The Bee Carol

by Carol Ann Duffy

Silently on Christmas Eve,
the turn of midnight's key;
all the garden locked in ice -
a silver frieze -
except the winter cluster of the bees.

Flightless now and shivering,
around their Queen they cling;
every bee a gift of heat;
she will not freeze
within the winter cluster of the bees.

Bring me for my Christmas gift
a single golden jar;
let me taste the sweetness there,
but honey leave
to feed the winter cluster of the bees.

Come with me on Christmas Eve
to see the silent hive -
trembling stars cloistered above -
and then believe,
bless the winter cluster of the bees.


* * *

Bless you too, Poet Laureate, that brought a tear to my eye!

* * *

















Merry Christmas, bees!

Full Circle in the Sun

In the time since I last wrote, I have split the hives again on the faint chance that a new Queen survived in Itchy Knee. Weeks later, I checked again on Monday and realised that all chance of a Queen was gone.

Not only that, in my eagerness to protect them after a recent very heavy display of varroa, brought about by the lack of Queen to encourage them to groom each other, I poisoned them with Apiguard medicine. I looked in on Monday and there were hundreds of dead and dying bees. I had placed the Apiguard in a too-small space and simply gassed them to death. Very terrible. I took a video of the action of a dying bee to post on a beekeeping forum in the hope that someone more experienced might recognise what was happening and confirm my suspicion about poisoning, and they did.

* * *

Today was a tough day for me. Work started at 4am; and it was the kind of work that bruises the soul - the hard part of my job. But it was a pleasure to be able to leave early and get home at lunch time. I got straight into a beesuit and headed down to the hives, intent on making right what I've been doing wrong all these last few weeks.

When I finally broke down Itchy Knee's configuration I saw that they had moved all the honey from the bottom super into the brood box, just as Ron had said they would. They moved it all so quickly! That said, I'll never do it again - putting a super at the bottom. I'm hoping that by moving to the bigger 14x12 brood box next year I will only ever need supers for the honey crop.

As I worked through the frames in the brood box, it was very clear there was still no Queen. And so - I just knew - this time it would be absolutely the right thing to do to unite the hives - Itchy Knee into San-Shi.

Itchy Knee is weak, but has a lot of honey stores. San-Shi is strong and Queen-right, but has no stores to survive the winter.

So I carefully opened up San-Shi, removed the feed arrangement at the top, and placed a sheet of newspaper down again on the brood box. I heaved Itchy Knee's brood box across (it weighs an absolute ton from all that honey) and placed it ever so carefully, ever so gently on top.

Then placed two packs of candy fondant in an eke/super on top and closed it all up.

It all felt good and right and proper this time, not frantic and fearful and confused like the last few times I've dropped in.

And all the time I worked with the bees today, they were incredibly pleasant and good-natured. Sure, they buzzed about and checked me out, and expressed their grouchiness at being moved about with a few loud buzzes, but in the main they were a joy to be around.

What saddens me is to witness the terrible ongoing War against the Wasps - carnivores, killers, raiders, pirates. I even managed to stomp on a few this time.

On a completely different note, I saw that the perspex crownboard had accumulated a corner of condensation inside it. I will watch that, and change it to a wooden crown board, I think.

That will be one of the last things I do as I bed them down for winter. Insulation is a subject of ongoing interest and research. Wonder what I'll find to use this year?

After my visit today, I sat for a long, long time and just watched the bees, surrounded myself with bees. I watched as gradually the few remaining foragers at the base of the old Itchy Knee site slowly moved across to San-Shi. I watched some wrestling matches between wasps and bees. And I gloried in the blue sky afternoon sun; so rare! I miss it so much. When did I ever think the South African big blue sky was too big and too blue, and the sun too hot? Was I mad!?

Chatting to my housemate tonight, I found myself caught up in a passionate, articulate explanation of how Queen bees are made and how bees are one of the few creatures in nature who - collectively - choose the sex of their children. I could see the wonder in my housemate, and it brought the magic all rushing back.

It has been such a hard year with the bees; it has felt like just another job, just another chore.

But not today.

Don't worry, bee happy

Alright, alright, I'm cheering up. Calm down everyone!

Feeling Bad

I've found myself avoiding this blog in the past couple of days; I don't want to face it; I don't want to face myself. I'm ashamed of myself. How have a bunch of little creatures brought me this low, I ask myself. I swing wildly between despair and mortification and self-deprecating humour. How can I take any of this too seriously? After all, the bees don't care about my blog!

It really does feel as if they sometimes stare me down and find me wanting.

And in this case, I ought be ashamed of myself, I really do.

Let me explain.

On 1 August, after a wild summer of being chased down the garden by a bunch of bees, I finally gathered up some friends and mentors, and together we hunted down and killed the Queen of Itchy Knee. You remember that part, right?

The intention was then to leave the bees to make a new Queen in the hope that the new one would be of a gentler disposition. This in turn would make her 50,000-strong hive gentler too. Less running down the garden path and cowering behind hedges for me.

So for the next 7 weeks I spent a fair old amount of time sharpening my pencil and doing calculations on a regular basis, trying to work out how long it would take to birth a Queen, get her mated and get her laying some new brood as proof for me to find on my next Hive inspection.

7 weeks later, and several despairing checks inside the hive, I was convinced - absolutely convinced - that if there WAS a Queen, it had become too late in the season to get her mated. I was convinced there was no successfully-mated Queen.

So I had been screwing up my courage, all my resolve, to go for a Uniting of the 2 Hives - Itchy Knee and San-Shi. This would help make the one hive stronger to survive through the coming winter. Before I went in to do the job, I reminded myself and reminded myself "don't forget to inspect properly for any brood."

Don't forget, Margo. Don't forget!

What did I do? On Saturday, I did a cursory inspection of a few frames inside Itchy Knee; found them broodless. And went and did the Uniting. Apart from the stupidity of not putting a Queen Excluder between the two, so I could locate the new Grand United Queen, I didn't do a proper check of ALL the frames.

