'Crusher' gets her comeuppance

M and R flew in faster than a MiG fighter jet formation this afternoon; which had me scrabbling into my bee suit, running for my half-prepared smoker, hopping into my squelchy wellies (yes, they sprung a leak in yesterday's flash flood - see here) and tracking mud from the garden all over the carpets, which Guy (in an extravagance of boredom) had vacuumed scrupulously all week. Oh dear!

All the activity, naturally, left me perspiring freely in the humid summer heat. I could feel beads of sweat crawling down to the tip of my nose where it met the mesh of my veiled suit. Not an auspicious start to the proceedings, one must admit.

If my neighbours didn't know before that there was a beekeeper in the vicinity, they sure do now. A veritable army of "Men in White" marched down to the hive through clouds of ominous smoke, coughing ever so slightly as I puffed away in a steam of over-enthusiasm. The hive in question has been looming ever so slightly out at me all week, as I've careened between horrific thoughts of disease, Bee Inspectors with blowtorches, digging 1m trenches, dowsing bees in petrol and gigantic flames destroying all my dreams, and swinging back into fantasies of winning the National Honey Show with my prime-flavoured honey (labels to read "London Garden Honey" of course).













In the Clover




These bees have been the best thing in my garden in four years, and it would absolutely break my heart if there was disease in them, this early in my bee-farming venture. I realise though that I'm new to the whole thing, and have been very carefully prepped about the dangers of disease, and therefore completely likely to over-react. Never mind of course, my completely understated ability to over-state the obvious and embellish every event into Melodrama of the Highest Order. Possibly not the best qualities for a beekeeper ...

We smoked the hive and popped the top off. The crownboard came off, and the hive was absolutely filled to the brim with bees, comb, heat and activity. I cannot believe how much work these bees have done in the 4 short weeks they've been here. But then, so little time and so much still to do!

M and R were great, standing back to let me go through the frames on my own. The instant they spotted the dark grey cells I've been worried about, they reassured me "dark pollen - no worries". The fact that so many different colours can appear in a hive gives me some idea of just how much I still have to learn; how much there is to know. I remember seeing, last week, drops of acid-bright green and purple (purple!?) on the frames, and wondering to myself "what on earth?!" But yes, hives are not a monochromatic multitude of cells; the organic array of colours and shapes really needs a sharp eye, and experience, to understand and interpret what's been happening in the secret lives of bees.

So we worked our way through the frames; the central ones are now becoming incredibly heavy. They are filled, filled, filled to the brim with tiny rice-grain eggs, larvae, capped brood and honey stores. There were tons more bees than before - definitely a whole batch of babies have been born and are already busy working away.

As we worked, the bees got crosser and crosser. Whereas earlier, M mentioned how gentle they seemed, now they started rising high out of the hive and humming rather loudly. And right then, I got my comeuppance for crushing all those little lady bees. They got me, one on my left hand, one on the right - right through the rubber gloves. I rubbed the stings away, but started to get a bit freaked so I walked right away from the hive out to the garden. Man, did those stings burn!

Right now, the backs of my hands look a little lumpy, but the worst is over and a mere ache remains. It seems I will truly be testing the theory this season; to see if it really is true that the beekeeper who is stung by her own bees, and then eats the produce of the bees' efforts, becomes immune to hayfever.

And the best news of all? "Go on," says R, "put on a Queen Excluder and a Super, and let's see if you can get some honey." Yahooooo!

So the plan is to watch the Queen's activities carefully from now on; watch and make sure she has enough space to keep laying in the Brood Box. The super will allow the bees to use space other than the Brood Box to store food supplies; nectar and honey. If we can take some honey from the Super, we'll put the Super back with the same frames (once the honey has been removed) and create the Brood and a Half they will need.

Another lesson today was; shouldn't have destroyed that perfect Queen cell I saw - we need one, uncapped, for Supercedure (must remember to look that bit up again). And more, keep reading on pollens and pollen colours.

It has been such a pleasure knowing that I have friends in such far away places as Dubai, and Johannesburg and as exotic as Wimbledon and Kent, watching and worrying with me about the fate of the bees. The good news is, folks, they're fine, happy, safe and disease-free as far as we can tell. Now all I have to do is make sure I don't trip over my own two feet on the next visit to the hive.

Better than Coronation Street, innit!? :-D

Brood Box with Super on top
- the thin yellow line between the two is the Queen Excluder)

Disease?

