In March 2019 Covid19 became a real thing and we went into Lockdown 1. My wife and I get bad hay fever and she had heard that eating local honey was a way of reducing the pain! She suggested that we could get some! Well, that was a suggestion I was not going to let pass and acted quickly before she changed her mind.
I started writing about how I went about the process of getting set up, but that is not the point of this blog. (I have left that timeline below for those interested).
So, I started this process to harvest honey to help with our hay fever! Well from that point of view it has been a complete disaster – two seasons in and we have had a spoonful of honey.
I can however tell you how brilliant it has been working with the bees, despite the odd sting!
While to begin with the younger two boys would come and help start the process the novelty soon wore off and I was left to it – I think they now call it “Me time”! It was an hour that I could spend making sure that they were happy and thriving. Clearly there were no distractions, as unless they had a bee suit on the family would not come close.
It was not always plain sailing, most stings were human error, but my first queen bred grumpy bees and sometimes they would randomly attack me when I was in the garden. (A change of queen has solved this).
Ultimately it was fascinating watching the hive go about its business. 60,000 bees all with their own job to ensure that the hive survives.
Obviously, our attitude to the garden has changed, we leave the clover to flower in the late summer, the daisies that were considered weeds are now also considered food for the bees, along with many other plants.
While some honey would be a wonderful bonus, it really would be the icing on the cake as just working with them gives me so much pleasure.
I have been hugely educated by these amazing creatures and in a world where well-being is so important – they certainly help with this!
My first year in bee keeping!
A lady in the village had a couple of hives and I bumped into her and discussed the options. She said that if I bought a queen she would give me some frames of bees to get me going.
I then went to buy all the equipment, hive, suit, smoker and decided on a location for the hive.
The queen arrived curtesy of Royal Mail, yes she arrived in the post! She has to be introduced to the bees slowly and I took her to my neighbour for the introduction. A week later they arrived at home with us.
It was by now early June and the chances of honey that year were unlikely as the hive needed to establish itself. The queen lays between 1,500/2,000 eggs a day and the bees live for 6 weeks through the summer. I needed to build the hive from 30,000 to 60,000 bees.
Through the autumn I had to feed them sugar water to get them ready for the winter and treat them for varroa mite.
Through the winter there is very little to do, the bees largely stay in the hive to keep the queen warm. The spring is an exciting time and I have to wait patiently for the temperature to reach 15 degrees to start inspecting.
There are lots of threats to the hive, but the most important in the spring is to keep them from swarming! The bees swarm if there is not enough room. They create a new queen allowing the old queen to leave with all the foraging bees. It is a disaster for honey production as the hives has to rebuild.
I love being with the bees and they never cease to amaze me.
