TheBees
The Bees
“Oh what a lovely hobby”. I thought going all Hippy-Mother-Earth-y.
Gentle buzzing little things giving me honey for free. How marvellous. So I went on a most excellent 2-day beekeeping course in Conway.The course was a bit of an eye-opener as bees seem to get lots of ailments and beekeeping was a lot more technical than I had thought. My head filled up with words like “eke”, “queen cells”, “propolis”, “nosema”, “varroa” and “capped brood”. I soldiered on and the others in the group were very earnest and very kind to me except for one know-it-all who had been given several hives of bees and had been looking after them “quite well but needed a little bit of help”.
She hacked me off so much that when she declared that bees don’t like wool clothing I asked “Why? Would they rather wear jeans?”
No-one laughed and I got a big lecture about how they get stuck in it and cant get their little feet out.
I gouged her eyeballs out with a hive tool . . .
I was up for drifting over in a summer frock and a bee veil and grabbing combs of honey to squeeze into a jar. The outfit I ended up with was a set of thick lilac overalls with spaceman type headgear, thick gloves a welder wouldn't be ashamed of and men’s leather, knee-high work boots. I sent the grandchildren a photo and got back:-
“Oooooh look. Granny’s a TellyTubby.”
Another drawback for me was that despite having the queen pointed out to me several times I was, and to this day still am, unable to tell the difference between her, a drone, or a worker.
But, armed with a head full of archaic bee-keeping terminology, I bought two swarms and all the hives, smokers, scrapers, pickers, pokers, puffers, bodgers, wax-thing-y-ers, bee-brushes, antihistamines and antiseptic that I needed and off I went.
For four years. I looked after them. I gave them their anti-varroa medication. They stung me through my suit. I made sure the roofs of their hives were insulated before the cold weather arrived. They stung me through my suit. I weighed their hives and kept meticulous records. They stung me through my suit and a lot of them formed an impenetrable layer on my face mask in an effort to suffocate me. I made and carried buckets and buckets and buckets of sugar syrup to make sure they wouldn't starve over the winter. They stung me through my suit. I bought new bee entrance grilles so that the nasty Asian hornets wouldn't get in and kill them. They stung me through my suit and they sent stealth bees to cling to my suit quietly and then fly around the kitchen when I was suitless and defenceless so I invested in a can of fly spray.“Take that you bitches” I said.
I wouldn't mind if I was a flapper or a screamer but I'm not. Even when they stung me I reacted with a quiet wince so as not to upset the rest of them. One summer I was harvesting the blackcurrants and three of them found me and attacked me. My fault of course for sitting quietly on a stool pulling blackcurrants off branches and into a bucket.
And honey? We only get the oil seed rape as a honey-crop so we get a chance of honey in spring, but nothing in summer as the farmers don't plant anything bee-friendly and poison any wild flowers for kilometres around.
Oil seed rape honey is thick and white and tastes like fudge. It is utterly delicious, but once we took into account the costs of hives, equipment and medication, it worked out about 35 euros a jar.
And it turns out you either get more bees or you get honey. I got more bees. One year they swarmed nine times between the beginning of May and end of June. We only had five hives at the time so some of the little bastards swarmed twice. And I don't know how but they timed it so they were as much trouble as possible. Always on the weekend, so that Dave who had driven from Cardiff the night before had to galvanise himself into action; and always during a meal.
Just as fork went into mouth we’d hear the hum of 50,000 bees circling around . . . WITH ALL OUR BLOODY HONEY.
They didn't just bugger off though. They stayed. In trees, on fenceposts, or in the hedges, which meant we were obliged to climb precariously up ladders, or drag ourselves through vicious briars and brambles so we could shake them into boxes and hives. Interestingly, this was the only time I didn't get stung. We ended up with eight hives of bees but no honey.
Dave finished working in the UK and started to work at home as a carpenter and cabinet-maker and I gave him the bees.
“There you go” I said “all yours”.
And they liked him, they didn't sting him.
Dave finished working in the UK and started to work at home as a carpenter and cabinet-maker and I gave him the bees.
“There you go” I said “all yours”.
And they liked him, they didn't sting him.
Except for once when he did an inspection just as they were more evilly bad-tempered than usual because they were trying to swarm, About 40 got inside his bee-jacket and tried to sting him to death. He didn't dare unzip to shake them out as there were half a million flying over his head. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the grandchildren were all in the kitchen and wouldn't let him in because of the nasty bees. He was forced to take refuge in the polytunnel where he took most of his clothes off.
Now we have just one hive and we have honey. Dave kept telling me how nice our bees are and so I offered to help him feed the sugar syrup last autumn. He lifted the hive lid and the bees poured out of the hive forming a second bee suit for me - one made out of bees. Some of them sat on the top of my boots and tried to crawl down and sting my feet. I had to stand in a bush for twenty minutes to get rid of them. Dave was untouched, in fact they crawled over Dave to get to me.
A couple of hours later I was talking to a neighbour at the fence and a bee flew up and stung me on the eyelid.
“NO AMOUNT OF HONEY IS WORTH IT!” I screamed, before shoveling down antihistamine and paracetamol.
Now we have just one hive and we have honey. Dave kept telling me how nice our bees are and so I offered to help him feed the sugar syrup last autumn. He lifted the hive lid and the bees poured out of the hive forming a second bee suit for me - one made out of bees. Some of them sat on the top of my boots and tried to crawl down and sting my feet. I had to stand in a bush for twenty minutes to get rid of them. Dave was untouched, in fact they crawled over Dave to get to me.
A couple of hours later I was talking to a neighbour at the fence and a bee flew up and stung me on the eyelid.
“NO AMOUNT OF HONEY IS WORTH IT!” I screamed, before shoveling down antihistamine and paracetamol.