Well, I did my first proper inspection yesterday - the first after the Queen had been allowed to leave the hive 2 weeks earlier. I opened the hive on the look-out for results from an active Queen:-

• the minute rice-grain-size eggs that would indicate she had been active laying within the last 3 days,


• fat white larvae curled in their uncapped cells, signs of slightly older brood,


• capped brood, soon to emerge as new bees, and


• honey stores.
  
  

I wanted to see how many frames the bees had covered. Things that I wondered about ...

• Should I be taking the mouseguard off the front entrance to the hive, to allow more bees freer access into and out of the hive?


• Do I really need to add a super for brood, to create a "brood-and-a-half", before finally adding a second super if I'm lucky, to finally achieve some honey crop?
  
  

What I did in fact do, just before going into the hive, was to dredge up all the documentation on diseases, to read through, to check the identification photos. Dunno what made me do that, but when I finally did get into the hive, these are the not-so-good signs I saw everywhere on the frames:

I also noticed one or two small pieces of brace comb. For some reason I didn't cut it away, merely put the frames all back in place. One thing I did notice however, was a perfect Queen cell being made. I cut it away before putting the frame back in place. I also saw two drones on the frames. No sign of the Queen ...

Before I closed up on the hive again, I popped a super frame in the end of the brood box. I should really put a 12th frame or a dummy frame in place so the brood box is properly filled with frames. I should've gone to the Bee Hut today to buy frames to do this, but didn't get around to it. I kind of feel despondent about the signs of disease in the hive. In my heart, I do wonder - if I had to destroy this colony, could I ever start the whole process again? Would i have the heart to?

There were so many signs though, of healthy brood also, I just don't know what to make of it. All I can admit is that I am so new at this, I could be completely over-reacting and I need help. So I have emailed my photos to members of my Association, and asked for their advice.

If it's worst case scenario, it's foulbrood of some kind. I would have to report the disease to The Bee Unit, and my regional Bee Inspector would have to come and check it out, and if confirmed, we would have to kill the bees, burn the frames and scorch the hive.

As you can imagine, I'm hoping it's just over-reaction.

Wish us luck - we'll keep you posted.

Amended to add a photo of the beautiful Supercedure Queen cell that I unfortunately, in my ignorance, destroyed :(

Bee Barbeque

We had a barbeque this weekend, and I was worried about:-

• Smoke wafting all over the hive and bothering the bees
• Visitors getting stung
• Kinzo nosing all over the hive and getting stung

Why on earth do I worry!? Everything went just great. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction, so the barbeque smoke blew away from the hive. Kinzo nosed around very carefully and didn't get stung at all.

And the bees carried on their buzzy little business so unobtrusively, everyone was surprised. Even me.

I ended up opening the top of the hive, removing the crownboard and having a look - without even a bee suit on. And still no stings ...

Although that probably wasn't the wisest thing to be doing, and I won't be doing it again in a hurry, I really am surprised at how unaggressive these bees are.

Roll on, weekend, so I can do a proper check for brood!

Bee Space

I popped down to the hive last night. I was in my bee suit, but without smoker. I took off the roof and crownboard, and then the unwanted empty super.

Now. How to go about gently placing the crownboard down on the top of the hive, without crushing the bees who're all jostling on top of the frames?! Already they've built some brace comb on the top of one of the frames - clearly planning to fill the entire empty super with comb :) These guys are wild! I'm reminded of how they arrived here; they had built an entire new frame of comb onto one of Ron's empty, damaged frames. They clearly love building comb. They are working like demons. I love them already!

I had read the Thorne catalogue, to find out whether the hive I bought from them and assembled, is a top or bottom bee space hive. Yup, it's a bottom space. So there's no space on top to fit bees. Yet they're crowded all over the top. What to do!?

I tried just gently placing the crownboard down on the bees. There is an infinitismal space between the crownboard and the top of the frames, which are placed almost flush with the top of the brood box. I felt so conscious I might be killing a whole lot of bees, so I picked up the crownboard again.

I tried sweeping all the bees off the top of the frames. Oh big mistake - man, did that piss them off! Now I had a ton of bees all over me, buzzing furiously, and still lots left on the top of the frames.

I tried sliding the crownboard gently into place, conscious that every time I replaced the damned thing, I could be crushing bees on the edges. I seem to have an incredible knack as a "Crusher" - every time I come back to the hive, I find a poor crushed body when I lift pieces of the hive off. As I slid the board into place, a wave of bees "surfed" in front and over the top of it.

