From A to Bee

by James Dearsley

  • Maintain the hive's temperature by either huddling together in winter or fanning the hive in summer

  • Make wax to build the comb

  • Guard the hive from intruders

  Incidentally, this is all before they are old enough to leave the hive, about three weeks after they hatch. They then simply work to bring in nectar and pollen for the hive, before dying of exhaustion out on the wing; therefore reducing the work of the others back at the hive. David mentioned that they are the perfect example of a successful democratic society and I can see this already. They all work together for the good of the hive: incredible, really.

  It sounds a pretty tough life, especially in comparison to their brothers who seem to have an amazing life! The boy bees are called drones and when I saw a photo of one against a worker, it was like watching an episode of Supersize vs Superskinny. The drone is almost twice the size and is essentially a fat, lazy slob of a bee. The drones simply wander around the hive expecting to be fed, cleaned and generally treated like royalty. Their sole job in life, other than just chilling out, is to mate with a queen. Somehow they know when a queen has left a hive (how do they know that?!) and the drones fly off to a secret location and compete to get their wicked way. Apparently the queen may mate with up to seventeen drones – she must be exhausted after that! If the drones succeed and are one of the lucky ones able to mate with the queen they do meet a pretty swift end. While mating, there seems to be a point where their enthusiasm gets the better of them, as their abdomen splits in two and they die. If they don't succeed in mating, though, they are still alive – I should think they fly with their proverbial tail between their legs back to the hives.

  If they don't manage to mate with a queen by the end of the summer season, says David, their sisters, the workers, get the hump. In short they get their wings nibbled off and are booted out of the hive. As they cannot fly off anywhere without wings, they have a miserable end as they succumb to the elements. Therefore, it must be said, they have the most amazing lives but also a rather quick and untimely end!

  OCTOBER 3

  I find myself at work today daydreaming about bees, which feels a little weird. I am contemplating my understanding of this new world, how little I knew before and how amazing it all is. In just two sessions I feel my taste buds for a new hobby are burning. Never did I think I would want to be known as one of those slightly strange beekeepers, but I can feel I am turning – I know what I'm like. I am most likely to become obsessed. What will my friends, family and colleagues think? I think I will wait some time before telling them my plans for the year.

  This concern all stems from a rather tenuous link from my childhood, I think.

  I used to have various money-making schemes to raise cash to spend on comics and my addiction to penny sweets; cola bottles and fried eggs in particular. To complement my pocket money I would wash cars and do odd jobs and gardening for people in the local area. I remember once putting little leaflets advertising my services in people's letterboxes to help finance my addiction to The Beano and The Dandy while scoffing flying saucers.

  One of the people that responded was Anne Buckingham, who my parents always referred to as 'the lady who keeps bees and chickens at the end of the road'. Her car was a grey Saab with the most amazing windscreen – almost vertical but fabulously curved. Washing her convertible grey Saab was one thing, but I distinctly remember peering through soap sudded windows and seeing her looking rather funny in an all-in-one white boiler suit at the bottom of her garden.

  I will always remember laughing as this lovely lady with rather unkempt hair pulled on her boiler suit and week after week fell over trying to put on her wellington boots. She would then trudge along to her two beehives, tripping over her own feet as she went. When she reached the hive, however, it was a different story. She became calmness and patience personified as she went about her business, with a metallic object puffing smoke at the bees. Still, 'utter madness,' I would think as I went about my weekly task of removing droplets of pollen from her car chassis.

  Beekeeping to me as a child was therefore carried out by middle-aged, Saab-driving ladies with an amazing ability to fall over their own feet. This viewpoint never really changed into my adult life, and thus the hobby never really appealed.

  Until now… Heaven help me!

  OCTOBER 7

  I am sitting here in my study after a long day in my corporate world, exhausted as I had to do some travelling last week and haven't really caught up yet, followed by my third beekeeping session. Tonight's session was about the beehives themselves – and here was me thinking there was just one type. For the first time I have started to imagine my own beekeeping next year, and to consider what hive I will get. I really have to think this through to make the right decision.

  Previously, I thought beekeeping was simple. You would put this beautiful white beehive, looking a little bit like a pretty version of a dalek from Doctor Who, in the corner of your garden. When you were ready you would pop over and use the tap on the side to pour some honey in the jar, before walking jovially back to the breakfast table to spread it on your toast.

  In fact that good-looking dalek, which tonight I found out was called the WBC hive, is rarely used now. William Broughton Carr designed it (hence the name) in the late 1800s and it quickly became the quintessential British beehive. However, it was forty years earlier that the first what they now call 'moveable frame' beehive was patented by a Rev. Langstroth over in America. It's apparently the world's most popular beehive today, with over 75 per cent of the world's beehives being a Langstroth. I hope he signed a royalty deal.

