From A to Bee

by James Dearsley

  Feeling very nervous, I opened the hive, following the correct procedure of smoking in all the right places. The first thing that struck me was the sound. There was this amazing buzzing sound coming from the hive. Yes, I knew, of course there would be buzzing but this was really BUZZING! It didn't just sound louder. I know that bees buzz at middle C but this sounded an octave or two higher. Bearing in mind I have been using the small, almost runt-like hive at our association, this sound was an indicator that perhaps there were more bees than I was used to and also that they were perhaps not as placid as my usual bees. As I continued the inspection it appeared to be the latter and I was feeling a little stressed as a consequence. I can't really describe the feeling of bees, almost kamikaze-like, flying straight at your veil in full attack mode. Attack after attack came as they obviously weren't happy I was there. It felt quite uncomfortable and something I hadn't really expected.

  I will not describe all of the inspection as it would go on for a bit but aside from the kamikaze bees, it was all looking good. I reckon I have about seven frames of bees and some frames where the bees have been building out the comb ready for the queen to lay in or to put stores (this is usually termed as 'drawing out' comb). I am really pleased with this because I also saw sealed brood and evidence of eggs and larvae. Therefore, though I saw neither Cleopatra nor Nefertiti, I know a queen is actively laying. The mystery continues as to which queen I actually have, but I am not overly concerned as long as she is laying.

  It is incredible to see experienced beekeepers look at frames at the association evenings. There I was today studying each frame for several minutes trying to find the queen whereas an experienced beekeeper like Adam would literally spend a second looking and go, 'There you go: Queenie!' I must perfect this art.

  Aside from signs of a laying queen I also saw some sealed stores of pollen and honey, which is great. Looking at the newly generated comb is just magical. Understanding that I have simply put wax strips into a box and within a week or two the bees had made the most beautiful honeycomb is quite astounding really.

  Having put the hive back together again and taken a deep breath, I thanked Richard for all his help and tried to reflect on exactly what had happened. It may sound strange but in a way I am quite relieved that my first inspection is over. Not only was I nervous but they were far more feisty than I had expected. Maybe they were feeding off my nerves?

  The enormity of the situation is beginning to hit me. Last week I was almost a beekeeper and today I actually became a beekeeper.

  JUNE 15

  Everything seems to be coming together quite nicely at the moment. My Beehaus is in transit and finally my nucleus of bees is almost ready. Fortunately there has been another little delay and so hopefully I will have the new hive set up in time for their arrival but based on what I saw in that inspection yesterday, I am also pretty confident that the jar of honey may be possible from that hive alone as they were going like the clappers.

  I am really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about with regard to the Beehaus. It has received a lot of press and there have been lots of positive reviews and some not so positive. However, being a complete beginner I am going to be very interested to see which hive I get along with best.

  I find it quite appealing that there are two hives lying side by side in the Beehaus; this seems to be one of the major positives about the design. I am slightly concerned that the old-fashioned method of collecting a swarm by giving your box to a swarm-catcher like Richard would be difficult with the Beehaus. It would be quite funny seeing them trying to catch the swarm in a brightly coloured freezer.

  JUNE 17

  I popped up to the hive this evening and, yet again, the bees have gone through another 3 litres of sugar syrup. I will pop up again tomorrow morning to feed them some more as it seems they are taking it in at a tremendous rate, which is a great sign. I was also pleased as, for the first time in several visits, I didn't get chased away from the hive; they generally don't seem to like me getting close, which is fun when quickly topping up the feed with a large silver saucepan. I can imagine it being very funny for my neighbours to see me scampering away from a beehive while swinging a shiny silver saucepan around my head.

  Tomorrow the Beehaus arrives, which is exciting. Last time I was a little nervous about the hive arriving. I didn't have a clue about anything and certainly not the construction of a beehive. At least this time around I have a lot more of an idea and also I know that the beehive comes almost ready-made. Someone told me today that they see the Beehaus as an oversized and expensive yoghurt pot! I will be fascinated to see if I have the same opinion when I receive mine but, then again, this did come from a 'natural' beekeeper and so I suppose I can understand. A natural beekeeper tends to believe in minimal intervention, i.e. few inspections and no chemical treatment for diseases. They also use what are called 'top bar hives' which, from my understanding, are based on hives used in Africa that don't have any wax foundation, leaving the bees to get on with their own thing rather than being manipulated.

  I have to say, given my time again I would have loved to know more about this form of beekeeping as I do like the ethos behind it. However, I have spent enough time and money this year, Jo has put up with enough and I am not sure Farmer Ray could tolerate another hive! I would like to try it next year though, it sounds interesting.

  Anyway, the Beehaus arrives tomorrow and I've been told I can go and pick up my nucleus next week. All fitting together quite nicely finally, isn't it?

  JUNE 18

  It arrived today. Again, I felt a little bit like a child on Christmas morning though I was waiting for the deliveryman rather than Father Christmas. It arrived at about 11 a.m. in three huge boxes and immediately I went out to have a look.