So last night I did the follow-up call; in which you're supposed to check that the Unite has been successful, locate Queen-sign (ie brood) if not the Queen herself, and select the best frames to start reducing the size of the Double Brood Box Hive to a single, or a Brood-and-a-Half. Except that, when I went through the frames, I found mature brood. In both brood boxes. This means both Queens had laid brood, each in Her own hive, 10 days earlier.

There WAS a Queen - a new successfully-mated Queen in Itchy Knee. I just didn't spot her - or her early brood - on that cursory inspection on Saturday. If I had, I would never have united. Now, of course, one of the two Queens is dead. Long live the Grand United Queen - whichever one survived the fight to the death between the two that has inevitably taken place in the last couple of days.

I hate myself sometimes. Oh, I know I shouldn't beat myself up. I know I'm only a learner beekeeper. I know I'm doing a lot of this stuff by fumbling through on my own. I know lots of better beekeepers than me make the same mistakes.

But OH! I should've known better!

Allow me to feel bad today. I'm sure I'll recover my equilibrium soon, but today - today, just let me feel bad for a bit.

Buggeration, this beekeeping lark is hard!

Old Bee Bore

I creep down to the hives every night now. In the gathering dark I watch and I wonder. I see Itchy Knee bringing in pollen; I see San-Shi flying all around the houses the wrong way round to get into their entrance as it gradually moves across the apiary, closer and closer to the other hive.

I am still moving the hive, but I keep believing that Itchy Knee will deliver a Queen; all those little hints keep me hoping against hope that they have a Queen.

• That torn-down Queen cell
• They're bringing in pollen

But more than anything, it's just a sense that they have continued so steady, so consistent, looking Queen-right all the time. They fly in, they fly out, they do their duty, they hold the fort, nothing deflects them from the ultimate objective: preparation for the winter.

The evenings are beginning to draw in; the garden is looking wild and woolly. Guy's tomato crop has come in; rich and ripe and ready. Everything is overgrown and fruiting; peaking in those few contained weeks before true autumn sets in.

I must; I simply must know the truth about Itchy Knee this weekend. I'm praying for good Hive Inspection weather. If there is no brood now it will finally, finally be time to unite them for the winter.

Well, that said, I will wait for the end of the Apiguard medication - mid October - before I tackle it.

I find myself reverting back to bee-strategising on the Tube again when I commute.

Now, do I clear Itchy Knee's super first? So that's 2 days with the crownboard and porter escapes in. Or do I do the same to San-Shi as well? Do I even have two crownboards and four porter escapes!?

Then what do I do?

Perhaps I just clear San-Shi's and .... no, wait, I'll clear Itchy Knee's, then lift that box across to the top of San-Shi.

But what about those guys who reckon the stronger hive goes on top? I don't wanna do that - every instinct rebels. Why move the strong hive and risk the Queen?! Doesn't make sense ...

Blah, blah, blah. I'm turning into an Old Bee Bore, I really am ...

Joy Unconfined

I think my dad (the old codger) would've been pleased.

Edited to add: further joy in reporting my first sting-free inspection since May. I went in this morning - just to prove to myself I'm still an ok beekeeper :)

San-shi - bless them - were absolute pussycats. They barely moved around as I looked through and found a happy, functional, end-of-summer, Queen-right hive. I do worry though that their Super honey stores appear low and I wonder if they've been robbed blind by wasps, which may also have left them lacklustre and spent of energy. It's so hard to tell with bees ...

Itchy Knee - sadly - still has no Queen although, mysteriously, a torn down Queen Cell has appeared on Frame 7. They were furious, but - if they stung me at all - their stings did not make it through. Their varroa count was in the thousands, while San-Shi had only 160. Indications of better health? I do wish bees could talk ...

So I have moved San-Shi by One Yard, closer to Itchy Knee. Day by day over the next week I'll move it so that it's closer to Itchy Knee, with entrances aligned so that, if all goes to plan, I can unite the colonies and make them strong to go through winter.

I do wonder if it's wise though, to unite the grumpy ones with the peaceful ones. If only bees could talk .... lol!

The Marvellous Mustard Miracle Morph

This season has a special kind of mystical wizardry and magic about it; the alchemy of the harvest. After all, you might ask - what's mustard got to do with honey?

Well, see, let me explain. First there was the Finchley Farmers' Market. I hadn't planned to sell my honey at the market this month - I just wasn't organised enough. But on the Friday before, I got a call from the Farmers team, begging me to come and sell my local honey. Apparently the punters have been crying out for the stuff. How could I resist!?

So I committed myself to a stall, put the phone down and promptly panicked. "What've I done?! I don't have enough honey! It's all in big bottles - no time to get any little bottles! With labels and everything. Oh no! This is hopeless! What am I going to do!? GU-UU-Y, HEEEELP!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Which left Himself looking a little like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Nevertheless he stepped gamely up to the plate and went looking for little jars. No luck.

This called for a Special Emergency Plan. On Friday night Guy and I went to the Super-Large-Tesco round the corner, found a trolley and went shopping - for empty jars. Of course we didn't find any. BUT! A-HA! What we did find, folks, was 48p mustard. In the perfect jar. So we bought 'em.

Lots of 'em. Forty of 'em, to be precise.

Then we went home and emptied the mustard out of the jars and washed, cleaned and sterilised the jars. Put honey in 'em. And, by jove, we sold the lot :)

I call this the Marvellous Mustard Miracle Morph.

Although admittedly it did leave piles of mustard lying around all over every kitchen surface, looking a bit like Lakes of Poo, much to the bemusement and subsequent hilarity of fellow flatmates). We are all In the Mustard for weeks to come. We shall be having Mustard Evenings for Many a Month. Expect an invite shortly ....