  Reading about this session before the course started, I did wonder exactly how interesting this evening about the hives would be. But I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised. I never realised just how long beehives have been used, and it is quite amazing to think that beekeepers still use a piece of equipment that was patented over 150 years ago, with no major changes. We can't say that for many things nowadays, can we?

  We also talked about a hive called the 'National'. Being British, I suppose we wanted a bit of our own engineering and essentially we have ignored this popular American Langstroth design. The National, a smaller version of the Langstroth, is the most-used hive in the UK and so maybe I should look into using one of these. I am not convinced though because I never follow the crowd, and I am therefore not 100 per cent certain that using a National or Langstroth is right for me.

  David also talked about more modern hives; some being polystyrene and some being made of plastic. It all sounded a little strange to me and the feeling accelerated when I saw pictures of them. The plastic hives, called Beehaus, looked a little bit like top-loading freezers but were all bright colours, yellow and purple. They did catch my attention.

  David did not sound the biggest fan; he stated that most beekeepers dislike them. I need to know more though, especially as they are compatible with the National hive that had been previously recommended – one of the most important factors if you are considering two or more hive types. Somehow David's hesitation to recommend it fuelled my interest, as I always like to give everything a fair trial.

  As a beginner, said David, you should look for a hive that is compatible with other local beekeepers so that in times of emergency they can help you out (I hadn't a clue what that meant if I am honest) and that, most importantly, you should also run two hives so that you can assess each colony individually and have a comparison.

  Oh Christ, not just one then!

  I now have to convince Jo that I will be looking for two colonies of bees, which could mean up to 100,000 bees; and am no longer looking for this beautiful WBC hive but two completely different hives, one of which looks like a brightly coloured freezer box. Hmmm… This could be interesting.

  OCTOBER 10

  After doing some research these last few days, I have decided on my hives. I am going to compare and contrast two hives. One will be the traditional hive known as the N
ational; however, I have decided to go for the larger version, more regularly known as the 14 x 12 which refers to the dimensions of its frames: 14 inches wide by 12 inches tall. Essentially, this is just a little bit bigger than the usual National. Apparently, due to selective breeding, we have prolific egg-laying queens in the UK and this combined with the warmer summers is resulting in larger colonies, so it is recommended to use these larger hives. Overcrowding is one of the commonest reasons for bees swarming early on in the season – and I really don't want that to happen if I haven't got a clue as to what I am doing.

  It can be a little bit more difficult to handle at the height of the summer what with the larger frames, they say. A thin wax 'foundation' strip about a millimetre long is connected to a wooden frame and inserted into the beehive. This forms the basis upon which the bees build their comb, in which they put pollen and nectar, and the queen lays her eggs. The resultant weight of its contents and the bees themselves can break the comb when you are lifting it out of the hive, which can result in being covered with bees. If you have seen the Eddie Izzard sketch aptly named 'I'm covered in bees', this is what I am assuming will happen.

  I will compare the National hive with the oversized, brightly coloured freezer box. Everyone seems to hate it and so I have to give it a go and see if it really is as bad as everyone makes out. Apparently it is based on an old design called the Dartington hive, but is made out of plastic rather than wood. One thing that is attractive about it is that it is actually two hives rather than one, side by side… But then there is a temptation to have three colonies, rather than two… Help! This is getting addictive!

  The other thing about this Beehaus is its marketing. I have to say I have fallen for its tag line: 'With a Beehaus in your garden, you'll soon be saying "Show me the honey!"' How can I deny a space in my garden for this hive if it promises to produce that single jar of honey I am looking for? I can only imagine the bemusement of my neighbours next year when I am shouting to the bees 'Show me the honey!' at the top of my voice like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. As if beekeeping wasn't bad enough, imagine a beekeeper who tries to entice his bees into producing more honey by quoting famous movies at them. Do gardeners do this to produce prize courgettes?

  OCTOBER 14

  I am sitting here with a nice glass of red wine reflecting on how I never quite realised the long history of beekeeping. At the last session, it was evident that we still use equipment that was introduced back in the 1850s. But man was dependent on the honeybee well before that.

  Back in Egyptian times, the Pharaoh himself was the god of honey and honeybees were seen as teardrops from the sun. Honey was also used as currency by the people of ancient Egypt in payment for land rents, and detailed reports were kept of production and payment: the first evidence of organised apiaries.

  With reference to the UK in particular there is documented evidence dating back to Roman times and then Anglo-Saxon and Norman times of widespread beekeeping. In a rather cold schoolroom we are learning a hobby for fun that for a long time was very, very serious business with large financial, religious and social considerations. I feel a little bit humbled and think that I should be taking this a lot more seriously than I have started out doing.

  It is also quite clear that honeybees have been around far longer than us. And yet now, after many years of exploitation and manipulation to extract as many resources from the hive as possible, the bees are suffering. It makes me feel a little sad to be honest.

