From A to Bee (3 page)

For someone who has been around bees for most of his life, it's inspiring to see that David's passion for them remains strong. So are his concerns. Though I understand that we are going to discuss bee diseases at a later date, he obviously can't avoid the elephant in the room: the problems bees are facing. I have read a few articles about the problems but I genuinely didn't realise their extent.

  Currently bee colonies are being wiped out at a rate of at least 30 per cent per year, David says, every year. In some cases, beekeepers in the US have been seeing losses reaching 70 per cent in some years. The almond plantations in California are already having to ship in beehives to help pollination as there simply aren't enough bees to do the job locally. Considering this is an 800 million dollar business there is a serious dependence on bees: can you imagine manually pollinating thousands of acres of almond trees? I have heard about a situation in the deepest depths of China where people are employed to walk around orchards all day with feathers on long sticks to manually pollinate fruit trees. I can't quite see this happening in America somehow. Meanwhile, shipping thousands upon thousands of hives could be contributing to the problem, with the bees getting stressed on long journeys.

  What is also interesting is the breakdown of the colony. Of the 60,000 bees in the colony, 90–99 per cent of those are the daughters and these are termed the worker bees. The name is particularly relevant when you consider what these bees do in their lifetime:

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!

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!

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.

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 National; 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.