The Three Stages of the Marvellous Mustard Miracle Morph:

I had also gone out to John Lewis and bought a whirlwind of display stuff. Of course, this blew the budget completely. Well, almost. Guy was fabulous; really entered into the Spirit of the Thing by doing a whole Excel spreadsheet to calculate:

• the cost of the mustard jars plus
  
• the cost of the John Lewis display stuff and
  
• the cost of the stall

against

the price per half-pound jar of honey

and after selling 38 of my entire stock of 59 jars, we made A Grand Total of £153.89 !

All in all we had heaps of fun and the picture above shows the Best Bit Of All - the moment when I introduced this little lass to her first ever taste of honey - her face was a picture to behold. Bless!

(I get by with a little help from my friends)

* * *

Last weekend I had the joy of spending time at the Enfield Steam and Country Show, which was so quintessentially British, it was a blast. In a small field in the middle of nowhere, some mad-keen car and traction engine enthusiasts decided to erect some tents,and an agricultural main arena for dog agility displays and stuff. And everyone parked their vintage cars in rows down the hillside and set up their camping tables and chairs and had tea and picnics in between the rows of cars through howling gales and blustery rain showers.

And we all had an incredibly Grand Day Out, in the great tradition of Wallace and Gromit. My friend Sarah and her dog Sparkle (nutty as a fruitcake and twice as endearing) participated in the Agility Show and in the Prettiest Bitch (stop laughing!) And they actually won some Rosettes, which says something, only I'm not quite sure what. And my friend MissP turned up looking every inch the Glamorous Gypsy Fortune Teller. Her man Rod found a pair of brand-new thigh-high stilleto black leather boots in the Car Boot Sale. So everyone was happy.

And that's about all I'm going to say about that!

* * *

But of course, more importantly, we have coming up, the competition that everyone's been waiting for: The Enfield Town Park Autumn Country Show - with the long-awaited (at least by me, anyway) Honey Competition!

I'm so excited I could POP! My entries were submitted earlier this evening, and the judging will happen in the Horticultural Tent on Saturday morning. They let the public in at 1.30 and I plan to be first in, straining at the leash, of course. Wish me luck :)

* * *

Last but not least, on a no-less manic but far more sobering note, let me not forget to tell you about the bees, ladies and gents, lest you think that in all the excitement of the Honey Harvest Season, we'd have forgotten all about them. We have not ...

Two weeks ago, I placed the autumn anti-varroa medication into the hives and gradually as September set in, the merry medicinal stench of Apiguard has permeated the apiary. On Sunday afternoon, I ventured into Itchy Knee, dying to know if they had managed to solve the problem of the Queen Replacement.

I was so sure, so sure they would solve it. These bees have been so strong; so resilient. But on going through the frames, there was nothing to see - only adult foraging bees, honey stores - and frame after frame of .... nothing. No capped brood, no fat white larvae, no tiny rice-grain eggs. No Queen.

I feel quite devastated. Time and again, I go back and ponder why I was so convinced we had to kill the Gangster Queen. Shouldn't we have waited some more, even more? Why, why, why!? Too late now! I closed up the hive (after the obligatory sting through three layers onto the arm) and went away to think.

The obvious solution seems to unite the hive with San-Shi, so that two hives become one again under a single strong Queen and thus with a stronger chance for survival through the winter. It's too late now to try and move a frame of brood across from San-Shi to Itchy Knee. There simply are not enough drones left to wait another 17 - 21 days for yet another, even fainter, chance of a new Virgin Queen, who must still then be mated before winter. Not enough time left at all.

But it's a few days later and I'm still thinking about it, and a seed that was placed in my mind this last weekend by a mentor is lurking. Perhaps they have made a Queen, and she has only just mated, and perhaps in a day or two, eggs?

After all; this was the timeline

• Day 0: 1st August - Queen killed
• Day 1 - approx 7: Time needed for bees to realise their Queen is dead
• Day 3 (approx) - 17: Time needed to utilise 3-day old egg to be transformed into a Queen
• Day 18: A new Virgin Queen hatches (but I saw no trace of a hatched QC - Queen Cell)
• Day 19 - approx 25: Virgin Queen travels on Mating Flights
• Day 26 - 31: Rice grain eggs are laid.

Perhaps, perhaps, just perhaps, I was just a day or two too early to pick up on signs of a newly-mated Queen. So, I need to inspect again on Saturday. And on the same day, I will inspect San-Shi as well, to follow up on the 2-week medical treatment and begin the next 4-week medication process. If I see no trace of Queen then, it will be time to unite the two hives. Which will be a major new experience for me. I am nervous, but intrigued to see if I can do it; how I will cope, and whether it will work in the long run.

The bees continue to attract the strangest creatures to my garden; predators, aliens, invaders, curiousities. These are Hover Flies, who are created to mimic the bees in look. They quite shook me up.

(Hover fly: Volucella zonaria)

But then, reading over this blog, it seems the bees have shaken up every aspect of my life, from mustard into honey, so that everything is magically altered and nothing is quite as it was before.

Marauders!

I went down to the hives again last night, to clear that last super and pop in the Apiguard treatment for San-Shi. The bees were tense and angry but I got the job done sting-free, and sat down for a while in my chair between the hives to watch the action.

I realised that San-Shi is under attack - in a big way - from wasps. They seem to have found a way in through gap between the top of the roof and the ventilation slots. No wonder the bees were tense! There were literally dozens of them darting in the air, landing and crawling in under the roof. They make my skin crawl! They fly completely differently to bees, and look mean in their sharp pirate stripes of black and yellow.

I mean, don't get me wrong here, I know they are a valuable part of any ecosystem. I just don't like 'em, plain and simple!

So I've spent today reading up on Wasp Traps. With a mean ole glint in my eye.

Next, I turned my head to look over at Itchy Knee. They were simply busting out all over their main entrance; lots and lots of frantic action going on there. It was alarming and hard to figure out what could be happening, until I posited that maybe, just maybe, they have a new Queen on the point of being born, or just emerged, or just mating. Their behaviour seemed a little panicky and threatened and protective.

I do so hope they get lucky! We left it awfully late in the season ...

