Best Done in Winter / Skep Beehive Making Workshop

Please note: The workshops are now fully-booked. To sign up to the waiting list, please contact the Box Office team on 0161 200 1500 (Mon-Sun 12:00-20:00), or pop in to speak to someone in person. 

As part of her project Best Done in Winter, Brigitte Jurack and her students lead a programme of workshops where you will learn the endangered craft of lipwork, using straw and lapping cane, to make a skep beehive.

Skep beehives were used in medieval farming and are now superseded by modern day box hives. The project calls into question the impact of industrial-scale agri-chemical farming on biodiversity and interdependency of species, pollination and the importance of crop rotation in food production, through a reengagement with this craft, now superseded by modern day box hives.

Whilst the sessions are scheduled to last 80 min, even an experienced skep maker needs two full days to master a dome shaped skep. Thus, over the course of the series of workshops, participants will build and extend the lipwork commenced by others, inadvertently team working with those from previous workshop sessions.

When the exhibition closes, completed skep beehives will be donated to Hulme Community Garden Centre to place in their garden to enhance the site and to start conversations about the importance of bees and other pollinators to maintaining biodiversity and vibrant ecosystems.