Predicament

Wheelbarrow - check
Battery-powered drill - check
Torches - check
Straps - check
Man with muscles - check

Time to go and rescue some bees!

It seems to me that all the strange and crazy things that one could experience have happened to me early on in my chequered career as a beekeeper.  Swarms, casts, house moves, calm Queens, angry Queens - I've seen 'em all.  But this is by far the silliest.  I arrived at my beehive a couple of weeks ago only to find they'd been fenced in.  Trapped.  I couldn't get in; I couldn't get them out; no way to bring equipment in or honey out.

The landlord had decided to put a fence up without realising the impact on the bees.  So now I was learning another dimension of beekeeping - the challenge of interacting with landlords who sometimes don't know or understand what it is to keep livestock.  Beehives need to be accessible by road.  Sometimes you have to carry heavy hive equipment in.  And on a good year, you have to carry honey out.  And honey is heavy.

I have kept them at work for the past year, down by the river and the weir, under the tall trees, right near the canal towpath.  A beautiful, beautiful place but I always knew it had its limitations.  It was a long way to walk from the carpark.  The landlord had a bad experience with wasps many years ago, and yes, you and I know bees are different, but people and perceptions rule how we see things.  So they saw the bees as a bit scary.  Which, well, I have to admit, perhaps they are.

Bees just like to be left alone really.  And here at work, they have been.  And they have flourished.  They have been so happy.

But as I clambered over the fence, sweating and cursing, I realised that - once again - it was time to move the bees.

A huge psychic sigh.  I am SO tired of moving!  I know my life is filled with constant adventure and I know that it keeps you lot entertained, but I am beginning to long for solidity and stability, and roots.  And settling down.  Really I am.  Stop laughing, you at the back.

I love the landlords, but they don't know bees.  They'd fenced the field in and made the bees completely inaccessible for me to work.  No way to get a wheelbarrow in, no way to get honey out.  I sat under the trees and watched a few hardy early bees flying in and out, peaceably working the early crocus, completely unaware of their own predicament.

The things about bees is this - you can't ever do anything instantly.  Everything takes time.  So I went away and spent a couple of weeks pondering the problem.  Could I move them to my new cottage garden?  Hmmmm ... tight.  Very tight.  I emailed my new cottage landlord.  I was rather delighted when he wrote right back and said, "hey, no problem".  I have never met him but I sense that he is a fellow gardener.  And he has friends who are beeks, so he knows the drill.  He said, "as long as the neighbours don't mind, go right ahead." 

Aye, there's the rub.  Neighbours.  Oh god, my new neighbours.  They're so sweet but the screaming child at 4.30am has taken some getting used to.  And where there are children there is fear.  So bringing the bees in would be tight.  I did think it might be a solution to getting rid of the 4.30am screaming child problem (fearful parents would move away from the bees, and that would be a solution, but then - who knows who would come in their place, hey!?).

When R & P Beekeepers' Association (RPBA) heard my problem they leapt in and instantly offered me a place in the Association Apiary.  I can't tell you how relieved I was.  I could just feel all the tension and worry leaving me in one long sigh of relief.  That was a weekend of miracles, that was.  I found the Best Hairdresser in the World, and the RPBA found a new home for my bees.  A weekend of miracles! :)

So all I had to do now was find a Tardis to whisk the hive out of the fenced-in field. Hmmm!  And that's how, on Thursday evening, Tigger and I came to be holding a Beehive Rescue Briefing at Sunshine Cottage in Ickenham.

Wheelbarrow - check
Battery-powered drill - check
Torches - check
Straps - check
Man with muscles - check

Time to go and rescue some bees, then.

Of course I'd forgotten all the critical stuff, like bee suits, sponge and tape.  Naturally.  This is me we're talking about, people.

So after we'd trundled the wheelbarrow down the towpath, past some mystified dog-walkers, I found myself running back and forth from my office to the fields, carrying bee suits, sponge and tape, muttering and cursing like a madwoman while Tigger brandished his drill and bashed down a section of the fence.

I did have a bit of a laugh because one or two bees popped out to inspect the noise and I leapt back like a startled chicken.  What a wussie I am!  I didn't bother with the bee suit this time though.  We all know the routine too well by now.  These bees have moved three times in three years.  No wonder they've never swarmed.  Every flipping year they pop out for spring and find themselves in a different part of the world.  What I think is that they think they've swarmed every year, actually.  It's rather funny.

The blasted entrance block appears to be too small for the hive so I couldn't stuff a sponge piece in there.  We had to tape up the entrance.  No matter; it worked well.  Straps around and I could hear the buzzing hum getting louder in there - whoops, mind those fingers underneath - they could sting through that open mesh floor, Tigger! 

And then it was time to lift the hive carefully and wedge it gently into the wheelbarrow.  Ease it along there down to the fence then lift it over the barely accessible step and we're up and out - onto the towpath.  Tigger stayed in the field and sealed up the fence, then ran around to the car park with the suits and tools and things in the gathering dark.  As for me, I held my breath and slowly wheeled the barrow down the towpath alongside the canal.  My babies!  My babies!  A dog walker stood watching as I came past the lock.  I stopped for a breather and she cocked one eye at the hive.  "Just a beehive," I said, "and 50 thousand angry bees."  (I do love a bit of melodrama.)  She cocked the other eye.  These dog walkers - they've seen it all, they have!

We slid the hive gently into the Tigger Van and so the bees left BJM.  How sad. 

An hour later they were settled, three miles away, in a temporary home nearby.  The two chaps stood well back and watched me remove the final piece of tape from the entrance.  A few rather bewildered looking bees came out of the entrance and mooched around quietly together.  They do make me proud, my bees.  They have such a lovely calm temperament.

They will have to stay there a few weeks to avoid going back to the field and then later they can be moved again.  Because the Apiary is so close to my work - less than a mile away - I couldn't move them straight there.  They would've flown back to the field.  Bees do that.  If you move them more than three feet away or less than three miles away, they keep flying back to the original hive location.  They get lost.  Well - they don't get lost, they geo-locate from 3 miles away to the exact hive entrance.  You need to move them more than 3 miles away from their original location, then they won't try to go back home.  They realign their geolocators to the new hive position.

Aren't bees amazing!?

So in a few weeks' time my bees will be in a new home and I hope it will be permanent.  I am excited but I am also nervous.  Because this time, dear reader, I will be beekeeping with other beekeepers around me.  They will see everything I do.  And I suspect I may have picked up some rather bad habits for a beekeeper.  Dirty tools, dirty suit, don't know how to do a split, lazy about medicating, slack on changing frames. 

I do believe I am going to have to pull up my beekeeping socks.  Oh dearie me, yes I am.

Wish us luck, dear reader, me and the bees.  Wish us luck!