked her to start me off with some. She sent me about 70 eggs that she had harvested the previous
year. She also sent me a proprietary plastic bee house and a good number of the tubes/straws in
which the eggs are laid. I asked my son-in-law if he was interested in splitting these between us, and
he was keen to participate in the project. I set his bee house up inside a plywood shelter and filled it with straws. We then fixed it to a shed wall. Half the eggs were inserted into a Smarty sweet tube, with a cutout in the end cover of the tube through which the bees can exit after hatching.
For my half of the eggs, I built a bee palace. I cut a length of four
inch rainwater down pipe into three lengths into which I put the
straws. The three lengths of pipe perfectly fitted inside a length of
large bore drainage pipe to protect them. I also made a plywood
shelter for the whole unit and fixed it to the wall of my bungalow.
I put my eggs inside the pipes.
Son-in-law’s colony was soon active and he had a couple of straws filled up with eggs and sealed off with mud. It was very enjoyable sitting drinking tea and watching the bees going in and out of the
house. By the end of July all activity stopped, as the bee’s lifecycle was complete.
How did the palace compare you might ask? It was a total failure – the bees just hatched and then
left. There’s gratitude for you! Next year I plan on moving the palace to a different position,
hopefully more to their liking.
My son-in-law and I harvested the eggs from his twenty filled straws. The reason for this is that if the
eggs are left in the straws a parasitic wasp could well have laid their eggs inside and then the wasp’s
grubs will eat the bee’s eggs. We collected over one hundred eggs from the straws and there were
already wasp grubs inside some of those straws. A percentage of the bee’s eggs were shriveled and
may not be viable. The eggs are now being stored in a large match box in a cool place until next
spring, when we start the whole cycle once more. Hopefully next time the palace will be successful.

Kingcombe Ponds study – Rosemary Rychnovsky

Over the past year, I have been a (very mature) student at Bournemouth University, updating my
knowledge and skills in ecology and conservation. It’s been an amazing time, I’ve learned a lot and
seen some great things. I had the opportunity to be involved in an in-depth (no pun intended) study
of what was living in ponds. Having studied mayfly larvae in detail earlier this year, this seemed like a
chance to use those skills and develop them further and to spend even more time in my wellies in
freshwater and squinting down a microscope – two of my favourite activities.
There are over 50 ponds on the Kingcombe and Powerstock reserves (NNR). None of them has been
fully studied. Great Crested Newts are known to live and breed in some of them. Ponds, if left
unmanaged, will eventually silt up in a process of succession. Many of the ponds on the reserves are
in need of conservation maintenance. It is unclear whether the restoration of one pond has benefits
for other ponds near it. The study sought to establish if there is an overspill from restored ponds to
those nearby. If neighbouring ponds receive a positive impact from a restored pond, Dorset Wildlife
Trust can carefully target which ponds to restore, in what order, to maximise those benefits. If not,
the restoration work can proceed in any order.
The project began with a map of all the ponds. The volunteer team then
located each pond, re-recorded its location using What3Words, measured its
size and depth and identified all the macrophytes (plants) growing in and
around the pond as well as pH, water temperature and dissolved oxygen
content. Then, using a standard sized net and an agreed protocol, a sample of
the animals living in the pond was taken. All vertebrates were returned to the pond. The invertebrates were humanely killed and preserved
using alcohol (an Environment Agency approved method).
Back at a Bournemouth University laboratory, the
macroinvertebrates were separated from the pond debris and
the identification process began. This involves many hours of
laboratory time, using a dissecting (stereo) microscope to
examine the features of each organism and specialist keys to
identify them. As many as possible were identified to species
level – over 100 different species were recorded and each
individual pond has its own species record. All this work was done by a committed team of student
volunteers, all of whom paid a small sum to take part in the study (that’s dedication for you!).
Once all the results have been collated and analysed, a report will be freely shared with Dorset
Wildlife Trust to inform their practice and conservation decisions and with Dorset Environmental
Records Centre as a record of the species present on the reserve.
Ponds are very important parts of our landscape. As well as being the only place some of our
freshwater invertebrates live, they also form part of many food webs – the plants and animals that
live in the ponds provide food for other animals, not only in the water but also on the land and in the
air. Many birds and bats feed near freshwater because of the abundance of insects. Garden ponds
can be just as valuable as those in nature reserves, so if you have one, large or small, let the wildlife
thrive – no fish, no chemicals, just clean it out in winter if it’s badly overgrown or full of dead
material.
Dates for the Diary
BAEG talks for autumn and winter
All talks are free and open to the public. They take place in the Pavilion at Beaminster Memorial
Playing Fields and start at 7.30pm. Doors are open from 7.00pm with refreshments available.
Tuesday, 22 October 2024 – West Dorset Wilding – Sam Rose talks about the River Brit Catchment
Recovery Project
Tuesday, 19 November 2024 – Local food resilience – Candida Baker from Bridport Food Matters;
followed by the BAEG Members Annual General Meeting
2025
Tuesday, 14 January 2025 – The reintroduction of Falconry – Bill Pearson with his Goshawk
Tuesday, 11 February 2025 – Action Swift – Catherine Symonds of the Salisbury Swift Group
Tuesday, 11 March 2025 – Biodiversity in Quarries – Andy Littler
Tuesday, 8 April 2025 – What happens to our waste? – Dorset Waste Partnership
Tuesday, 13 May 2025 – Wild Flower identification – Netherbury Nature Group
Netherbury – Talks in September in the Village Hall starting at 7.00pm
Friday, 13 September – Hedgehog Friendly Netherbury – Illustrated talk by Susy and Colin of Dorset
Mammal Group with Netherbury Hedgehog coordinators Martyn and Moir
Friday, 20 September – Otters in Dorset. Illustrated talk by Steve Kourik, Dorset Mammal Recorder
BAEG Committee members: Paul Rychnovsky, Robin Amswych, Nan Dower, Gillian Perrott, Deborah Childs, Rose
Rychnovsky, Sheila Hawkins, Jenny Beck, Alison Roger.
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Newsletter Editor: Sheila Hawkins, email: 11esgh528@gmail.com