When I went back to the shed and stripped off my beekeeping suit I got the hugest fright from a shockingly loud scrabbling noise on the roof. I froze for a second in the half-dark, trying to figure it out. Thinking "rats! rats!"

"On the roof?!"

Bravely I stormed outside, hopping around on one welly, leapt up onto the flower boxes and startled a great big turtle dove. I shrieked and fell off the flower box.

And that, dear Reader, is how the Flatties found me when they got home a second later - one welly on, one off, half-in half-out of my beekeeping suit, on my knees in the dust, yelling and shaking my fist at a fast-departing pigeon.

Never a dull moment, folks!

The end of the summer

Sixteen days ago, there were four of us at the hives. We killed the Queen in Itchy Knee, and now I'm waiting, and hoping against hope that it's not too late in the season, for a new Queen to be nursed and hatched and mated before the end of summer.

The honey harvest is done; the last super is on San-Shi being cleaned out for the bees in readiness for winter storage.

It's time for the anti-varroa treatment.

This afternoon I kitted up for the first time in what felt like ages. Squelching hotly and sweatily in my busted-up old marshmallow-pink festival wellies, I made up the smoker, picked up assorted equipment and headed on down to the hives, heart in mouth, hoping for a miracle.

I came to San-Shi first and as I went through the list of things in my head, I realised I'd left an additional Honey Super on top, so I would need to clear that first. That's another 24 hours to wait then, before San-Shi can have their first two-week Apiguard-vapour treatment done inside the hive to eradicate the ever-present varroa threat.

Varroa that's left to flourish towards the beginning of winter will weaken them, and reduce their chances of surviving through the cold season. So Apiguard takes off the mite, and we'll do a second run of Apiguard again after this one, in two weeks' time. That's when it gets left in for four weeks. Our visits to the hive are starting to reduce.

Today I popped off the lid of San-Shi and quivered in my boots when I heard the volume of the humming erupt. Ooo-er! The ladies were not too impressed; they bounced out of the hive and hung ominously in the air around my veil. I've grown quite nervous, and I do hate that.

But I proceed doggedly on; taking off the crownboard, the top empty honey super, the Queen Excluder. On goes the clearer board with the two Portis escapes - this will ensure that bees in the top honey super can go down into the main body of the hive without being able to come back up again - it's like a little one-way trap route for bees. In 24 - 48 hours I'll return and that top super will be safely empty of bees. I'll remove and store it and then I'm free to pop the Apiguard into the top of the hive.

Lid goes on and I vanish like the mist; they sure were unimpressed with me.

Down to Itchy Knee I go, a little unnerved but dying to know what sort of mood I'll encounter in this poor hive that's seen so much turbulent interference this summer. I pop the top off and look down. What I see is a large number of very quiet, rather still and subdued-looking bees. Funnily enough, I find that I'm torn between deeply-felt relief and a pang of sadness and worry. Has the Regicide ripped the heart right out of this hive? I do hope not!

The Apiguard application goes in smoothly and it's only when I've tramped all the way back to the shed that I realise I should've put sticky-backed plastic on the yellow varroa boards underneath the hives. Curses! Back I tramp, extract the plastic boards, stump into the house and stick on the sticky stuff, stamp on back to the hives and replace the boards. Honestly, Margo, not a linear logical thought in this bliksemse blonde brain, is there!?

* * *

I woke at 4am this morning, worrying about the Secret Garden. Have I taken too much on? I keep seeing that wide sweeping arc, the empty spaces, the jungle, the mud. Work, work, work and more work, and money, money, money.

I really do put a wee bit too much pressure on myself. Calm down, old girl, it's going to be magic.

Guy and I visited the Garden this weekend, to drop off some tools and a large storage container. We manage to erect it and get it all safely stored away, only minutes before a huge downpour of rain.

When I worked on my hives today, and mowed the lawn afterwards, I took a few minutes at dusk to lie on the grass underneath the bees' flight path. I lay back, head in hands and gazed up at the feather-light clouds, and watched them whizzing busily to and fro directly above me.

We will miss them, when they go.

We all will, even my Fellow Flatties and the children next door.

The garden is going to feel decidedly emptied of a certain kind of Feminine Ferocity :)

We will miss them!

The Sound of Honey

It's very late at night, and I am making honey. While I work, my mind wanders ...

Over the course of the summer, the housemates have gotten a bit irritated at the level of disruption caused by honey-making in the kitchen, so now I do it late at night, when all the world has gone to bed. This is the way of things; that in your first summer, you will cause chaos, you will waste, things will get sticky, you will learn. Next summer, I hope, will be more efficient, less sticky.

As I inspect my super frames, and prepare them for uncapping, I think about honey ...

The level of waste seems tragic to me. Every inch left in the bottom of the extractor; every globule removed with the cappings, represents the entirety of a single bee's life and work. All that effort! They say that a single bee produces, over the entire course of its life, enough honey to fill up just one-twelfth of a teaspoon. Think then, when you take a bite of your honeyed toast, how many bees have worked to create this breakfast? They have flown a million flights, foraged ten million flowers, worked the long hours of every sunlit day, they have worked till their wings are torn and broken and they can fly no more. They die far from home, alone, to save their sisters the effort of clearing their body from the ever-clean hive.






















So when I try to scrape the wax cappings off carefully, shaving it very thin, I'm not greedy in trying to save every morsel, I'm thinking of every bee that contributed to it. The uncapping fork scrapes across the top; the frame is heavy, I'm engrossed in my work. It's mouthwatering to watch the shining honey emerge from under the dull cappings. It makes a sticky sound, squelching and juicy.

I pick up each frame by the end lug, and lower it carefully into the Honey Extractor, fitting it Just So. Slowly each frame is uncapped on both sides and positioned in place. I wash my hands, sticky already, and prepare for the easy part.

I glance up through the kitchen window; it's pitch dark outside and I long to open the door and bring in the fresh, clean night air. But I can't - the sweet, sweet smell will bring in every moth, every insect, every marauding creature, hungry for a taste. Keeping the door closed keeps the kitchen warm. When it's warm the honey flows ...

