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

My Bee Cake

Harvest

I pulled over at the first set of gates, still uncertain of where to find the out-apiary.  I stepped out of the car and looked around.  Just then a familiar scent came to me and I looked up over the buddleia bushes and saw a cloud of smoke wafting through the hedge.

"I'm in the right place," I thought.

I hopped in and drove to the next set of gates and, lo and behold, they were open.  I drove in, came round a corner and there was the apiary.  Only one other car stood there but as I emerged and put on my beekeeping togs, several others pulled in.  We greeted, togged up and went over to join P.

Around us, in uneven semi-circles, were several dozen hives, a small shed and a container.  P's van was pulled up nearby and he was already harvesting from the first hive at the end.

Ten of us were there eventually and it was a glorious, glorious experience helping with the harvest.  I loved the way it was efficiently organised, with empty supers set aside between two plastic trays to keep the bees out; we all helped to take out the full frames, briskly brush the bees off, and slot the rich, swelling honey frames into the waiting empty supers.  The air became filled with the hum of bees and the occasional "bugger!" muttered quietly as someone got stung.  We all built up a sweat in the heat of the humid evening as we worked.  At one stage the threatening clouds burst open and, as the rain pelted down, we all shuffled under the shed and sat together, laughing and chatting.

An hour later, 5 hives had been cleared (19 supers - what a harvest!) and we were all divesting ourselves of our suits. 

Someone said, "let's have a pint at the pub" and I wanted to cheer.  Hooray!  Hooray for a pint at the pub with the beekeepers; I've so longed for the opportunity to swop stories over a pint.

And we did. 

And more - to some extent I could feel the older, wiser, more experienced beekeepers carefully probing my knowledge, testing me - how do you harvest your honey?  What sizes?  What prices?  Heads would nod or someone would say "tut tut, dear, you've undercharged" and all along, I just kept wanting to cheer. Hooray!  Hooray!

Can you tell?  I have really missed chatting with beekeepers.

The Sun on my Skin

I may have lost the hive in my garden, but I feel like I have gained so many other things.  I feel like my interest and passion for bees has spread; I've become an evangelist among my friends and family, colleagues and community this summer.

It has become a "thing to do" on Sundays; the long drive up to Paula's, a restaurant, a hive inspection, and a glass of Prosecco in the garden. What a joy!

And the news so far is all good. First it seems that Paula's patience has paid off and the Queen has come into her own.  She is laying like a dream and the hive is brimming with brood.  So I managed to contact the suppliers of my Slovenian Queen-in-the-Royal-Mail and rearrange things - they were very nice and promised to hold one for me if I ever needed another.  

Secondly, there is no longer an issue with mould - although I suspect that's got to do with the fantastic temperatures that keep on rising.  It may reappear in autumn and winter so I won't worry about it till then.

Last week I got to Paula's too late to do the inspection before lunch.  "Oh dear" I thought, "I'll be drunk when I look in there later - not a good idea!"  But I took a chance.  I didn't drink very much at all and slipped away from the crowds in the pub early.  I slipped into the house alone and crept down the garden to take a preliminary look at the hive.  Everything looked busy and well.

I put on my new one-piece overall beekeeper suit (I'll explain more about that later) and my wellies and galumphed my way down through clouds of smoke from the smoker.   But I didn't smoke the hive.  I never do these days.  I usually pump a bit of smoke all over me, and most particularly my gloves.  It tends to keep the bees from stinging me, I've found.  Bee Aversion Therapy.

In that glorious afternoon heat I opened the hive leisurely.  It felt kind of nice to be alone although I do love sharing my bee-joys with Paula; she is so fiercely protective of them and so interested.  This felt like a little treasure, a chocolate treat not to be shared, what a funny thought.  Perhaps its simply that I didn't feel On Show, so I didn't do what I normally do - show off, and end up coming a cropper (lol).

And the bees were just lovely, lovely, lovely.  I opened the honey super and all the foundation had been drawn into honeycomb, and the honey was starting to build up.  How wonderful!  I removed the super and the Queen Excluder (remembering to put it the right way round).  I checked in the top half of the brood-and-a-half box and all looked well.  Still no sight of Her Majesty, but rice grain eggs were there, among the masses of sealed brood.

And then down into the main brood box.  I could feel the hummmm around me begin to rise gently in volume but still, they were absolutely calm, staying on the frames, hardly flying up and no confrontations at all.  I could feel my heart singing, my joy-sensors rising and the sun on my skin turned to sweat; all combining to give me a sensory endorphin rush of pleasure that brings a tear to my eye.  It's all to do with summer and sunshine and happiness - the bees have come to epitomise the sun on my skin in a way I find hard to describe.

Everywhere the hive was brimming with bees and brood, with no trace of Queen Cells or problems.  So I sealed it all up again and walked a little distance away, to strip off the suit and sit down on a bench and smile, dripping with sweat, happy.

I've joined my nearby Beekeepers' Society in addition to my beloved Enfield.  Recently I joined them on a Sunday morning and spent a pleasurable hour inspecting other - calm - bees. Well.  Thank god they were calm.  My bee jacket was so decrepit I've lost all the elastic in it and within 20 minutes, I had a bee in there.  The other beekeepers were newbies and must've been suitably distressed and hilarified to see me trying to stay calm while walking away and wildly digging around in my suit for a stray buzzing bee.  Eventually I just stripped the bloody thing off and the poor bee, probably dizzy and completely bewildered, flew away.  No sting. 

I was impressed.  Calm bees, alright!

And that's why I have a grand new, brand new all-over beesuit.   Ten sizes too large :D