From A to Bee Read online

  The session started ominously with my gloves splitting once again but I just got on with it this time. The weather wasn't as hot as Sunday but the hives there seem a lot calmer than my own. It was a nice and gentle introduction back into the swing of things for me and a much-needed morale boost.

  I am slightly concerned about what I might find when I carry out the inspection on the Beehaus as (a) they haven't taken too much of the sugar syrup, perhaps indicating they haven't been building much onto the wax foundation and (b) I know the hive is on a little bit of a wonk and it needs to be straightened up. The latter should be straightforward and hopefully the former should be OK too, as there is a very strong nectar flow at the moment, which will encourage them to build out the combs naturally.

  Talking of nectar flow, when we finished the session we accidentally popped into the local pub for a drink and sat around discussing our bees. There was more talk about this strong nectar flow or honey flow – the terms seem to be interchangeable – but something else sparked my interest tonight and that was the discussion about extracting the honey. Up until now I have only dreamed about extracting a jar of honey but time is nearly upon us when this may become a reality; I should get a far better idea this weekend.

  It became clear that extracting was not an easy process, was quite labour intensive and required some pretty technical equipment – despite some of the conversation being centred around DIY equipment, much to the hilarity of others with stories about mistakes made using this sort of equipment. I suddenly realised that within eight weeks I could be spinning some frames around in an extractor and looking at my own honey. Andrew, the person responsible for me joining Reigate Beekeepers to begin with, is also the 'equipment guy' and stated the association's extractors had already been reserved for a lot of July and August.

  Once I have had a look over the hives this weekend to see if there has been any honey deposited, I must get a reservation in. I hope I am lucky enough to be in a position to be able to do this, as how else could I extract the stuff?

  Incidentally, I also found out about ankle biters today. There seem to be some bees that go directly for the ankle and apparently stings there are particularly itchy. Don't I know it! Not sure Jo has forgiven me yet.

  JULY 8

  After last night's pub discussions, the enormity of the extraction process was preying on my mind. All the equipment needed and the fantastic game of dare you play with the bees when you take their honey super, not to mention the mess I will undoubtedly leave my kitchen. However, a chance meeting with a friend of mine in the coffee shop I go to every lunchtime and the suggestion I should watch how the Nepalese extract their honey has calmed me down considerably. I walked into my beloved coffee shop and there standing by the till was Steve, an old school friend of mine. Despite the fact he had far less hair on his head, which seemed to have fallen southwards to make the most glorious of beards, this couldn't disguise his cheeky grin which was instantly recognisable. We sat down and got talking about the past before catching up on what we are currently doing which inevitably led on to my beekeeping exploits. Having described what I was up to and the hopeful extraction of a jar of honey in the near future he couldn't wait to tell me about a recent TV programme he had watched.

  The Nepalese honey hunters, as they are called, scale vertical 600-metre-high cliffs with vine ladders with very little protection. They don't get too close to the huge combs of bees and honey, made by the largest honeybee in existence, which is understandable now having seen them. They use a combination of baskets controlled by others 40-foot higher and a 20 foot-long pole with a knife embedded in the end. With amazing coordination, skill, dexterity, braveness and teamwork they cut away these honeycombs before lowering them into the ether below. This is where the rest of the team wait, whose original job it is to light the bonfires to smoke the bees.

  It is truly awe-inspiring to watch (I was able to watch it online, fortunately) and puts my honey extraction of two hives, not even 600 feet from my house, into perspective.

  However there is still the small matter of equipment. I think, on the basic research I have now done, that I need the following:

  • A honey extractor – though this will depend on how much honey I have to extract. If I don,t get much there would be little point and I could probably manually extract it (note to self; must look at how you manually extract honey).

  • A knife to uncap the honey cells – all cells are covered with wax and so this needs to be removed before any honey can be extracted. I have seen some fancy heated knives on the market but I don't think I would need this given my likely crop.

  • A container to keep the uncapped cell cappings – it is apparently best to keep them separate as they would clog up the piece of equipment mentioned below.

  • A filtering device – you can buy these great sieves to filter the honey but I am thinking muslin would do the trick because I am hardly likely to have too much honey. Something is needed though as apparently honey in the cells can contain remnants of bee wings and legs which I am not sure I want in my one jar of honey!

  • A settling bottle/tank – apparently it is best to leave the honey for a while to allow air bubbles to rise to the surface. Otherwise your jar of honey will be full of bubbles. Again, I don't think I will be too fussy here but it might all be worth looking into.

  • Lots of jars – if I am lucky.

  So my preparation starts here. Let's hope the bees are able to fill a super for me to extract.

  Something else I realised last night was that I had made another small mistake: though I had replaced my closed-mesh floor with an open-mesh floor, I hadn't actually opened it! What was I thinking? There is a small floor within the open mesh floor design which is removed to allow air circulation or closed to catch debris – vital to assess any possible disease in your hive, especially varroa mites. For some reason I never removed it, which was a little stupid because in this unbelievably hot weather, it was essentially a closed hive. They must have been cooking!

