From A to Bee (6 page)

  A pint seemed to nullify the feelings of sadness at the situation and made me more determined to do what I can to help. Back home now, though, the enormity of the situation hits me again. I feel a call to arms is needed! Hence I have decided to set up a Facebook page for other beginner beekeepers (
www.facebook.com/beginnerbeekeepers
) to see what or who is out there. It will be nice to be able to speak to other beginners out there, to share experiences however good, bad or – in my case – stupid they may be.

A few weeks ago, you may remember, I sat in bed contemplating using a pair of compasses to measure my bees' flight path on a map. This was before I thought better of it as I was lying there next to my sleeping wife. I would definitely have been in the dog house if I dropped the compasses and stabbed her in the back while she slept. Quite pleased I didn't go through with that plan in hindsight.

  Even using those rough estimates from before I still can't quite believe the size of the area in which they fly. I also can't quite believe that despite the fact I live in the arse-end of nowhere, with cows and sheep for neighbours, there are sixteen pubs within the area. Today I was able to put the two maps needed together and review the pub situation more closely. What an excuse to have a drive around, especially as I have never even seen half of them, let alone been in them.

  Suffice to say Jo and I took Sebastian, our very little but ever-so-chubby one, on a pub crawl road trip. Essentially we went out on the proviso of visiting a couple of pubs in the local area for a few drinks and a spot of lunch. It has been quite a while since Jo and I have ventured out because Sebastian is still young, so this was deemed a real treat. Well, it was until I requested that we drive the 'long way round' so that I could look out of the window at the fields. I feel it's important to understand what my bees will be foraging on locally. It had never really dawned on me before that different flowers or crops would produce different honey and also require different methods of managing a hive. Without knowing what was growing locally, it would make the job that little bit harder.

  Imagine realising that your husband wants to visit the pub as a cover for driving around looking at fields for an hour or two. There I was, notebook in hand, nose literally stuck to the window as Jo drove around, Sebastian asleep in the back, writing notes on all the fields I saw. How very sad. A trainspotter is one thing but a field-spotter is quite another.

  The worst bit was, and I should have realised this before we set out, we are in the depths of winter. What hope had I got of knowing what was planted? It was immediately obvious that yes, there were lots of fields, but most of them contained 6 inch-high stubs of previously harvested crops. It was either that or freshly dug-over soil for mile upon mile.

  So I learned a lot today but more about the local landscape, and a few pubs, than I did about what my bees might be flying to. I will say that the afternoon got a lot more fun after the third pub, having my third variation of local ale – especially as it was a Christmas beer called 'Santa's Wobble'. As the name suggests I was wobbling slightly as I left.

  Still, it's certainly a job worth doing, though the mission wasn't really accomplished; maybe I will just have to do it all again in the spring. I might have to work harder at convincing Jo next time, though.

  Strange as it seems, in a couple of days it's the penultimate session of my training course. I still haven't seen any bees and yet I feel I am becoming strangely attached to these little black and yellow insects that for years I have been afraid of and tried to run away from. The fear seems to be abating the more I understand them and the important role they play in all of our lives but I realise it will still be a minimum of four months until I actually get to see my own bees and get my own hive. It seems a long way off.

Today's penultimate session dealt with the 'products of the hive'. Here I was thinking that meant basically 'honey'.

  I had already learned that worker bees have little wax glands on their back. The generated shards of wax are then moulded and manipulated to build the wax cells to deposit the honey in or for the queen to lay her eggs in. I know this sounds funny but I hadn't put two and two together and realised this wax can then be melted down and made into beeswax candles – I'd never really linked up the name before now.

  There are also some beekeepers who specifically harvest pollen and attach so-called pollen traps to the outside of their hives – rather ugly-looking, brightly coloured boxes which knock off pollen from the backs of the bees' legs as they fly into the hive. I have images of little boxing gloves attached to springs which come out and punch the legs of bees as they walk through the trap. Apparently some beekeepers sell local pollen for people to eat. 'A teaspoon a day keeps the hay fever away', to take a popular phrase and change it around a little bit.