Oh bloody hell!

Eventually I just gently put the crownboard down and put the roof on. I had seen, the last time I'd lifted the crownboard, that I hadn't actually crushed any bees, so I will just have to hope for the best.

Although this hobby is making me feel like the world's clumsiest klutz, already I'm aware and feeling "in tune". I know these bees; they are gentle and biddable. Well, not so much gentle and biddable, as fiercely, fiercely focused. They are in a desperate race against time to get their new colony safely established before the winter.

Already I'm conscious that - even though my next inspection is only in 10 days' time - there still won't be time for any new bees to have been born. That will take 10 more days - from today or tomorrow, after the Black Queen's mating flights over the past few days. That takes us up to the end of June, and leaves only July and August - 8 weeks to achieve everything else.

So little time, so much to do!

As a post script, I must add that I don't care too much about a honey crop this year. I just want to feel that my bees are happily settled and made safe before winter.

Right now, survival is everything, honey is merely a bonus.

And the largest obstacle they have to survive - is me! :)

The Black Queen

I'm so conscious of doing a million things wrong as a brand new beekeeper! Apart from fighting with that b***sted smoker every time I try to light it - and keep it lit - who knows how many mistakes are being made!? Never mind. I did my first solo inspection of the hive yesterday. I removed the roof, crownboard, contact feeder (previously an ice-cream tub) and empty super. I carefully inspected all the frames, one by one, and amazingly, spotted the Queen again. She is not difficult to spot - she is wonderfully, magically, incredibly black as the ace of spaces (see pic).

Initially I was really confused by what I spotted on the frames. At first all I could see was a field of light coloured honeycomb with the odd hexagon filled with something black. My heart dropped, thinking "Oh no, it's foulbrood of some kind". But then I took a moment to look really, really closely and I suddenly realised they were bees. Bees, upended deep into the comb, eating or cleaning or making honey, or something.

Then I wondered why the frames are all so clean and not propolised at all. I think they've been so focused on building comb and bringing in pollen and nectar, they haven't bothered yet to propolise anything together. My frames are clean because they're new - I've been learning at the beehives of old, well-used frames. I also saw a lot of brace comb between the frames. I had to go back to the catalogue today to realise that the brood box could actually take 12 rather than just 11 frames. There's too much space in the box, and I left too much space between the frames, which meant the bees are trying to build up deep enough comb to close up the spaces and make for tight "Bee Space" between the frames. I had to use my hive tool to gently break off some of the brace comb, and then bunched all the frames properly together, making sure the self-spacers touch.

Then I wondered "why can't I see any eggs or larvae, or any brood of any kind whatsoever!?" And thinking it through, slowly and logically, I suddenly remembered the Queen excluder has been keeping the Queen in for the entire week. She hasn't been laying. She must be a Virgin Queen.

So, carefully I picked up the entire brood box and moved it to one side. It wasn't stuck to the excluder at all, and I just picked it up, and upended the grid bottom to clean it - lots of debris had fallen through. Within seconds of having placed the brood box back onto the floor without the excluder, I spotted the young Queen, falling out of the front door, on her way to flight.

In the night I woke up with a start, thinking "why have I left that empty super on top? The bees need the warmth and closeness of Bee Space only for now!" I rushed down to the hive this morning and popped the roof off. Yes, that space is wrong. I need to take the super off. I've been checking today whether I bought a Bottom Bee Space or Top Bee Space hive, because I'm so worried about how tight things will get on top of the frames. Why do I worry so much? They're wild creatures and they've survived for millenia without my clumsy contribution.

So I'll slip down tonight to quietly brush some bees off the top of the frames, take off the super, and slide the crownboard back on. That'll give them the compactness they need to warm the hive up properly and focus their energies not on keeping the hive warm, or the spaces between correctly filled, but only on building comb and fetching pollen and nectar.

Later that afternoon, I snuck down to the hive again. This time I saw the Queen buzzing around outside the hive. She kept whizzing around under the hive, and floating around the corners, butting the edges. There was me, worrying again. "Is she lost? Will she find her way back? Is she checking her new home? What happens if she doesn't like it?"

I think of the Black Queen today at odd moments. Today she will be flying; flying and mating.

I'll do another inspection in ten days time and by then, if all goes well, I should see new brood. Rice-grain small eggs, and larvae up to 9 days old. I will probably not see any capped or sealed brood yet. But soon, I hope. Soon!