This golden liquid is so viscose, thick and runny. I take up my station, on the high seat, with my feet positioned on the handles of the extractor to keep it stationery. Although the nine frames of honey carry up to 30 or 40 lbs of weight, it's still not enough to keep the machine down once the centrifugal force begins.

I start to crank the handle very slowly; this big old machine that looks like a 1920's laundry mangle begins to come to life. I've learned from Guy that keeping the lid off doesn't necessarily allow the honey to fly all over the room, so I keep the two halves of the lid aside so I can look down and watch, fascinated, as the gathering momentum of the circle makes the frames fly round and begin to look a single rushing object.

















Now everything flows smoothly, the handle turns by itself almost, my body working the repetitive motion, the frames humming quietly and I begin to hear the honey coming. There is no sound quite like it; I will always know it now. The sticky flinging flick-flacking noise of honey being forced from each tiny cell in the comb and flying out to smack onto the sides of the barrel.

I let the handle go, and watch it whirl for a while. Then I reverse the motion, and listen for the sound of honey again. If you're lucky and careful, and you turn the handle wisely, you will have no sound of exploding frames. The wax foundation, especially when it's new, can break if the centrifugal forces are too strong and fast. That's when you hear the bang of a huge wad of wax and honey thwacking onto the side and sliding down into the bottom. A waste; more wanton waste; another lesson learned.

Eventually, I can extract no more. I wash my hands again, and lean down into the machine. I test the weight of a frame, and incredibly it feels completely light. It seems a miracle, this way of extracting.

In the bottom of the barrel, a thick messy particle-laden pool gathers. Honey!

First things first: I remove the frames and pack them carefully back into the super box. If I'm short of time the next day, I will simply sneak down, in the darkest of dark nights, to the hive and place the super back on top while the bees are dopey and sleepy. They will eat the honey and polish the wax cells and in 24 hours this super will be absolutely pristine, without a single drop left.

The first time I did this, all by myself, it worked like a dream. The second time, I did it with Guy holding the torch from a distance. Unfortunately a bee landed on him, he thought he'd get stung, he gave a yell and jerked his arm and lost the torch and everything went dark and I dropped the super and got stung three times and curses flew through the air. It was not, I admit, our finest moment. Those poor bees!

I'm back in the kitchen, lost in thought. I wash my hands again, for the millionth time, deep in stickiness. Now I must leave the honey to lie in the bottom of the barrel, settle for 24 hours. I sleep like the dead and dream of honey.

* * *

It is tomorrow night, late again, and it's time to bring the honey out of the barrel. I've placed the barrel on the high chair, and I have my amateur factory set-up on the go. This definitely is something that needs refining for next summer. It's clumsy, clunky, awkward and physically exhausting.

The barrel is perched on the high chair, with the tap peeking over the edge. A low chair faces it and on it, directly underneath the tap, I've placed a large clean open-topped plastic container inexpertly covered with a layer of cooking muslin. Just above that, tucked carefully under the barrel and positioned strategically between the tap and container, is a collander.

All is ready.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly and carefully open the tap cover. Breathlessly I watch as the thick golden viscose waterfall of honey begins to flow downwards, landing on the silver surface of the sieve, and filtering weakly through to fall onto the muslin, becoming a lake that finally, finally drips through into the container. It takes a long, long few minutes for that final filtration process to happen, as the weight of the honey on the cooking muslin finally forces the drops through. I wait in the silence of the night until I can finally hear the drip, drip, drip noise tapping onto the plastic surface.

Now it's a slow, agonising, tentative process. As the honey lands the particles of wax, bee bodies, pollen and debris block up the fine mesh, and every now and then I have to clear it with a spoon so the flow can continue. Then, as the honey lands on the muslin, I must check that the container is properly even so the lake of honey doesn't overflow the edges onto the chair and then the floor. I must check that the muslin doesn't stretch too much and end up trailing downwards into the honey right at the bottom.


Slow, agonising, sticky.

Completely and utterly engrossing.

After several painstaking hours, I come to the final pool in the bottom of the barrel. Now I must begin to angle the huge extractor, so honey continues to flow through the tap hole. Angling and angling, edging over and over, ever-closer to 90 degrees. It's big, and heavy and clumsy and awkward to hold and I strain as the thickness of the honey inches into the hole and down to where the collander is wobbling beneath it. Oh, I'm uncomfortable! And hot. And sweaty.

And so very, very tired.

Finally, it's done.

Wearily, I pack up three tubs of freshly double-filtered honey, too tired to carry on with bottling it. That must just wait for another tomorrow.

Another tomorrow also, to lug the huge extractor up to the bathroom and wash away the last of the debris. Every drop of unsalvageable honey going down the drain seems such a waste, a waste, a waste ....

Now the Honey Extractor waits, polite and quiet in a corner of the hallway, by the front door. Today, one of my fellow beekeepers will come to collect it, so that they too can hear the sound of the honey.

As for me, I am done for the summer. My honey is bottled and stored, and all I must do now is finish labelling and find a place to sell it on.

All this, so that you can have honey on your toast in the morning.

















For Ricardo (and Daniel)
With love
xx

The Peppercorn, The Secret Garden and The Gangster Queen

Strange goings-on, dear readers, strange indeed!

Are you comfortable? Well then, let me begin ....

First off, it has been a month of direness, confrontation, stings and more stings. This embattled beekeeper has learned just how agonisingly hard it can be to Make Honey.

Every visit to Itchy Knee and San-Shi has grown shorter and shorter, and I have grown more fearful. It has been terrible to feel frightened, hopeless, defeated, powerless. I have felt completely unable to cope; at times I simply wanted to sneak down to the hives in the dead of night and kill the bees with the dreadful formula of a Cup of Petrol (it's the fumes wot does 'em in), and not tell anyone. Just leave beekeeping, give up, admit defeat.

