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!