Feeding

I got home last night and thought I should check on the feed. The guidance was "give them more feed after three days. But only one more feed, then they should be on their own!" This was my first solo foray into a bee hive. Man, was I nervous! And it showed. LOL! As I got all my preparations together, I realised that every visit to a hive requires a whole lot of sequential thinking. So, for instance:


1. Boil kettle and mix up sugar and water feed mix.

2. Allow to cool.

3. Prepare smoker (more hilarity to follow on that little item)

4. Climb into bee suit.

5. Have I got everything? Bee box, gloves, matches, hive tool (nifty new holder down the leg of my left wellie for quick retrieval. I feel like Ursula Andress in Dr No - Knife in the Bikini. NOT! :)

6. Approach hive and apply smoker.

7. Lift off top and crownboard.

8. Retrieve feeder. (Omigoodness it's covered in bees - brush off; oh no, did I get Queen? Oh dear, I hope she's still in there!)

9. Replace crownboard and top.

10. Retreat to kitchen.

11. Remove bee suit.

12. Decant feed into feeder, and up-end on tray.

13. Back into bee suit.

14. Back down to hive.

15. Remove top and crownboard again.

16. Replace feeder.

17. Replace crownboard and top.

18. Retreat, remove bee suit and damp out smoker.

19. Where are the gin and tonics!?

It would've been easier, I know, if I'd had a second feeder to simply replace with the first one, but ... oh, it's a long story, never mind. Suffice to say, you really do learn on the job.

For instance, the smoker. It's all very well to say "I'm now going to start collecting good material to pop in my smoker in future." Except I hadn't bother to start on that. So my smoker was lit, with a few twigs and some rosemary stuffed in there, comined with a piece of kitchen roll thrown in for luck. Pitiful effort, Margo, just pitiful! A few paltry puffs of pale smoke waft out and it immediately died out. When I removed the feeder, the bees indignantly buzzed around me. Of course I hadn't popped enough smoke in there. My initial instinct had been to not even bother with a smoker. Strangely enough, these bees feel so gentle and so unthreatening, I don't believe I was wrong. But I need to consider that a fully-prepared smoker, even just in standby mode, is absolutely necessary.

Practice, practice, practice! And start collecting egg-boxes, too!

After I'd placed the new feed in the hive, I sat a while to watch the action. The bees simply went crazy. I'd made the mistake of spilling some on the exterior of the hive. Bad move, as I reckon it will attract robber bees. I tried wiping it off; this did NOT impress the bees at all. For the best part of an hour after my intrusion, bees zoomed around frantically at the entrance. They reminded me of sharks in a feeding frenzy - funny, that! :) Interestingly, there are also several bumblebees that hang around regularly underneath the hive now. They're clearly drawn by the sweetness of the scents - of feed, and of nectar, hopefully.

One lovely sign was seeing one of the bees entering the hive with pollen baskets stuffed full on each side of its body. And it's also lovely to see how comfortable both Kate and Guy are becoming with the bees floating around the garden.

A wonderful, wonderful sight indeed.

A Patient Man

Ron called me on Friday afternoon to tell me he had a swarm of bees, and would I like them?

WOULD I LIKE THEM!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Yes please, I'd like them very much, thank you!

That very morning on the Tube, I'd been thinking resignedly, "ah well, I won't get my bees this year. That's alright, we'll just have to wait till next year." My beautifully constructed hive had been sitting, forlornly empty, at the bottom of the garden for about six weeks. Guy and I had a fabulously entertaining time, constructing it - see here.

Yesterday I breezed into the house after work and found Ron and Guy sitting on the back porch, enjoying a cup of tea and a chat together in the pleasant warmth of the evening sunshine. Far down the end of the garden a well-sealed box waited for us. Naturally, in my own imitable way, I had left everything to the last minute and had to run around, mixing up a sugar solution in a home-made contact feeder, hauling on my hot-as-hell bee suit, scrabbling around for a new pair of nice, thick, sting-resistant gardening gloves and eventually, klutzing around with my new, untested smoker as Ron gently coached me through it all - the very essence of a patient man.

Sooner than I'd expected we were down at the hive, Ron was shaking his Langstroth frames free of bees in the white smokey air above my British National frames and the space around us was filled with buzzing, disoriented bees. (Oh please, don't let this disturb my neighbours too much!) As he hauled out the heaviest frame, I was convinced I caught a glimpse of the Queen, massive dark body standing out against the light frame and surrounding bee bodies. "I'm not looking for the Queen," said Ron as I exclaimed out loud. Preoccupied, he continued to focus on shaking out the frames as quickly and controlled as possible.