  Then you have royal jelly, which really sounds special. Apparently royal jelly is fed to eggs and larvae to provide a rich diet of pollen and nectar; eggs selected as workers are fed it for a few days before switching to another foodstuff, whereas eggs selected to generate a potential new queen are fed royal jelly exclusively. Now I had heard about royal jelly before in hair shampoo but didn't have a clue that it is essentially bee food. I certainly didn't realise that it had great medicinal qualities. It is used to control Graves' disease and stimulate stem cell growth, not to mention its cholesterol-lowering and antibiotic properties. I believe, having heard all of this, humans should bathe in royal jelly every day for an hour or at least use it as an alternative to ketchup, and we would all be much healthier. I know there are some beauty salons that already use bee venom in some procedures to make people look more beautiful so I wonder how long it will be till health farms start to offer these royal jelly baths. What a great present for your wife – a bath filled with bee food!

  There are plenty of other products that can be harvested from the hive – propolis, or bee glue, is another one that beekeepers can sell on for ridiculous sums of money in some countries – who knows why? Perhaps it's simply due to its scarcity and difficulty of extraction. Until today I had just considered honey as the sole product of a beehive and was simply thinking of a beehive as something that looked nice at the bottom of the garden. I have never before considered the huge variety of substances that bees produce and the ways and means of extracting them.

  It was quite interesting to see the opinions bandied around in the meeting, though. Some of us had fallen for the idealistic notion of beekeeping and helping the bees out of this spot of bother they had got into recently. Others were looking at it through commercial eyes as a money-making option in these hard economic times. I have to say, it does seem a little strange to exploit what bees are producing as surely there must be a reason they make it all in the first place. I cannot see that one or two jars of honey are too much to take away but I am sure taking all of the products away from the hive cannot be a good thing. They certainly don't make it for our benefit and for us to take away from them. It seems almost wrong that they are struggling and yet we are harvesting everything they produce for themselves. That cannot be right, surely?

  Food for thought.

The time has come. Tonight was my last session, time to bid farewell to this group of people that I have come to know through a mutual interest over the last few weeks. Who knows if any will gravitate to becoming a true beekeeper and take on the practical element of the hobby next year but I know one thing's for certain – I will be.

  David is a bee inspector and it's my understanding now that he is one of the revered few who know exactly what they are talking about. Should I join the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA), he might pop up during a hive inspection to keep an eye on what I was doing. Daunting as it sounded, tonight David turned into a salesman and recruiter for the local beekeeping association.

  For the end of the course, we had a film to watch. It felt a bit like the last day of school when you were a child and you were able to play games or watch the TV. What fun! Halfway through there was a knock on the door and in entered, in my mind, the most beautiful specimen of a beekeeper. The beekeeper I had always imagined. The beekeeper that maybe one day I will be. The beekeeper that everybody knows. The beekeeper that looked, to me, like a morris dancer! It immediately set me at ease. My original stereotypes might be real after all. Here in front of me was a real beekeeper.

  Andrew walked in: a bit dishevelled, aged about sixty (I hope that is kind if you are reading this Andrew) with a full-on beard; it was a beard that any man would be proud of, sculpted yet disorganised, fluffy yet manly, the colour and consistency akin to that of Father Christmas. I think I had beard envy. Andrew had little rosy cheeks, though I have to say it was probably due to the cold weather outside rather than an abuse of local ales or cider. He also had a rather large belly, one I would expect of a beekeeper, and a lovely and jolly character.

  I knew this was all an act and yet Andrew and David made the perfect double act, lulling you into joining a local association. It must be said however, it did sound like the right thing to do, especially as it meant there was a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips and people to share experiences with locally. No doubt I will need this next year.

  I didn't need too much convincing. Here I was standing in front of my idea of a real beekeeper, and I was happy to do whatever he recommended. I pretty much filled out his rather crumpled up and damp forms while he was there but thought I'd better speak to Jo first. Andrew made his exit into the night, obviously satisfied that he had bagged a few more recruits, including a 'Young One' as he called me in obvious delight when I took away his information and membership form with such enthusiasm.

  We watched the rest of the film summarising the course and it was actually the first time I had seen bees in action and beekeepers working with them. It was something to behold, thinking that in a few months, that could be me.

  The paperwork David was filling out while we watched turned out to be our certificates. At the end we had a ceremony to certify that we had all attended the course. It felt a little like a passing-out parade as we all shook hands with the inspector himself and he wished us luck. We all said our polite goodbyes, left the classroom and headed into the cold dark November evening, certificate in hand, feeling just a little bit more the beekeeper than we were when we first walked into that classroom ten weeks previously. As I walked away looking at my scroll of paper, through the magnificent surroundings of this beautiful institution, alongside some other wannabe beekeepers, I only wished that school had been like this. However, our impending visit to the local pub definitely confined those wishes to the grave, especially as I would get served without question these days.