  Fortunately it was lovely outside and so I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and leaped out of the front door, much to the amusement of the Polish delivery driver as she was walking back through our gate. I was like an opening machine and I reckon health and safety officers would have had a field day with my knife-wielding technique. I started with the smallest box and there were bits of cardboard everywhere as I ripped through it. Gradually I organised it a little better and I had plastic bits in a heap on one side of me and cardboard on the other.

  I am not sure what I really expected when I opened up the boxes for the first time but part of me expected a fully built and functional beehive. Instead I got a whole lot of plastic, which I have to put together at some point this weekend. It didn't look too complicated when I looked at the instructions but I think I expected it to be a little bit simpler than this. Whatever happens, my bees are arriving next week so I had better get a wriggle on.

  I do admit my decision to opt for white rather than a bright colour has only accentuated the freezer type feel to it. Either way, I look forward to getting it built and in situ.

  Tomorrow is my second inspection check and I have a few concerns, which is rare as generally I have very few concerns in life. It seems, however, that both beekeeping and gardening really occupy every thought. My first concern is that tomorrow I will be doing it well and truly on my own with no Richard this time to talk to and calm my nerves. I suppose I will take my video camera with me to talk to instead and hopefully that might help.

  Secondly, I have concerns about the feeding of my bees. I have been feeding them with gallons of sugar syrup – they have practically eaten all of the sugar from my local Sainsbury's – but I am unsure when I need to stop. My mind was telling me that they should draw out the entire comb in the brood box first and then perhaps I should remove the feed. This has been confirmed by my great bee friend Adam, who mentioned that you should feed them until you need to put the super on top. I will have a look at the frames tomorrow and if they have drawn the entire comb, I will pop one on top. Exciting!

  Lastly, I am worried about the closed floor that Adam put on. As I now know, when housing a swarm you should put a solid floor on the hive's open-mesh floo
r to give them a little more darkness while they are getting settled – which mine now appear to be.

  What I am concerned about is the changing of the floors and how I do this on my own, especially as Adam screwed this floor to the hive. I assume I have to remove the screws first from each side and that is where I get a slight pang of fear. I can't quite imagine picking up the hive filled with bees, placing it on the ground away from the stand, taking off the closed floor, replacing it with the open floor and then lifting the hive back on top. I just find the thought of this quite scary. Surely this is going to make them incredibly angry and I will find myself running towards the pond quicker than I can say beehive. How on earth do I swap the floors with just me for company and a herd of slightly prickly bees? More planning is needed before I do this, methinks!

  JUNE 19

  Crikey, the day before Father's Day, which has taken on a whole new meaning since I became one. Not only is it a special day but I also think fathers need it simply to rest after the day before Father's Day. I had so many jobs to do today; put up shelves, put up pictures, fix cupboard doors, mow the lawn, plant out various plants and dig over the allotment. OK the last few were self-induced but I'm not so sure about the first lot of chores. I am sure my workload multiplied today just so that I could take the day off tomorrow. However, I did accomplish another hive inspection unaided. I have to say it is quite a different animal doing it on your own and you feel a lot more exposed without a shoulder to lean on. It all started with a very humorous lighting of the smoker and the afternoon took quite an unexpected turn, involving a tin of paint and a bee…

  I was only thinking as I went to light the smoker that I hadn't had any trouble lighting the thing and that I didn't know what all the fuss was about. As a result of then going through about nine matches with no success and finding that I was down to the last one in the box, I started to reassess my initial cockiness. Allowing the paper and cardboard to catch light to such an extent that you can throw a handful of the most delicious smelling cocoa shells on top to produce the smoke is not as easy as it had been before. This was fate – but fortunately the last match caught and I was away, confident that my smoke looked good and I would have no more troubles… little did I know.

  I was slightly apprehensive and interested to see what the bees were like again. Would they be as feisty? At least this time I knew my way around – it sounds funny but the first time you deal with a hive 'in anger' is a strange one. Small things like knowing how heavy the frames would be and how much pressure I would need to apply with the hive tool to separate the propolis and, ultimately, knowing the temperament of the bees were factors that I now knew a little more about.

  I tried a few different techniques of smoking the hive this time as recommended by a good bee friend, Bernie (@thechoirboy on Twitter). He stated I should smoke the entrance as well before going in. Having left them for a couple of minutes I lifted the roof and as Bernie had predicted there were none on the crown board, not as many 'hangers on' and the kamikaze lot didn't start up immediately either. Thanks, Bernie.

  I felt pretty confident going into this hive inspection as my smoke looked fantastic (if you are a beekeeper you will know what I mean by this). The smoke gently escapes the smoker in lovely wisps and folds like a cloud. It hangs around like smoke from a cigar; thick, white and just hanging there in the air. It really is a lovely sight.

