This was one job I did not want to miss and so I elbowed my way to the front of the queue and got stuck right in. When I turned the gas on from the gas bottle there was that slight time delay and then the all-too-familiar hissing sound you usually hear when you switch on a gas oven. With a few butterflies in my stomach I flicked the lighter ready for my eyebrows to be singed at any moment. Hey presto! With immediate force the flamethrower was lit and despite my momentary jump backwards from the surprise at its strength I was ready to go.
The problem here is to remember that you actually have a lethal weapon in your hand. I had to stop myself singeing the ground and perhaps more worryingly, stop myself flaming the plastic pipe leading to the gas bottle which I managed on several occasions. Not a good idea. After a while you also get a little carried away and you have to remember to keep the gun away from your fingers as well. It sounds stupid but you are flaming quite detailed bits of kit and so I did find this a little bit of a challenge; a fun challenge though. All in all, it was not as easy a job as it looked and was quite dangerous. What a fabulous way to finish the session, though: must get me one of those next year!
JULY 30
It seems quite usual now to be stating that tomorrow's will be an important inspection. However, not only will I be praying, probably in vain, that the bees might have started to get me some honey, but there is a rumour of a serious bee disease locally and I sincerely hope my bees haven't got a problem.
When I did my beekeeping course I was surprised at the level of attention diseases were given; but I have since grown to understand that this is an integral part of the process of keeping bees. Knowing how to look out for, protect against and, if necessary, deal with diseases has become a very real part of my beekeeping life. In fact I would go so far as to say that disease is now my first concern when it comes to looking after bees. It really has become that serious.
Already this year I have done various varroa checks on my hives and fortunately I haven't seen any evidence of the mites. (If you have superb sight you can look for these mites on the bees themselves, and then you know there must be a pretty heavy infestation, but the alternative method is to put a board in beneath the brood and count the number of mites that fall through the hive in a given time period.) However, bees can suffer from 'brood' diseases, and two of the most well-known are American Foul Brood and European Foul Brood (AFB and EFB). Both of these diseases are taken very seriously by the Beekeeping Authorities as obviously they have very grave consequences.
When I started beekeeping I was advised to sign up to BeeBase, a website (it can be accessed at www.nationalbeeunit.com) which allows you to register your hive locations. This is important for many reasons but the most important is that they will be able to monitor disease problems locally and notify other beekeepers that may be affected. This is what happened this morning. I received an email from our local bee inspector informing me of an outbreak of European Foul Brood very nearby – in fact it is probably within three miles of my hives.
On this occasion, the exact location of the problem beehive is unknown as it is from an unregistered beekeeper who didn't want to give his details other than his general geographical area. This seems a little strange but it demonstrated to me the danger for us beekeepers if you are not registered. Apparently this discovery only came about by chance when the beekeeper was trying to sell a nucleus of bees and the person buying them noticed they were diseased and reported them. Sadly because they had met in a mutually convenient location, he wasn't sure of the origin of these bees. Bad, isn't it, the lengths some people will go to cover up their own mistakes?
I have therefore responded by email to the inspector to see if he wants to pop round to check my hives out as well. From my understanding EFB or AFB both need to be reported to the National Bee Unit who carry out work on behalf of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) so it is all pretty serious stuff. American Foul Brood is worse than the European as there is simply nothing you can do save burning your whole hive in a pit in the ground – imagine that. It is caused by bacteria getting into a cell and killing the larvae just after the cell is capped. The tell-tale sign for those of us checking is that the cell cappings will appear sunken and brown in colour rather than the usual white. The test is to agitate the cell capping with a matchstick and should it be infected with AFB, when you remove the matchstick, a residue rope will be hanging from the stick. Also, there is apparently a distinctive smell to AFB that people have said is a fishy aroma. European Foul Brood sounds like it is more treatable. It actually kills the larvae before the capping (essentially by competing for food and thus starving it) and the larvae will obviously have quite a different appearance than usual. There are two sorts of treatment: firstly by administering oxytetracycline (but only by an inspector), and secondly by replacing all the frames that the bees are on. This can be done by administering something called a 'shook swarm' – essentially achieved by shaking the bees on to new frames. If this fails and EFB remains then again you have to burn the whole lot.
I simply cannot imagine how a beekeeper would feel if he had to dig a hole in the ground and then set fire to the whole lot. That must be terrible.
Therefore, tomorrow I shall be looking more carefully than usual to make sure everything is OK. Apparently, because I have new frames and bees from a nucleus, I should be fine, but you can never be too careful.
JULY 31
This afternoon I approached the hives with rather more trepidation than usual. All appeared fine as I opened up and inspected the Beehaus. The bees are continuing to draw out comb and are building a healthy level of stores ready for winter. The bees are now covering about nine of the frames and have eggs on at least five of them so all seems to be cooking nicely in there. I spotted Queenie and she seems to be laying well and so I closed the hive up feeling pretty happy. There was no sign of EFB anywhere, which is a relief.