  Anyway, I quickly ran up to the hive in the twilight and got started. I then realised that I hadn't removed it since I painted it and so it was essentially glued shut. Out came the hive tool to release it all which made it pretty straightforward but upon opening the floor, the debris was far more interesting than I ever expected. I am not sure what I expected but I was surprised to see so much had dropped off the bees.

  There was a multitude of pollen, lots of grey matter and then tons of what appeared to be rock salt. Having investigated this rock salt before I collected it all up claiming a miracle and a new hive product for us to all market, I realised these were the remnants of the wax the bees were secreting from their wax glands. Pretty cool, really.

  Apparently tomorrow is going to be the hottest day of the year so far; glad I got that floor off in time.

  JULY 10

  D-Day. Two major events were happening today. Firstly it was the rematch between me and my traditional hive. They won last week and I had to retreat but, with my pride hurt, I've taken stock and today was the day. It was also the day that I was due to open up the Omlet Beehaus for the first time since the bees in the nucleus were moved inside. Two things I was interested in here. Firstly, had they settled in OK? And secondly, the nucleus contained standard frames and I had inserted these into the 14 x 12 brood box – standard frames are a lot smaller in depth. I wanted to see what was going on with the extra space they had at the bottom of the frames as apparently bees will build natural comb off the bottom of the frame to fill the void left there. I was nervously looking forward to it.

  I decided to take on the Beehaus first as I know these were far calmer bees. When I took off the roof I noticed immediately that all the feed had gone and realised that the feeder was a little bit messy. Therefore I decided to take it off to clean it and then put in some more feed tomorrow for them. I then took off the extra supers, which you have to do when dealing with the Beehaus, and was amazed at what I saw. I had put five stand
ard frames in and I could see immediately that not only had they built this beautiful natural comb on the bottom of these frames but there were bees covering at least eight frames. The natural comb was hanging down from the standard frames in a beautiful semicircle shape (they don't build comb in a perfect rectangle shape to fit the space but generally they build in this semicircle shape) and the hexagonal structure was perfect. It was amazing to see that in just a short time they had created this brilliant comb pattern. This was obviously good news as it meant that the bees were thriving and had been busy but to top that I also saw lots of lovely honey. It was all over the top of the frames and was a joy to see, especially when it was literally dropping out of the frame.

  I have to say, it was all rather straightforward and it was good to deal with some nice, calm bees. It was great to see that the queen was indeed laying already into newly drawn comb and all seemed to be in order. It was also interesting to see the comb being built beneath the standard frames I had put into the brood box from the nucleus. It looked lovely and I knew that I hadn't had anything to do with it at all as I hadn't put my foundation down to guide them. I suppose this is what happens if you keep bees with what they call a top bar hive as you don't use foundation. These hives, rather than having frames and foundation like my hives do, simply have the top bar of the frame hence where the name comes from. The top frames only have a tiny strip of foundation or sometimes none at all and the bees then build natural comb from the bottom. I really like the philosophy of this more natural approach and really want to try it next year.

  I closed up the hive feeling quite encouraged; just what I needed before I hit the rematch. It was probably a little bit like playing some weaker opposition just before a tournament to get a bit of confidence going – I was ready to take on the kamikaze pilots.

  However, just to be on the safe side I filled up my smoker again, tucked my T-shirt into my extra-thick jeans – being great protection from the bees but really not a good idea on a 30-degree day – and then I went for it. I usually use the surgical gloves but I was pulling out the secret weapon, Jo's yellow Marigolds. It was almost a mission impossible as I needed to escape the kitchen cupboard without being noticed. How could I explain what I was about to do? But these would give me that little extra protection.

  I was trying to come across as a new and modern beekeeper; I have a lovely khaki bee suit which looks as cool as a bee suit could get, and yet here I was with bright yellow Marigolds covering half of my arms. It's just as well that Jo was out of sight and no one could see me for miles.

  My first job, once I had opened the hive, was to have a look at the frames in the super. Last week some of the cut comb was all over the place because of the heat which makes the wax very pliable. Usually frames of wax will have a wire strip going through them which gives extra support but these 'cut' comb frames are just open to the elements so I had to be very careful. When I opened it all up it was exactly the same and so I immediately replaced them back in the super and as they weren't drawn out, it was relatively easy. On reflection, not many of the frames were drawn out at all, which is a concern for my jar of honey. With the super frames replaced, it was time to move on and let the rematch begin.

  Off came the super and it was immediately apparent there were a lot more bees even than last week. I gave it all a quick smoke and started to lift off the queen excluder. It was about this time that I again noticed, like last week, just how hot it was outside – I was baking inside the bee suit which is no surprise considering it was indeed turning into the hottest day of the year.