Gently I placed the contact feeder directly onto the frames in the space surrounded by the super box, and gently Ron lay a white cloth at the foot of the hive entrance, to allow thousands of grounded bees to gradually struggle their way up the slope and into their new home. What an absolute joy to behold!

Ron gave a good-natured smile as he watched me fumble with hive tool, bee brush, frame cloth, frames and smoker. Soon, I hope, this will all be familiar enough to me to be second nature.

We left the Queen Excluder between the hive entrance and the brood box. This will stay on for a week, confining the Queen and allowing her time to settle in and identify her new home. I must check the feeder in a few days to see if the bees need more feed - but only one more; not too much reliance on "artificial" food. In a week the Queen will be free to fly her mating flight if she so desires.

Ron showed me the darkest frame, the one I'd seen her on. It was filled with the white brood and thickly surrounded by nectar supplies. He'll take that home to see if he can save it all by putting it back inside one of his own hives. It's good to see that the Queen has been actively laying.

This morning Guy and I crept down to the hive. It was early for them, but there were 4 or 5 guards on duty at the entrance. They were licking each other; one or two bottoms waggling gently.

A good sign, then!

How it all came about

I came to live in London in March 2005. This blog post was the first indicator of my interest in bees.

Once I had fixed the symptoms of my hayfever, I did some research on Google to try and understand why I'd been hit so badly by this horrible affliction. It surprised me to learn that it is a symptom of an urbanising lifestyle; that people who move to the great conurbations of the world - like London - do experience increased hayfever symptoms, and it was particularly amazing to read that Africans -those of us from the Great Continent of Dust - suffer badly when they arrive in the Big "World" Cities.

One of the more natural remedies discussed in some of the articles I read included the so-called "local honey" cure. The story goes that if you regularly eat honey sourced from a hive nearby where you live, you could reduce the symptoms. I researched this interesting hypothesis further and found that the more in-depth research shows that it is actually only the beekeeper himself who can acquire "hayfever immunity" - because it is by suffering the occasional sting from his own bees in conjunction with eating the produce of his own bee harvest, that he builds up resistance.

I was fascinated by this information and, over the next year or so began to look for - and consume - local honey. Miraculously, my rhinitis seemed to disappear. Eventually I built up enough of an interest, and for once it was early enough in the spring season, to register for a Beginner Beekeeper course. At around about the same time, I started learning more about the tragic consequences of man's bee farming efforts over the last 200 years and this stimulated my interest even more. It would be lovely, thought I, to try and actually help to save bees if at all possible, in my own small way.

And I visited Kilulu Lodge, where a small community of people are working together to try and build a uniquely successful model of business in Africa. Part of their delightful venture was the accidental acquisition of 4 beehives which they have strategically placed on the perimeter of their property, as a wonderfully quirky security measure against thieves and "tsotsis". Their honey comes from bluegum trees and its taste is thick and darkly toffee-flavoured. (More interesting stuff! Honies from different areas taste different, because they're sourced from different plants and flowers.)

So in March this year, exactly 4 years after arriving in London, I managed to find a space on a Beginner Beekeeper course. It was intriguing to find that these courses are in huge demand at the moment; they are definitely "in fashion" as part of the spiritual search among First World communities towards a more organic, nature-inclusive lifestyle. I found a wonderful, small association nearby in Enfield and joined the overflowing class of 30 people twice a week in the evenings. I blogged about it here.

As the course progressed, I found a growing determination to make this venture happen for me. So many obstacles presented themselves - money limitations, the small size of my garden, possible resistance from housemates and neighbours, my possible future emigration to New Zealand. But then I discovered that, in New Zealand, beekeepers are a rare and valued breed of worker. And I thought to myself , "perhaps, perhaps, this could be a business I could establish. Something all of my own; something new; a break from the old, stale, corporate career that I loathe so much". And my inner determination grew, and grew.

A lot has changed. Funnily enough, one of the original reasons for this journey - a beekeeper's "hayfever cure" has been completely pooh-poohed by my mentors at the Beekeeping Association. A pharmacist doing the course with me explained that my rhinitis disappeared over the last few years because Britain has had such wet weather, and so many bad summers, the pollen count has been significantly reduced.

Some things I could make happen. Some things I could change, and others I must still address.

But from today I am a beekeeper, for better or worse. This blog will be a record of that journey.