  OCTOBER 17

  While browsing around the Internet for bee-related things, I came across architectural plans for all sorts of beehives and it has got me thinking. Hives aren't exactly cheap and so maybe I could just make myself a hive rather than buy one. It doesn't look too hard to do; after all, essentially it is just a wooden box. The difficult bit looks like it will be the joints – quite fundamental, you might say – and then what they call the open-mesh floor, the bit at the bottom of the hive that the box sits on. It is an open mesh to allow ventilation through the hive but also has some beneficial disease prevention reasons behind it.

  I can be quite sentimental at times and so am thinking about trying to get my father involved; that way all three generations of Dearsleys could be involved in my bee exploits. I have fond memories of helping Dad when I was younger. There he was in his workshop, otherwise known as 'the cold bit at the back of the garage', working bits of wood using an elaborate collection of hand tools – never the newfangled electrical gadgets. He would always have his pipe hanging loosely from a corner of his mouth, smoke just dribbling over the sides. Every so often he would stop, stand upright and, while looking up through the only window, remove his pipe, cupped in the palm of his hand, and exhale a dense cloud of smoke. I loved those times and I thought Dad was the world's leading woodwork expert.

  Well, despite his knowledge of working with wood, if you look up the word 'bodge' in the dictionary, my father's name is there enshrined in history, and so it may not work according to the plans.

  I seem to have inherited this 'bodge' gene, if there is such a thing, but I am working on the principle that two negatives make a positive. Therefore our two bodge characteristics might work together well and we will produce a fabulous-looking hive.

  Note to self: broach this idea with Dad. It would be great fun to do this together.

  OCTOBER 19

  The hive-building day is on!

  Having loosely discussed the idea, Dad is willing to help out. I wouldn't say he was jumping-over-the-moon keen, but I suppose it isn't every day your son rings to suggest building a beehive together. I have a feeling he is still in shock that his son is becoming a beekeeper. His dreams for many years of me becoming the next champion morris dancer must be slowly ebbing away as I don a different kind of uniform, with no bells in sight.

  We have set a rather random date of 6 March to have it all built as I figure my bees may arrive around that time, since that is when the season supposedly gets going, or so I have been led to believe. It should also give both my father and me time to order some of these plans which are readily available online and then order the appropriate wood to have a few trials. God knows what wood I will use, as again it seems there are many different options and nothing is straightforward. No doubt most of the trials will be complete bodges so I just have to get to a competent level of bodge before Dad and I attempt a final sample over that weekend. It's all very exciting.

  OCTOBER 21

  It has been dawning on me for a while that beekeeping is a little bit more involved than I first thought. Tonight's session reinforced this as we discussed the beekeeping year. Who would have thought it all revolves around a cycle, the same each and every year?

  It was fascinating to learn that at the peak of the summer there could be 60,000 bees in a hive and yet a few months later these numbers will have reduced to around 5,000. By my own amazing mathematic ability it means that there are 900 more bees dying than being created every day for nearly two months.

  Gradually, as winter turns to spring, the queen will begin to lay eggs and the colony gets going again. Soon she starts to lay towards 2,500 eggs a day; her maximum capacity and more than her own bodyweight in eggs every day. Obviously as a result, the colony expands rapidly.

  As a beekeeper you need to tend the colony once a week, usually about half an hour per hive from May through to September in what is called the peak season; you may check more sporadically in the months of April and October, but only on warm days, and during the winter months you are allowed to enjoy yourself and put your feet up while having honey on toast, under beeswax candlelight while enjoying a glass of mead. Must find out more about mead as it sounds delicious!

  David also mentioned that if beekeepers are really lucky there could be two honey extractions per year. So it's not a constant stream of honey, as I had thought. There could be one in the spring if you have a strong colony coming out of winter and you have a good amount of early flowers or fruit trees nearby. The usual and more e
xpected harvest is in August after the main 'honey flow'. He also said that it was very rare for a first-year beekeeper to have a good crop of honey as the colony may not be strong enough.

  Hmmm… I wonder if I will get any. Just one jar, please!

  OCTOBER 22

  I ordered some hive plans over the Internet today – all easy to do and very cheap. Something tells me though, having viewed the document online, that it might not be as straightforward as I had previously thought.

  OCTOBER 25

  My hive plans have arrived. I love the way that the first line says 'competent woodworker required'. I have to say, looking at them, they are not particularly easy. Essentially, all the plans do is provide very exact dimensions, rather than actually telling you how to put the parts together. That is like giving a cook all the ingredients, and then letting them guess how to cook it all. I am not sure how successful I will be at this.

  Having put the plans on the sofa I then watched as Sebastian crawled over and pulled himself up to grab the plans before plonking himself back down on the floor with a thump. In a way that only babies can, he then proceeded to read the plans upside down while trying to eat one side and tearing the other. The bemused look on his face as he was attempting this major feat of childhood mirrored my feelings for the plans themselves. His face was a picture and I knew exactly what he was thinking.