But every time I thought about doing it, what stopped me was the thought of those valiant little creatures, who fight all the odds to survive and thrive in spite of everything, including my rough handling, and how unfair it would be to sacrifice them on the altar of my pride and frustration.

And there have been times when I have been extremely rough on them; I've crushed wild comb under the roof in frustrated anger, I've hurled a crownboard off in fear, I've flung a Queen Excluder on from a distance, all because I've been so afraid.

What pulled me up short was the afternoon I took to sort out my Hive Records, and looking back through the past 13 months, it was unbelievable to view my records from last summer - each visit was calm, every hive inspection a joy. I was always surrounded by industrious, busy bees, too distracted to sting me, too calm to care.

THAT, my friends, was a harsh reminder - making it all too clear to me just how bad things have become.

What to do?!

Well, once again, it has been The Human Hive Mind of the beekeeping fraternity that has come to my rescue and together, we have resolved to do two things ...

• Move my beehives out of my garden to a more appropriate "Out Apiary", and
• Kill the Queen that's caused all the trouble

For it is She - The Gangster Queen - who has made enemies of my bees!

In the past few weeks, some quiet negotiations have found for me A Secret Garden, in exchange for the fee of :

One Peppercorn

I can say no more. The rest is Secret. Verily, I have become A Beekeeper. (They say that beekeepers become so secretive about the location of their hives, that some have died of old age and left no clue as to the whereabouts of their beloved bees, who are left to become feral foragers, freed slaves, creatures of the wild once more.)

And as for The Gangster Queen - well, suffice to say, this weekend we are planning Regicide.

By killing the Queen, and merging the two colonies under the reign of The Old Queen (who, for heaven's sake, was only born last summer!) we should be able to bring the little blighters back to the sunny nature of the past summer gone.

Yes, some of these things are sad and even my Housemates, The Flatties, will be sad to see them go. But go they must, because I want to see my next door neighbour's daughter playing games in her garden again, not on her front porch, in fear of the bees and of being stung to death - however unlikely that might be.

So let us draw a veil now, dear readers, over these images of sadness and violence, and let us move on to Better Things!

Mystery Solved?

Well, no wonder Itchy Knee was grumpy. The Queen somehow got stuck inside the Honey Supers, above the Queen Excluder, and was laying beautiful brood up there.

It could only have been me, klutzing about, that got her stuck up there ....

No wonder they got grumpy.

I wonder if things will improve now ....

The H.E.M.T.

Sunday's Bee Trading was huge fun. The best part was renting the Honey Extraction Machine Thingy (H.E.M.T) to take it home with me at the end of the morning. It's time to extract some honey - whooohoooo!

So I went down to the hives today with a clear list of tasks:

Itchy Knee:

• Check to see if the colony looks "queen-right", and if temper has improved.
• Do that Brood Super inspection I didn't get to last time.
• Place extra Crown Board complete with 2 Portis Bee Escapes between Honey Supers 1 and 2.

On San-Shi:

• Check to see if colony is "queen-right".
• Add brood frames to make up for the ones that have been missing so far, so that "bee space" is now correct in the hive.
• Ensure colony is growing well, and make doubly sure it has room to grow.

Well,

• Itchy Knee does not look queen-right anymore. Brood is decreasing, I didn't see a Queen (I've never seen this new Queen), and there are no early rice-grain eggs.
• I think I made a fatal error - I destroyed an uncapped Queen Cell filled with larva and Royal Jelly, but there's still a Play Cell.
• There just seemed to be too many frames of honey - perhaps they don't have a Queen, are running out of things to do, and are just bringing in honey now. As a temporary stop-gap I took one frame out, and put a new framed sheet of foundation in, but this is not the long-term solution.
  
• I didn't achieve the Brood Super inspection, other than inspecting underneath for QCs.
• I did manage to put the extra Crown Board in place.
• Temper is extremely, extremely bad.
  

San-Shi - bless them - are wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

• They were busting out all over with honey-rich wild comb, so I broke that off, and gave them 2 new frames to starting drawing wax out - bringing them up to their full complement of 11 frames.
• I inspected every frame and there were 3 empty Play Cells. Left 'em alone.
• I saw all stages of brood, including lots of early stage rice-grain eggs. She's been laying in the last 3 days.
• At least 5 frames of brood now; maybe I need to super them soon. (Time to buy yet another super!)
• Above all, they were calm, calm, calm, happy and not fussed by my intervention at all. Bless 'em!

So in a day or two, I go down to Itchy Knee to check that all the bees have escaped from the top Honey Super, and I take it off the Hive. I then spend the evening in the kitchen, exploring the delights of whizzing full honey supers round and round in the H.E.M.T. Once that's done, I take the "wet" emptied Super frames back to Itchy Knee and replace them in the top Super.

I am thinking that I may take 1 or 2 frames from San-Shi and put them into Itchy Knee's Brood Box. If it's properly filled with a mix of early rice grain eggs, capped brood, honey and young nurse bees, it may save them. From this frame they can rear a new Queen if they do not have a laying Queen anymore, as I am beginning to suspect.

I will do that at the same time as I replace the Honey Super filled with empty "wet" frames. This encourages the bees to clean the comb and, all being well, refill the existing empty comb with even more honey, for another possible Honey Harvest later in the year.

As I write, I'm wondering "who am I really writing this for anymore?" But in a way, instinctively, I do know; more than anything this blog has become an extension of the minute details recorded in my Hive Notes - a narrative for me to understand the unfolding story of each hive on a broader scale so that, with the wider view gained from a distance, I can plan the way forward.

I write this with a throbbing left calf, stung good and proper, to remind me to be a humble and respectful Bee Farmer, to pay attention to the bees, and to consider that it may be the bees of Itchy Knee who are suffering more stress than anyone else right now.

Reporting from the battle front

On Sunday afternoon I togged up once more to enter the fray. It seems sad that I'm still fighting an internal battle of nerves; I literally have to brace myself before doing a Hive Inspection these days. I had so hoped that, after all the upheavals in the life of Itchy Knee this summer, they would have settled down by now, and that the temper tantrums of the past 6 weeks would be only a phase. But it seems that is not to be.

