I’ve decided to get myself a beehive and document those first steps in beekeeping. It will inevitably be a comedy of blunders, the kids are already offering sarcasm as their encouragement and I’m seriously worried that my usual fake-it-till-you-make-it approach will get me through it all.
Fortunately for me, my friend and neighbour Dan is a beekeeper and I’ve already got a bit of an insight into the weird and wonderful world of beekeeping. He once (stupidly) trusted me to give him some assistance in retrieving a swarm from a tree. Suffice to say the ladder broke, the bees got pissed off and we got stung to buggery. The poor homeowner wondered whether she had invited Laurel and Hardy into her back garden by mistake. In hindsight it wasn’t such a bad intro for my first steps in beekeeping, as it’s becoming clear that bees are endlessly unpredictable, and beekeepers all have their own take on what works and what doesn’t.
First Steps: Research
Now getting in to beekeeping is a serious endeavour and carries great responsibility, the British Beekeepers Association website advises one to seek advice and attend an introductory course to ‘learn some of the theory required to be a good beekeeper and gain valuable practical experience before you make any investment in equipment and honeybees’. Having thought long and hard about it for around half an hour I decided to get my own hive, as Dan didn’t collapse laughing when I told him I reckoned I was off to a good start. Having ignored that sage advice from the BBA I’m working on the assumption that I can bribe Dan for advice whenever I’m out of my depth – a pretty permanant state for me on the whole.
A Flat Pack Beehive
So I ordered a ‘National Hive Starter Kit’ from Caddon Hives and the flat packed gem turned up within the week. The kit included the whole hive comprising a brood box, two supers (more on this later), the frames, roof etc and the basic tools and suit needed. Nailing and gluing it all together took around a day, then I decided on a position for the hive in the front garden where it wouldn’t get disturbed. I set a paving slab for it to stand on to ensure it would be level and I was ready for some bees.
Then things got a bit weird, I can’t say I’d ever been aware of a bee swarm before, but as soon as I decided to identify as a beekeeper they were bloody everywhere. One of Dan’s hives swarmed, which sounds alarming but doesn’t resemble the ‘Killer Bees!’ B-movie plot at all. They hovered about 6 metres in the air and gave a good performance of a murmuration before scooting off. These were followed the next day by another bunch who landed in the high branches of a yew tree in the front garden of the old house across the road from us. The sound of bees haunted my waking hours and my dreams. Then we hit pay dirt, Jan from over the road (the other over-the-road, it’s a cross-roads) told us that she had a swarm in her back garden.
Time to Suit Up
Looking like BTEC ghostbusters we trooped across the road around three in the afternoon with our swarm collecting kit; an old cardboard box and even older white bed sheet. The sheet was spread under the swarm which had settled in a corner of the garden, fruit trees and long grass making a secluded enclave for them to hang from the low branch of a hornbeam. The box was placed on the sheet upside down and slightly wedged up to offer a refuge for them. Dan deftly knocked them onto the sheet and the bees started almost straight away to head for the dark safety of the box.
Then we left them alone until dusk when I went back to collect them. Dan entrusted me to do this bit alone, wrapping the sheet around the box with the silent swarm and carrying it back to my waiting hive. An old cupboard door formed a ramp up to the entrance on which I laid the box and sheet, smoothing the fabric up to the entrance, then it was just the decisive lift-and-shake of the box to perform. Righto, point of no return and all that so I lifted the box and shook it firmly onto the sheet. The mass of bees landed without freaking out and as the gloom of dusk increased they started up towards the entrance. Phew, my literal first steps in beekeeping were over.
Collecting the swarm
The books say that the bees should be inside the hive within half an hour – and yes I have read a book on it. Unfortunately it turns out the bees hadn’t read it, they were still all over the entrance in a clump and hanging off the side like indifferent squatters the next morning. Fortunately Dan came round and imparted some wisdom; ‘they could just be twats’. Which was great. We scratched our beards a bit and decided to sweep them onto the landing board in the hope they’d get the hint, and that they did, finally in the hive after twelve hours of indecision.
The swarm the next morning
A New Hope
So the ground floor of a bee hive is the ‘brood box’ where the queen can lay her eggs and fresh generations of drones and workers can be created. My new hive had frames ready to be used by them with beeswax foundation sheets to encourage them to build cells in a nice orderly way. To be sure of them getting the hint we added one frame that had empty comb on it that Dan had previously harvested the honey from.
Now all I have to do is wait for a week or so, hoping they do their thing. Workers are flying in and out of their new home so they are definitely foraging, fingers crossed the queen is doing her thing. I’ll do another first steps in beekeeping update then.
Images: Iain Hazlewood