As I looked over to my feisty National hive while inspecting the Beehaus I could only wonder at the activity around the hive entrance. I can only describe it as thousands of bees gathering at the entrance clambering to either get in to or out of the hive. When I got round to inspecting it, the bees on the frames were relatively calm and yet there was mass hysteria outside the hive. The inspection went without incident, though I was disappointed not to see Queenie for a second week. However, I know she is there as there was again evidence of her laying recently. There were only two frames' worth of brood, which just shows that everything is starting to slow down a little bit. It's quite sad that autumn is fast approaching.
I saw that there was a little honey deposited into the frames of the super – then I realised it wasn't really honey, though, as it wasn't capped – this means that it was still nectar. It is my understanding that when nectar is deposited into cells it is 70 per cent water and this needs to reduce to around 20 per cent before the bees are satisfied that it is honey and cap the cell to cure it for another time. Sadly, none of these cells were capped meaning the chances of my getting any honey are becoming fewer and fewer. Unless I do something pretty drastic like move my hive to some late-flowering crop, it is unlikely that I will be getting any honey this year.
I have heard from discussions with other beekeepers that heather is particularly late-flowering and this has reminded me of Steve from the London Honey Company. He said he would move his hives to the heather later on in the year to get a late crop of honey but this was in north Wales somewhere. Apparently the really good areas of heather are in the north. As much as I have been storing up the few brownie points I have earned this year, I don't think it is conceivable to suggest to Jo and Sebastian that I needed the weekend to drive my beehive to Wales or anywhere else north of Watford. This meant the option of finding an area of heather is probably out of the question. I won't be put off, however, and so I wonder where I can find some heather locally, even a small patch, and whether I would be able to put my bees on there? Hmm…
So much to do and so l
ittle time and I am not hopeful of any success. It would be devastating to get this far and not manage my jar of honey but at least I would have learned some valuable lessons for next year.
AUGUST 7
Jo's friends were coming over for a 'girls' afternoon today which meant I was told to leave the house for a few hours. I started by feigning disgust that I was being asked to leave my own house while they all sat around drinking tea and gossiping. In the back of my mind however, naughty thoughts harking back to pre-fatherhood days were swirling around. These included:
• watching the football
• going to the cinema
• going for a walk
• going to a pub with an open fire, which I would just stare at
• meeting up with friends
• reading the paper over a leisurely coffee
And even…
• going shopping
In the end I decided on taking shopping to a new level and went on the search for beekeeping equipment. Oh dear, what have I become? I think this must have been going through Jo's head when I told her. My poor wife. I'm no longer the husband she married.
I left the house with a spring in my step and made the forty-minute drive south to Paynes, the beekeeping store in Hassocks, Sussex. Driving down I was imagining it to be just a normal-sized, modern-looking shop on a high street but selling beekeeping equipment.
I was driving down a normal main road, which was looking suspiciously residential, when a sign appeared on my left hand side – that was it – Paynes Bee Supplies. It led me down a tiny one-way private road, only just large enough for a single car to travel along safely, with houses on each side.
I came to a small row of houses and what appeared to be a large shed off to the back of it. And that was the shop. I couldn't hide my delight. A really well-known beekeeping company was basically being run from a shed!
I walked up to the shed (OK, it was actually quite a large shed with what looked like extensions on all sides, but did I mention that it was yellow?) and it all seemed deserted. I then noticed that its opening times, stuck on a board on the now closed shed door, were 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at weekends. Damn, it was 2.30 p.m. I couldn't believe it, how stupid was I, not to have looked up the opening times before I left?
My luck must have been in however, as a man in his early forties came out of the house next door, said 'Hi, I'm Mike,' and promptly opened up the shed. 'I'm still here so I thought I would say hi.' I am sure I wouldn't get this sort of service at a normal shop on a high street one and a half hours after closing time.
My first impression when I entered the shed was one of delight. The first thing I wanted, a large green feeder like one I had borrowed earlier in the year from Suzy, was literally at my fingertips as I walked through the door. This made a nice change to my usual incompetent bumbling around supermarket aisles trying to find something.
The place was jam-packed, floor to ceiling with bee equipment. Everything you could conceivably think of was available; the sheer amount of equipment they had fitted into the shop was incredible. There were hive parts everywhere, not to mention frames, feeders, extraction equipment and even a variety of ratchet mechanisms. I could have stayed there for hours looking through it all and learning what equipment did what but I felt sorry for Mike who had opened up just for me so I felt it was time to go.
Then I became distracted by the wall of honey and I was rooted to the spot. I may now know that there are more varieties of honey than you can get from a supermarket, but this really took it to a new level. With the honey jars displayed together in a simple but striking manner it was stunning to see the different coloured honey next to each other. The collection of honey made up an entire wall spanning about 8 feet by 8 feet and it was like looking at a rainbow of honey colours with everything from runny honey to solid, more granular varieties.