Liberally layered in wellies, 2 pairs of jeans, long-sleeved shirt and bee suit, having taken a cold shower beforehand to try and cool myself in the 30 degree heat, I was already bathed in sweat by the time I approached the hive, smoker in hand. The minute I removed the roof and the top 2 Honey Supers, I knew I was in for a tough time. I cuold already sense from the high-pitched buzzing noise that the bees meant to take their defence to a whole new level of aggression. I was determined to persevere though.

Honey Super 2 on top was empty, but Honey Super 1 underneath was so heavy I could barely lift it. It is absolutely stuffed to the gills with honey - how wonderful!

Then I removed the Brood Super and began inspecting the Brood Box. I saw lots of capped brood and 5 - 9 day old larvae. I didn't inspect each frame in too much detail; just popped it out, checked for brood and no Queen Cells, and placed it back quickly. The bee agression was so bad I still had to walk away at stages. I didn't stop to inspect the Brood Super, which I should've done and which I'm kicking myself for now. Why? Because it means I'll be worrying about Queen Cells developing in there again. I hate worrying about stuff ... I have enough of that at work these days. Too bad; what's done is done.

When it came to placing the Queen Excluder and Honey Supers back; I stood back for a moment to think about things, before deciding to try an experiment. Honey Super 1 underneath - stuffed full of honey; Honey Super 2 not. Why not try swopping the order around and see if the girls start filling the empty No 2 if it's down below? I really don't want to harvest the full one now, separately. I'd much rather harvest both Supers, full, at the end of the summer.

So I placed Honey Super 2 above the QX, and full Honey Super 1 on top of everything (man, it's heavy, and it's standing now as tall as I am!).

I had to retreat to the safety of the other end of the garden just to de-robe for a second and wipe the lakes of sweat off my face - ye gods, it was hot! The Bee Followers were really bad too; they followed and followed and followed me for up to 20 minutes afterwards. Funnily enough, it's only me they follow - my housemates they leave completely alone. Do they know it's me?!

Then back into the fray to check on San-Shi. What an unbelievable difference. The bees were noticeably quieter, more polite, accessible, easy-going and an absolute pleasure to work with. They have capped brood and larvae, and honey stores growing on either end. They are building too much brace comb because I'm short a few frames in there, but I'll live with it until Sunday (more on that below*).

Now I have to conclude that Itchy Knee's problem is definitely Queen-related. San-Shi has the old Queen (old, how can she be old, she was only born last summer?!), and Itchy Knee the new - the One I've never seen. My heart sank as I retreated from the hives to take a breather. I'm going to have to re-Queen, I thought.

Let me take a moment to tell you about the bees of Buckfast Abbey. There is a long and honourable tradition of monks as beekeepers, and one of the greatest was a man called Brother Adam. He is a legend in the beekeeping community because of his years of experimenting with Queen-breeding to raise calm and docile bee colonies, hardy bees and good honey producers. I have heard one story of how Hive Inspections are done at the Abbey - if even one bee stings, the Queen is immediately removed and destroyed, and replaced with a new one.

How could a colony of angry bees NOT be cowed into submission with a brutal strategy like that?!

It seems so cruel, and unfair. But then, I'm in a confined space; I am working with bees, and I have unsuspecting neighbours. While bees can be beautiful, and magically intelligent and yes, calm, they are also a danger. They say that 200 stings is enough to kill someone. I'm not willing to expose my innocent neighbours to a risk like that. After all, I have enough to worry about!

So. Re-Queening it shall have to be. Now all I have to do is work out exactly how to do that.

I guess I have a couple of different options:

• I could buy a new Queen. I would then have to go through Itchy Knee, find the existing Queen, destroy her, and place the new Queen - in her travelling cage - into the hive to go through the usual introductory process with the colony.
• I could wait a few weeks, until the end of summer, and combine the two colonies. Again, I would have to go through Itchy Knee, find the Queen and destroy her. Then I'd remove the 2 Honey Supers for harvesting and place the San-Shi Brood Box on top of Itchy Knee's Brood-and-a-Half, separated by a sheet of newspaper, which would allow both colonies of bees time to chew through the paper to "get acquainted" with one another.

So many questions to ponder though; is it wise to do this with the "old" Queen? Should I be leaving this problem for so long - ie at least another 8 - 12 weeks?

Well, in some ways there is a gentle, natural innate knowledge that seems to flow with the rhythm of the season and the bees. My experiment with the Honey Supers is an example; there are things to try, ways to work, options to consider. This is a craft in which every beekeeper has at least 2 opinions, and everything is fluid. I know now that time moves more slowly in the business of beekeeping, so I have time to mull over the issue and find solutions to the problem; see them from every angle before rushing in and just doing things, knee-jerk fashion.

* On Sunday I'm on the Rota for helping out at the Bee Hut monthly Trading Morning. I'm looking forward to it - a chance to chat to other Bee-Mad People; ask questions, buy some frames, be around bees.

And regardless of the war that's going on in my backyard, I do still like to be around bees!

Small steps

I checked in for an inspection on Monday and left 5 minutes later, humiliated and starting to panic. I don't know if it was the black shiny new trousers I was wearing (my wet weather hiking gear - yes I'm really starting to fear those stings on the thighs!) that got the ladies all riled up, but the minute I opened the hive, I had at least 50 bees hanging in front of my body. Complete intimidation, I tell you.

It's humbling, and hard. I've not done a full, proper hive inspection since the middle of May. I sent out agonised signals for help among the "beek" community, and people have been great - really supportive. It has also helped to read of others having similar experiences with grumpy, stingy bees.

I suspect the weather is playing a huge part; we have had a miserably poor start to the summer - the worst in all of the 5 years I've been here now. It has been getting progressively worse every year, and I can feel even my own mood altering; grumpy, miserable, aching for a decent spell of sunshine and warmth.

The bees must be feeling a thousand times worse ....