  It was evident a few frames hadn't been drawn out therefore I decided to keep feeding them a little while longer. This means that I won't be adding a super this week, which is a shame as I would love to see if I could get this one jar of honey. Apparently a beekeeper will add a super when the brood box is filled with bees and all frames have been drawn out. This is the trigger for adding the super and it means that the bees are ready to start drawing out the super to deposit the honey inside. At the end of the season the beekeeper will then remove the super, which is where the excess honey is stored. I have this nagging feeling that I should be replacing the floor now that the colony is established but I still have my reservations on how to do it.

  As I worked my way through the hive I started to feel a little bit more in control than I did last week, though I was still not 100 per cent comfortable. I am conscious that I need to monitor what I see and record how many frames have bees on, how many have brood, how many have stores, etc. etc. However, my mind just tends to become a blur. I am concentrating so much on (a) finding the queen and (b) being careful not to hurt or maim any bees that I find while counting the frames and retaining the vital information. It's surprisingly difficult. I think this is perhaps a skill that you learn with experience or perhaps one that comes with swigging a little whiskey beforehand to calm the nerves. Though maybe that would aggravate them more, as I hear they don't like the smell of alcohol.

  It was all looking good; I continued smoking, as you are encouraged to do (though not always smoking the bees). I then got side-tracked as my attention was drawn to simply getting through the inspection. My smoker started to suffer and I realised that nothing was coming out. I struggle to describe what happened next as it was genuinely quite unique. It was as if the bees had sensed that my defences were down! Let me first say that I was told that bees do not, under any circumstances, like you even blowing on them (I had this reinforced earlier today when I let out a sigh of nervousness while looking closely at a frame and promptly saw about two hundred bees desert the frame they were on and head straight for my veil!). Here I was essentially blowing a mass of hot air on them with little or no smoke. If you can imagine a scene from The Lord of the Rings with the orcs coming out of the woods; a few at first, and then, sensing the path is clear, they literally stream out of all possible gaps. This description is not far from what I witnessed today. There were a few on the tops of the frames and then suddenly as they realised (a) I had run out of smoke and (b) I had just annoyed a few of them with a hurricane-force wind directed straight at them, they all started filing out of the frames and on to the top. The buzzing sounds started to increase, which happened to be in direct correlation with my heart rate. Keeping calm, I just had to finish off the final few frames.

  I realised that I had again not seen the queen. Laura, Suzy's daughter, had mentioned to me during the week that I should be able to see Cleopatra quite easily, as the blue spot on her thorax is very noticeable. Therefore I can only assume that I have Nefertiti (incidentally they have now named their new queen Hatshepsut) but I just can't spot her. I am sure this is a combination of my eyesight being akin to that of a bat and also my lack of experience.

  Anyway, I rather anxiously put the hive back together again and tried to estimate what I had seen. I am pretty sure that I have bees covering at least seven frames and have eggs and larvae in at least six of those. I remember seeing sealed brood on about three frames which means I should have an interesting inspection next week. My colony will have multiplied considerably, I would have thought. I am looking forward to that. I learned one major lesson today, though: keep your smoker smoking!

  Many people describe beekeeping as relaxing and totally absorbing. The latter I can agree with, but the former is yet to be accomplished. I am sure it will be in time but I am still finding it pretty scary each time I enter the hive. Even so, I felt pretty pleased with myself as I left the hive, followed by about twenty bees wanting to make sure I was going.

  In the afternoon, among many of my pre-Father's Day jobs, I sneaked in one of my own, to paint a couple of doors. My main target was the Man Shed door. It had obviously been painted before but it looked more than a little distressed – as if a bear had been using it as a scratching post for the last year. Therefore I went to paint it; but it was about 10 feet from the hive I had inspected only an hour earlier.

  I thought an hour would be plenty of time for the bees to have calmed down but as I started painting, I got attacked; they must have remembered me. The thing about bee attacks (that does sound a little extreme, but at the time that is what it feels like) is they are
rather sudden, you never know it is about to happen. Therefore, in this instant, as I had a paintbrush in one hand and a tin of paint in the other, a bee made a beeline for my ear and kept on flying at me.

  A saucepan in your hand is one thing but a full tin of paint and a paintbrush is quite another. Off I went (I have a planned escape route now) but this time to dire consequences. I was desperately trying to keep the tin of paint still while waving foolishly with my other hand complete with paint-covered paintbrush. Stupidly I should have remembered that bees are attracted by movement but this all goes out of the window when you have no veil for protection! It was also pretty stupid to be waving a paintbrush around. I was covered. Paint in my hair, paint on my clothing, paint on the mangetout and pumpkins. Paint everywhere. At least my escape route worked and I was unscathed. Suffice to say, that 'man's job' can wait a while longer!

  I therefore got on with building my fridge-freezer of a Beehaus. Despite there being more pieces than I initially thought, I have to say it was a joy to put together given the glorious weather. It was like constructing a Lego kit and it all slotted in place very easily.