Bee-boles in Arbroath

A book on the Craigie bookshelf is “Folklore of Tayside” by the late Colin Gibson. He has a piece on bee “boles”, explaining that these are wall recesses.

“They were made to shelter beehives of the old straw ‘rusky’ type,” he says. “They are not built on to a wall, but are an integral part of it – recessed on all sides, the front being open.

“Straw ruskies or skeps went out of use years ago, yet many owners of oldish houses have these wall recesses in their gardens without realising what their purpose was. You may still come across bee-boles alongside mansion houses, castles, farms and cottages.

“Far more have been discovered in Fife and Angus than anywhere else and the Arbroath district seems especially favoured. No doubt the proximity of the great Abbey of Inverbrothock provides the reason for this. Every abbey had its own apiary, sometimes numbering its hives in hundreds.”