Green Tippex

Pulling up my socks has been every bit as awkward as I expected.

The first time I went off to inspect the bees up at the Association Apiary, I had everybody and his mother hanging over my shoulder, agog.  There was Charles and Tom and Perry and Peter and Allan and Asad, and various others.  It was a circus.

Oh dear.  Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I have grown to fear the peanut gallery far more than the beestings these days.  The banter pops out like a pinging bee and the stinging comments fly in like squadrons of hornets. 

"What do you mean, you haven't got a dummy board?!"

"Is that deformed wing virus?  There.  And there and there and there and there ...."

"When did you say you last treated your bees?"

"What are you doing with that extra super, then?"

"Why aren't you doing a Shook Swarm, then, hey?!"

I swear, by the time I left the Apiary I was a complete and utter gibbering wreck.  I had a bee in me beesuit, tea down me trousers and a flea in me earhole.  I felt more wobbly than a virgin on a first date.  It was worse in every way than I had ever expected.

But really, what COULD I have expected!?  I had let the colony go their own way for nearly a year; distracted by my own crushing grief in my other life.  And my neglect showed.  The bees were sick, the hive was a mess, and as for strategy - there was none.

The lads will never let me forget it.  I am the butt of every joke at the Apiary now.  Particularly the next week, when Alan walked out of the Hut and looked at me severely over his spectacles and said, accusingly, "there's been a swarm.  A SWARM."

I gibbered.  Of course the swarm was my fault.  Of course they were my bees.  It could only have been my fault.

Except, Dear Reader, it wasn't.  We went in to inspect my hive and there they all were.  None of them had left.  I did a little jig, and everyone laughed.  Oh dear god, having an audience has been the hardest thing that has ever happened to me as a beekeeper. 

But I know it has also been the best.  I have been pulled up short, and reminded of all my bad habits as a beekeeper, and I have been reminded of all the reasons why beekeeping might be a joyful solitary craft, but is also a delightfully social one.

As we've gone along over the weeks, the lads have begun to root for my bees; the interest of the newcomers has been inspiring; my new mentors have begun to bed in and settle with me.  A routine has developed and the worst of my neglect has been corrected.

We've reduced the double brood box to a single brood box.  We've changed most of the frames.  We've medicated the bees for sickness.

And oh gracious Goddessess, we have found my Queen.  And we have marked Her.  HOORAY!  I could have wept for joy when that little daub of green paint landed on Her thorax.  Hooray and Hooray and Hooray.

Although Peter did take the opportunity to look at me irritably and say, "what the hell is that green paint?  Is it nail polish!?  It looks like Tippex!  I don't think I trust that rubbishy looking stuff ..." 

"But, but ..." I replied, stuttering, "I bought at Thorne's so it MUST be good, right?"

They all stopped and looked at me.

And then they carried on.

I think I'm going to be alright, folks.  And what's more, so are the bees.

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!

The Bees are alright

I went down to the hive today. 

Since the end of summer, all I have felt about the bees is guilt.  I have bedded them down for winter in a double brood and a super - far too large, too much room and too much work for them to keep warm.  I stopped paying them attention far too early in the autumn.  My life just got in the way.

All winter I have avoided thinking about them.  Just another thing to worry about.  Guilt, guilt, guilt.  I made the odd rare visit and just seeing the fresh wax cappings dotting the floor underneath, like sprinkled sugar, was enough to reassure me that they were coping on their own.  Munching their way through their capped honey stores.  Doing alright.  I'd turn away and carry on through the wreckage of my other lives.

This year I did not visit them on Christmas Day to give them the annual gift of fondant food, as I have alway done with Tigger.   I just couldn't face it alone.

But then yesterday the lawns flooded, so I went to check on them.  A fresh, very faint sprinkling of cappings but otherwise, an ominous silence.  So today I went down with a fresh batch of Neopol, a delicious pollen-laced fondant food.  I warmed it under my coat, then sliced through the plastic wrapping and cautiously lifted the hive roof.  Thousands of beetles and worms nesting in the roof for winter fell out.  Yeugh!  I scraped them all off, and touched the inside of the roof with concern.  It felt damp.  My heart sank.  Nothing kills bees quicker than the wet.

Then I thumped the Neopol down on the roof hole and saw, with absolute delight, thousands of disgruntled bees buzzing about in the top of the super.

Hooray!

The bees are alright.

Things that I know about bees

On the 10th April my mother died.