It was literally covered with jars of honey in all shapes and sizes and from all corners of the globe – I noticed New Zealand, Australia, Bulgaria and even Hungary – and it was a sight to behold. I didn't notice any Polish honey, however; those gents from the parking lot back in May this year obviously weren't that good at marketing their product outside of Lodz. I was pretty sure that Jo liked really runny honey and so I picked up what I could tell was the runniest honey, which was from Hungary. It was Echinacea honey and looked almost the consistency of water and beautiful with its rich golden colour. To be classified as Echinacea honey it must be a monofloral honey, which means that the hives that this honey came from have been placed in an area almost exclusively made up of Echinacea. That must be quite a sight.
Mike was lovely and really nice to talk to; apparently they have over 500 hives dotted around Sussex. Can you imagine? That could equate to 30 million bees at the height of summer! It takes over four weeks just to extract the honey, even though they have an extractor that fits forty frames at a time (the usual extractors fit only four or six). Amazing.
After about half an hour I decided to leave Mike to his Saturday afternoon. Having heard all about marking queens and knowing that I struggle to see my queen in the National hive, I took on some of Mike's advice and left with a 'queen marking cage', which allows you to isolate her without other bees around. While she is trapped you can apply some gentle pressure to expose her thorax and can then dab her with a special marker pen to leave a permanent mark. It allows you to identify her far more easily in the future. Mark advised me to go for a blue marker pen as he reminded me that each year the colour changes for your queen. In short, if you have a queen born in a certain year you have to mark her with a certain colour. This allows you to keep a record of how old she is but also, if they swarm, it allows the new recipient to work out her age as well.
I left a happy man but I arrived home to realise that I had mucked up. Jo actually liked really thick honey. Damn. Still, it was a really nice afternoon and I am really pleased I got down there.
AUGUST 8
Still no capped honey! This isn't going well and it's looking increasingly unlikely that I'm going to get my jar of honey this year.
AUGUST 14
I find it most perturbing at the moment. Everyone is starting to talk about the bees slowing down with their queens laying less, the honey flow being over and it feeling autumnal already. No, no, no, it should be the height of summer! I usually love August but this is getting me down.
It seems that as soon as I have got myself started on this whole bee journey it is already coming to a close with the season drawing to an end. My local association announced at the last evening meeting that inspections will start to decrease at the end of the month once all the extractions have taken place. Apparently after an extraction, beekeepers will generally check their hives every other week as the season starts to wind down.
To me it brings a whole new dimension to beekeeping and I will have to read up on looking after them through the winter. A lot of people feed bees and some even wrap the hives up to keep them nice and warm.
No honey for me this year, then. I must just get them through the winter. A shame really but there you go. It is funny, at the start of the year I was so desperate to gain a jar of honey but as the year has gone on, having now got my bees, I realise there is much more to it than just the honey. However much I would have loved to get a jar, in reality it is about helping them out. Now that I have these bees I feel a real sense of responsibility and wonderment towards them and I just want to make sure they will be all right going into next year. It's funny how your priorities change, isn't it?
AUGUST 16
I am the type of person that likes to bury their head in the sand and I feel I have been doing this recently. I know I should really be thinking about the bees' well-being as autumn approaches, but there is definitely an element of disappointment with the chances of a jar of honey diminishing. I just haven't felt like writing a lot recently. However, I have had a week off from work, where I went away with the family and I am back with a cunning plan (similar to those that
Baldrick used to conjure up if you are a Blackadder fan like me – which perhaps doesn't bode too well).
There are many stories of heather honey floating around at the moment as it has been such a good year for honey production. This almost mythical honey is produced late in the season as heather usually flowers late in the summer once the nectar flow has finished elsewhere. The Yorkshire moors are renowned for having heather in abundance. One slight problem, however, is the fact that I am about five hours away from the north and though in one of Baldrick's madcap plans I would probably fly up there on the back of one of the bees, I cannot justify these geographical factors in my plan.
Therefore today I felt it was time to put on my thinking cap at lunch over a cup of coffee and a sandwich. My first approach was to put a shout out to my Twitter and Facebook followers to see if anyone knew of a sizeable area of heather that is local to me. This was an easy first step but I had no idea of where to go next. I was prepared to move my beehive somewhere in the south-east but no further. It left me with a pretty sizeable area to search and my resources were limited.
During these moments of pondering I received a good omen. Another regular at the coffee shop popped in and said hello. David, a chef who regularly walks in straight from work with the classic checkerboard chef's trousers, then said quite loudly, 'Ah ha, just the person – I have something for you!' Having absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I wondered exactly what he could have got for me. He disappeared back out of the cafe and wandered off down the street. Now David and I have rarely spoken but he had gleaned that I was a beekeeper, despite my appearance in a suit and tie, and that I was aiming for a jar of honey this year.
From A to Bee Page 20