  I started to work my way through and it took until the fifth frame for the kamikaze pilots to start. I have to say, it wasn't as bad as last week and I felt a lot more comfortable. The Marigolds were amazing and really helped to combat my nerves. It is strange seeing bees crawling all over your fingers but with these on I was a bit more at ease. I continued through the hive inspection and found that I was actually able to count the number of frames with brood which I had never been able to do before. Though nervous I was feeling far more in control.

  I got to the last frame, having not found the queen but having found evidence that she was laying and so feeling quite satisfied. I closed down the hive and as I left I was only followed by three bees this week. They stayed around for a little bit just to make sure that I was really going and then finally it was silent. I had made it; I had won. It felt great, not quite as relaxing as the Beehaus bees but I had got through it. Bit worrying about the lack of honey though. Have I missed the window of opportunity to get a jar of honey this year??

  JULY 14

  It started as a normal Wednesday evening session with the Reigate Beekeepers but it soon turned into all-out war with the bees. I learned some very valuable lessons! Beware of a windy night, especially if you are checking a colony without a queen.

  I was with my regular group of six, checking over our hives, and it had started well. We were a little worried about the weather as it looked like the heavens would open at any moment. Still, we knew we had a good-tempered set of hives, though we couldn't account for the other twelve hives on the apiary. I was also told the weather, and in particular a colder and windier evening like tonight, can do funny things to even the calmest of hives.

  We took off the top supers of the first hive and had got down into the first set of frames when the wind picked up out of nowhere. It was like a mini hurricane centred over our two hives. This, along with the slightly cooler temperature this evening, meant the bees were not happy.

  We should have realised something was slightly amiss before we even started. Maggie, one of our mentors, had already been stung standing about fifty metres from the hive – I even saw the bee hit her fringe. The bee obviously decided she quite liked it and so buried itself ever deeper. Having got smacked out of the fringe during what I can only describe as an elaborate dancing move from Maggie, she went again but decided that the longer hair at the back was a better place to nestle. Despite Maggie's best moves, she got stung.

  We should therefore have realised that some of the hives would be feisty but I am not sure we were ready for what was about to happen. Once we had taken out a few of the frames it really struck us that something was just not quite right. Firstly they were really, really angry – there were plenty of kamikaze bees flying into our veils – and secondly we actually lost count of the number of queen cells we had seen. This meant only one thing as we were certain we hadn't seen any eggs; the queen was no longer there and they were madly trying to raise a new queen.

  This would account for the temperament issues but as we worked further through the hive, it turned into a war. Everyone kept on getting stung. Andrew took one on the finger then, almost immediately, Richard took one on the wrist. Then, as Andrew was checking some of the frames (we all took it in turns) he was stung again on the thumb but this time it must have hurt – I think I learned some new words! It was mid inspection, a frame of bees in Andrew's hand, and as he started an unrepeatable diatribe, the whole world went into slow motion when his hand that was stung instinctively left the frame. The entire frame of bees began to swing wildly and was being held by one hand. The hive tool flew through the air at the same time and landed about six feet away and you could almost see what was going to happen next… Fortunately Andrew gathered his composure before the frame dropped to the floor, spraying thousands of already angry bees everywhere. We quickly closed the hive up and for the second time in a couple weeks I cut an inspection short.

  All was not lost, however, and we reduced the number of queen cells down to what we think are a few good ones. This meant that the colony may have a fighting chance of getting a half decent queen rather than taking a chance.

  Fortunately, the other hive was a breeze but it was interesting having the kamikaze bees from the previous inspection still dive-bombing twenty minutes later. They obviously have a better memory than we all thought.

  A pint was needed after this evening session, if only to look at a
ll the war wounds and for Chris and I to gloat over our successful escape as we were the only ones in our group not to have been stung. Lady Luck was obviously with us tonight.

  JULY 18

  Now my bees are settled in the hive, it is essentially a waiting game to see what they can produce by the end of the season. I have noticed a distinctive shift in my attitude towards the bees. This journey all started with the setting of an aim to get a jar of honey and, if I am honest with myself, the caring aspect of looking after the bees came second. I knew they were in trouble but I was selfish in thinking the honey was what mattered.

  I feel like I have changed. I have realised just how obsessive beekeeping can become and it is so obvious how fraught their situation is. When you consider that a third of our dinner plate is pollinated by the bee (though this is any sort of bee, including both honey and solitary bees; which as their name suggests live on their own but are prolific pollinators) you realise just how important they are to our survival. When you consider that a beehive of bees would visit several million flowers in one day and one person can only pollinate thirty trees a day it puts it all into perspective. Without bees our food options would dramatically decrease. This is not something I think any of us would like to see and as a result I just feel the need to talk to everyone about it and share my new-found knowledge.