I was halfway to Africa for her funeral when I suddenly remembered I'd left a Queen Excluder under the brood box.  It was only meant to be there a week; in the end it stayed there for three.

I inspected the hive again on Thursday 24th April and it didn't seem to have done them any harm.  In fact, they were flourishing.

It was a relief to come back to them and spend an intense and solitary half-hour inspecting the hive.  I saw no Queen Cells, no signs of swarming.  What I did see was a little scary - just brood from side to side, top to bottom, and no food.  Lots of pollen but pretty much no honey at all.  But they had drawn all the comb on all the new frames and that made me happy.

I stopped feeding them.  I removed the QX and closed up the box, and left them all to it.

* * *

I came back on Bank Holiday Monday the 5th of May.  I came loping down the garden with all my gear and peeked round the front and did a double-take, utterly astonished at the level of activity.  They were buzzing in hordes around the entrance.  Oh wow!

I worked my way carefully through the brood-and-a-half, much happier with the super below than above.  It really does work - a good piece of advice from the man at Thornes.  So much less comb gets broken, so much less traumatic for both me and the bees.

The greatest wonder of this visit was that - finally, FINALLY - I saw the Queen.  This was the first time I had ever seen Her.  She is absolutely enormous; Her abdomen is hugely wide and long, Her wings are tiny.  And She lays, and lays, and lays and lays.  She is prolifically busy.  And still - no sign of swarming.  It feels kind of ominous.

But the hive is utterly brimming.  I closed it up, blissfully happy, and went away.

* * *

After a first class in preparing for what will be my Practical Beekeeping Exam this summer, I came back to the hive on Sunday 11th May, determined to do everything the right way.  It was utterly useless.  I feel pressed to give up trying, and try for the Exam next year instead.

How DOES one go through an entire Hive Inspection with a Hive Tool in your hand?  I can't, I just can't.  It HAS to get put down sometimes, surely!?  How DOES one keep one's Beekeeping Suit whiter than white?!  Mine never is.  The knees are always grubby, from crawling around in front of the hive, taking pictures.  The cuffs are always full of propolis and the odd bit of bee poo.  How DOES one keep a Smoker lit?!  Mine is entirely useless at staying smoky.  In fact, other than briefly smoking my suit and gloves just prior to going in, I tend never to smoke the hive anymore.

Never mind, I think in my own glorious inimitably messy fashion, I love my bees and I love everything about beekeeping and I can quote bits of Ted Hooper's book verbatim, and I know all the flowers as they emerge through the season, in order from spring to autumn, and I know the lifecycle of a bee backwards, though I still haven't successfully done a Split by myself, and I've never sorted house bees in a bowl, though I've easily captured several dozen bees on my own in a matchbox.  I've never clipped a Queen's wing, but I've practiced marking on drones.   I can spot the tiniest trace of an egg, and I've watched bees being born.  I know a young bee from an old by the signs of worn fuzz on the thorax; I've seen bees scavenging last traces of honey from their dying half-sisters and I've seen a wasp cut a bee in half for its sweetness and I've seen bees crippled by disease and seen bees fight to the death with marauding wasps.  I can taste the subtle differences in a dozen different honies; I've seen spiders trap a bee.  I know what a Nasanov gland looks like and I've felt the leaping joy of hearing the deep HUMMM when I've knocked on the hive in the winter; and on hot summer nights at midnight I've gone down to see them when they're sitting out on their porch fanning air and making honey magic.  I've held a virgin Queen, born in my hand; I've swept swarms into boxes and I've seen a black Queen flying around Her own hive.

* * *

I went through the hive, and though I didn't see the Queen again, I saw lots of brood in all stages.  I remain concerned that space is at a premium, but I don't want to split unless I have to; I see no Queen Cells (3 Play Cells though), and the brood is evolving with enough space to spare, I hope.

I put a Honey Super on top.  It feels so early in the year!  It feels astonishingly wonderful.

* * *

I don't know if I'll be brave enough to do the Exam this year, but I do know I can feel the breath of my mother's smile on me as I open the hive and look down on the brood; and she is with me in the  late afternoon sun as it lights up the honeycomb and the sharp light burns tears in my eyes.   Last year I asked her to think of a name for the hive, and she told me to call it "Utopia".  The Queen, she said, should be called the Alpha Queen.