So on Thursday, I crept up to the hives again very, very quietly and spent only a few minutes at each one, but managed to achieve small constructive tasks. I cleared the entrance blocks off each hive and surreptitiously added a second honey super to Itchy Knee.

Amazingly, the bees were quiet. They almost ignored me. It felt wonderful.

Then, later on, off to do a practical lesson at the Apiary. I could not believe how placid the bees were. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it quite so often - LOL!

Small steps, Margo, small steps ...

The Lady's not for hurrying

I'm on the brink of being overdue on the next Hive Inspection. The previous one, done the weekend before last, brought hugely relieving news:

Itchy Knee has a Queen!

Not only that, she is mated and laying; laying in beautifully ordered patterns across the frames. So all my mentors were right - wait, they said, wait, Margo. The Lady's not for hurrying.

Over the past few days it has been a pleasure to see the hives settle back into the calm routines of last summer; bees foraging peacefully, no more anger, no more following or intimidation. The garden is ours again.

I find myself loathe to disrupt their busy-ness with smoker and hive tool again; but part of me is suspicious of my motives - am I being fearful?

In a way, yes and no. No, it's not the stings I'm afraid of (well, not much, that is), it's more the fact that I've begun to hate working the configuration of the brood-and-a-half size hive. It's so clumsy and cumbersome; it takes ages to inspect 20 frames instead of the old 10. It feels awful to break the hive in half each time I want to inspect. And it all takes so long that it does nothing to improve the bees' temperament.

And also, the weather has been, well, sort of off. Not perfect. One day it's warm but threatening rain. Another day, it's sunny but just too windy. After the last 3 tortured inspections, and angry bees, I want to make sure the next one is good in every respect.

But if I wait much longer, events may overwhelm me.

I'm assuming they won't swarm again - Itchy Knee is reduced in size and San-Shi is too small. But the bees might be thinking otherwise. On the last inspection, Itchy Knee's Brood Super was skewed with honey - hugely heavy in the first 4 frames. I need to consider shifting things around in there. And on the last inspection, San-Shi looked suspiciously small. Why has it not grown faster? Surely, last summer, my first swarm grew much faster in the hive?!

Have bees been drifting back to the primary hive? I noticed one or two play cups in there; have I left it too late and they've been capped off, ready to swarm again? Surely they wouldn't? But then, of course, their Queen is last year's Itchy Knee queen; they might well decide to take off ...

What to do, what to do ....

The more I work with bees, the more I begin to see this progression of events as an extended game of chess played against - not many small minds - but against the Hive Mind of a Super-Organism. It's a strategic game of Cat and Mouse in which one is constantly trying to out-think and out-manoeuvre the other.

For the beekeeper, the strategy of the game-plan ties very tightly into a calendar of events and counting off days:

• What day did I inspect?
• How many days' growth is there in that Queen Cell?
• How many days before it gets capped off?
• How many days after that will they swarm?
• And how many days after that will the new Queen emerge?
• Then, how long will she take to mate and start laying?

Fraught, I tell you, it's fraught with tension!

I'm conscious too, of still having significant lessons to learn. While I may've missed the opportunity this summer to run an Artificial Swarming exercise (a strategic point in the game which anticipates the bees' urge to swarm and mimics the process in order to pre-empt it happening for real), I still have the opportunity to:

• Practice collecting a small package of bees in a box (a useful exercise in practicing the manipulation of individual bees, for sampling a colony for disease, and for preparing for my first beekeeping exam),
• Practice handling a drone (useful in developing sufficient skill to handle the Queen with bare hands, necessary when I decide to clip one of Her wings, or to mark Her).

Well, I plan to Inspect tonight or tomorrow. I must, I simply must, or I'll be letting things slide. And in my Inspection, these 2 exercises are planned self-imposed lessons to learn.

Wish me luck!

* * *

While I plan for this all-important Inspection, I've begun looking at other alternatives to the brood-and-a-half size hive - 14x12 is a deeper hive, more conducive to the bigger hives of modern-day beekeeping. Alternatively, I could simply "add on" to my existing hives by adding on a structure called an "eke" and then change over to 14x12 frames of foundation. Mulling these over ...

Also I am on the hunt in my local area for alternative sites for beehives. I don't want to subject my next-door neighbours to swarms every year! It will be Murphy's Law, of course, that the bees will head to the apple tree next door, every time. In my search, I've uncovered the huge grounds of our nearby Cemetery and Memorial Gardens. (I've heard of beekeepers keeping their hives in graveyards and calling their harvests "Tombstone Honey" - how cool.) I've chatted to Horticultural Managers and Head Gardners - many of them, funnily enough - from South Africa. Sadly, people in these types of environments are just too concerned with Public Liability. And everyone knows too little about bees.

How do you tell people - it's ok, they're not Killer Bees! It's ok, the liability is not yours, it's mine and it's covered (actually - that's a point, is it really!? More investigation needed ...). It's ok, bees will sting people no matter where the bees live.

On top of all this, I'm reading. Reading and reading and reading. One brilliant book I'm immersed in right now is this one:

"The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a Superorganism" by Jurgen Tautz

And finally, it was a joy to travel out to the Apiary once more on Thursday evening to meet up with other beekeepers again. Each time, it's a moment to stop and evaluate your own progress, to catch up on the adventures of others, and to put it all in perspective and see it all for what it is.

Yes, some of it is magic and romantic and filled with the poetic celebration of nature. But a lot of it too, is getting grubby and practical and spending money and getting stung. And having fun.

No more hanging about now, let's get that Roof off and our heads in the Hive, folks!

Questions

Is she going to sting me?























Is she collecting water on her proboscis, or sticking her tongue out at me?























Is it my imagination, or does this bee have a little dent in her thorax?
















Is this a cool shot or what?!


















Is that a little pollen basket on her left back leg, filled with foxglove pollen?



















Could this possibly be the best shot of a bee I've ever taken?

(And are those little varroa mites tucked on her body just under the point of her wing?)