The Pishwanton Project

On 22-24 July Pishwanton hosted a course offered by the Natural Beekeeping Trust, taught by Dr Johannes Wirz, Head of the Natural Sciences Section at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, and Heidi Herrmann of the NBKT.

Following a guided walk around Pishwanton led by the Life Science Trust’s Director, Dr Margaret Colquhoun, the dozen participants were taken through a series of presentations on the cycle of colony life, from adolescence through adulthood to the winter cluster.  The practical sessions were an opportunity to restore the bee presence at Pishwanton, sadly neglected in recent years.  Most significantly, participants worked together to rehouse a large colony whose hive was in a ruinous state, dividing it between a fresh Smith hive on the original site and a new Warré hive, Pishwanton’s first top-bar hive, now standing near the herb garden.  This was a highly intrusive exercise, but an exhilarating shared experience for everyone who took part in it.  We had a strong sense that the bees themselves appreciated that someone was caring for them once again.

Altogether Pishwanton now has five hives.  They will surely make an enormous positive difference to the future of the Pishwanton Project, and we are very grateful to Johannes Wirz for travelling to Scotland to share his bee wisdom with us.

On the 24th May a group of students from the  herbology diploma course at the RBGE visited Pishwanton Woods read about it here

Are you interested in:

• biodynamic land management, gardening, forestry or farming;
• supervision, support and training of others working in these areas, including people with special needs;
• helping to run a unique project in Scotland based on the principles of Goethean science?

If so, read on!

 Some 15 years after its inception, the Pishwanton Project in SE Scotland (www.pishwanton.org) is ready to take the next steps towards securing its long-term future. To this end, we want to build a team of people schooled in Goethean science who can in due course take on an aspect of running the project, be it in biodynamic land management, supervision of the volunteers and people with special needs who work on the project, or indeed in wider project management.

We will train you as part of the package.  In your first year, you will do the course on Beholding the Heart of Nature currently on offer at Pishwanton (details on the website).  In year 2, you will be guided in how to deepen the application of Goetheanism to your chosen area of professional expertise.  The training will include learning how to use the Goethean scientific method in order to acquire an understanding of Pishwanton’s distinct ‘spirit of place’, and an empathy with the principle of consensus design which has informed the development of this unique landscape from the outset.  This in turn will equip you to contribute to the evolution of a 25-year management plan for the Project, including its educational, therapeutic and artistic programmes and the buildings required to house them.  It will be a journey of personal as well as professional and organisational development.

For further information please contact us.

In December 2010 we were visited by Lizzie Venning, a student of Architectural Design at Cardiff University.  She had chosen as the subject of her final-year essay the buildings at Pishwanton designed by Christopher Day.  Her report appears here by courtesy of the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University.