When I went home for the funeral, Jane told me that mom was inordinately proud of being asked to name the colony, and she took a great deal of trouble to research her dictionary and thesaurus, to find the right name.

This I do know: it is the right name, Ma, it is the right name.

Mysterious Queen

My bees have travelled so many miles in the last year; too many miles.  I worry about them.  When they first came to me we were based in Slough.  They were so good; calm, busy and happy.

When we moved to Ickenham I couldn't take them with me into my garden.  It was a hard loss.  I missed them then and I miss them still.  For me, part of the great joy of keeping bees has always been to walk down the garden path with my early morning cup of coffee, and sit with them for a while.  I watch them on their way, I see the interactions at their guarded front doorway.  I can throw my head back and watch them go into the wide blue sky, circling up into the trees and clouds and great big world.

But now I had to move them away.  They travelled the M25 with me, north to Cheshunt, where - for a year - Paula and Rod helped guard them for me.  I hope they found the everyday joy I always did.

Now I have moved them again; closer to where I live.  I simply couldn't sustain the weekly round trip of 60 miles to do my duty by the livestock.  I had to bring them closer to home.  So they have come down again, around the M25.  Now they live where I work.  Part of that is a new joy - the opportunity to spend my lunchtimes at the hive.  We have a new home and I hope I don't have to move them again in a long, long time.

I have never seen this Queen.  She is elusive.  I can never find Her.  But She is a hard worker; She lays like a fiend - except for when the hive is moved.  Last year, in Cheshunt, She didn't lay for the first few weeks they were there.  So now I am expecting Her to do the same.

When I opened the hive for the first time on Monday, I knew what I would see - I had left something of a shameful mess of frames and dummy boards in the main brood box over winter.  Some of the frames the bees just didn't like.  So the brood box was half empty; part old dark frames, part nothing.  The half on top was full; busy, buzzing and messed with frames too full of pollen and honey.  Some brood - but not much and no eggs that I could see.  And still no sight of the Queen ....

I had an awesome experience last week with the Beekeepers.  They showed me how they did Shook Swarms on all their hives - or at least as many as conditions allowed.  I was shocked - so early in the season, so vulnerable did it make the hives, yet they are convinced it makes for healthy, disease-free hives.  So I knew what had to be done with mine, except that I am a coward.  I hate the thought of removing so much rich, healthy brood from the hive in exchange for fresh, unworked foundation.  So I only did half.  More fool me perhaps, but it is what it is.

On Friday I made up a set of new foundation on new frames, and lugged them all down to the hive - it's a long walk, perhaps too long - we shall see.

Oh, those bees are lovely.  I had a wondrous half-hour with them.  They buzzed calmly around me, sat upon me, did what bees do.  I set up a new floor.  I put down a Queen Excluder (to keep Her inside in case She wanted to abscond for the temporary lack of honeycomb to lay in).  I opened the roof, removed the feed, removed the crownboard.  I shook off 4 frames of the top half, and placed new in.  Then I moved the half onto the new floor (I'd heard from The Man at the Bee Shop that works better for brood-and-a-half - we shall see).

Next I tackled the brood box.  Oh, I hope I didn't kill the Queen!  I replaced six frames with fresh and made it all look nice and better again in there.  I feel less guilty about that now ...

With everything refreshed - not a true Shook Swarm  - but new frames for them to work and a freshened up feel to the hive, I gave them feed and sealed it all up, and moved it all into position.  I looked into the front door and saw the QX drooping a bit.  "Oh dear," I thought, "She might escape through there."

I looked around for a solution - aha!  Two little sticks to stand up in the entrance - holding up the QX.  Except I'd removed my gloves.  "Oh well," I thought, "I'll risk it".  And with bare hands I delved into the hive and wedged the sticks into position.

Two bees came pinging out at me and I stepped back cautiously.  But no stings.  Oh, how I love these bees!

I took the old frames home and yesterday, spent a fun half hour going through the honeycomb with a magnifying glass and a torch.  And look what I found (see photo below).  Brand new baby brood. 

Oh, Mysterious Queen, thou art fine and wondrous indeed!

A Gift of Honey

Quite the most amazing gift I think I've ever been given. My dear friend, Bonita, sent me honey from Saudi. 

But even more special - a hand written letter telling me of a special moment - an experience to be shared across the miles. 

I love you, Bons, thank you so much!

It is what it is

Taking note of the clever system my fellow beekeepers had used to harvest their honey, I went out foraging for similar trays.  It was an expensive outing because I discovered I've been living near two superb Garden Centres.  I spent a fortune - on secateurs, gloves, wellies, plants, books and all sorts of accessories, before I actually found the £5 trays I was looking for.  Expensive but, dear reader, I gloried in it!  

And on the way home I found a Pick-Your-Own-Fruit Farm in Iver - how on earth did I miss that in the two and a half years I lived in Slough!?  So I came home with more plums than you could shake a tree at.  It was a glorious hour spent wandering through the orchards, and I took some gorgeous photos of bees and wasps squelching through the plums together with me.

 I drove the long way up to Paula's once more, and together we made ready for the harvest.  She bought the alcohol, I dressed up once more in my whites.  We tested the little wheelbarrow for weight by putting me in it.  Picture this if you can - two curvy ladies, a little tipsy, one pushing the other around the garden in a wheelbarrow, which eventually fell over and threw me out.  Yet another bruise to add to my magnificent tomboyish summer collection!

Then I made my way into the hive, and used Peter's great system to brush off each frame and plonk it into the empty super waiting between two potting trays used to cover the super top and bottom from the bees and wasps.  Paula took the pictures.  

The bees were magnificent; so calm and dignified in their bewildered defence of the stores they have worked so hard to accumulate through the summer.   

I've not been stung once this summer which has been hard for me in a way, because the arthritis in my feet and fingers has riddled me with pain and does not bode well for winter.  I keep saying to myself I should pick a bee and squeeze it to death on my skin, forcing a sting.  But I just haven't the heart to do that.  It seems so unfair.

Paula and I finally accumulated two and a half supers of honey and we trundled it out to my car, Miss Plum.  A curious neighbour watched us load it up.  The rich stench of honey swelled in my car for the next two days as I waited my turn to use the Honey Extraction Room at the beekeepers' association.  It hung low, hot and heavy with the smell of ripe old socks, a smell I recognise well as being pollen and nectar extracted from privet.  Not the best honey, they say.

A bee on privet

I met up with Peter on Tuesday evening and he was wonderful; a truly gracious gesture to spend two hours of an evening helping to show me how to use all the clever little innovations installed in the Extraction Room.  It made extraction easy - particularly the electric extractor.  

What a pity then, that I left the spigot open on my honey bucket!  We groaned as we looked down and saw a little pool of golden honey collecting on the newspaper spread over the floor under the bucket.  What a sad waste.

But we caught it in time, and found other buckets, and had finished extracting in 90 minutes.  At home I weighed what I had.  44lb!  

Forty-four pounds.  I had imagined more, but I was more than happy with what I had.   I tasted it.  Yes, it's honey alright.  I'm no connoisseur and find it difficult to discern the subtle differences in honey flavour but I could detect a slight sting at the back of my throat.  Perhaps I'm overly critical of my own produce.  I don't know.  I will wait for my customers to tell me ...

The slow and painstaking filtering process was done one warm evening in front of my sliding doors to the garden.  Sticky and sludgy and - of course - caused a huge row with my LSOH (long-suffering Other Half).  

It is what it is.

 Now I sit with a large container of honey and gradually, in the evenings, when the wont takes me, I bottle the honey.  It is taking me a while because other things distract me.  But slowly the harvest season is drawing to a close.  I will have honey, and already I have so many eager buyers I know I have already practically sold the lot.  It is a nice thought, and the money my hobby brings in will be most welcome.

In the meantime, I walk in the mornings across the Ickenham Marshes and collect blackberries and watch the bees working the flowers.  

I have taken many pictures of bees foraging on a wide variety of flora this summer.  

I've learned that it's easier to photograph them on the flat sea of sedum, upon which they move slowly and steadily.  It's harder to picture them on lavender, on which they have to buzz around quickly from stem to stem.  

I've loved the challenge of waiting for them to appear out of the bell-like chamber of the Himalayan Balsam, complete with that white spot of pollen daubed on their backs.  

But I miss taking photos at the Hive entrance.  Entrance - entranced; I've just noticed the word magic.  I used to spend hours entranced at the entrance; watching the bees come and go, with every little miniature drama giving an opportunity for me to focus my lens.  I miss that time out of time, those times I lay in the grass for hours and hours, completely lost and engrossed in their alien world.  I have missed, more than words can say, being out at midnight to watch the magic of the bees fanning the hive.  

I miss having bees at the bottom of my garden.

Sedum