1998: Our First full Year.
The two hives in their enclosure early 1998
I took my first brave steps and looked into the hives in April. What a sight greeted me. These bees had been left to their own devices for two years and it showed. What a mess. I also found them to be riddled with varroa, a parasitic mite that all beekeepers now have to learn to live with.
After the initial panic I cleaned things up and bought some "bayvoral
strips" to kill the mites. This done both colonies started to expand.
'Eric' with some mite killing Bayvoral strips
My first early excitement took place in Early June. I'd placed some spare hive boxes and frames near the two hives. I'd been advised to do this as it may temp my own bees to move-in should they decide to swarm. The thing was a week or so after putting them there I was greeted by a sky full of bees, clouds of them everywhere. The garden was darkened by the thousands and thousands of insects swirling about. In less than half an hour they had all but disappeared into one of the boxes…. Attracted by the empty hive a passing swarm had moved in. My first expansion. This became hive number 3.
Inspecting the hives (Note the wildflowers sown in front
of the hive, to encourage them to fly-upwards)
Note here the 'cover-cloth' over the open hive to minimise
disturbance, and also the clear plastic top board on the second hive....
I made this so that I could look in without distubing the bees.... Read
on and find out why!
I also learnt a very valuable early lesson at this time: Stings! Up till now my little charges had seemed quite docile so one day I peered just a little too closely at my hives and paid the price. Bees sense the CO2 given off by your breath. Assuming a potential intruder a guard bee homed in on the scent. Straight to my upper lip and zap I'd been stung before I'd realised….. Over the next few days my lip swelled to make me look as though I'd done ten rounds in a boxing ring. Oh well another (painful) lesson learned: Honey may be sweet but the bee sure does sting!
Looking like a boxer... My top-lip sure swelled-up...
Very embarassing
June saw my next setback. John and the rest of the family were carted
off and incarcerated to Southport hospital. In theory for an assessment.
However he was there for a year while the 'politics and bureaucracy' were
sorted out. (I hope that none of you reading this ever have to struggle
at the hands of the British National Health Service, they may be able
to help you if your sick, but helping a disabled person who is not ill,
well they are abysmal, and they can't seem to realise that it is the quality
of life of the disabled person that suffers at their ineptitude: You get
treated like a hospital patient with no thought to your mental wellbeing,
but that as they say is another story, so I'll get down from my soapbox).
Basically my helpers were gone and I was now on my own to look after the
house and my little charges.
Towards the end of June I received my first real beekeeping test. Like
all good beekeepers I'd joined my local beekeeping society even though
I'd not had time to go to their meetings. The one down side of this is
your name and phone number is now readily available for help and advice.
A phone call soon put me on the spot. " I got your number, you keep
bees:- Help, we've got a swarm of bees in our tree and we've got children,
and we don't know what to do. Can you help".
I couldn't say no could I. Some folk were in distress. This looks like
a job for a beekeeper. The only problem was that I was due to go away
with on a field trip at work for a week in a couple of days so I didn't
have much time. The swarm was not far away, the lady had phoned me because
I was the nearest keeper to them. I drove round with my kit and a skep
(a small basket for catching swarms in). They loaned me a stepladder and
the next thing that I knew I was hiving my first swarm into the basket.
It was quite easy really, except that one bee got into my veil which was
quite scary till I squished it. Quite a lot of bees get left behind when
hiving a swarm this way, which is a bit awkward. I would have liked to
have put a hive there for a few days for them to all settle into but the
folk didn't like the idea, plus I was going away... So I told them that
I would return the next day to spray the homeless stragglers which I had
to do but wasn't happy about. The family was really pleased and I felt
like I was a proper beekeeper at last. (They obviously didn't notice that
I was a real novice, or perhaps were just relieved to be shot of the swarm;
they also insisted on me taking £10, my first money from beekeeping).
The hardest part was walking back to my car surrounded by children from
all over the street.
"What you got in the basket mister", and all that kind of thing
they would ask. Me striding off still secure in my veil. Children have
no fear, "gizza look mister".
Back home I hived them up in a spare box and disappeared for a weeks field
trip with work... I'd made another expansion. Luckily they were still
there a week later when I returned. I imaginatively christened this new
hive. Hive 4.
Early September and all my hard work came to fruition. I took four full frames of honey from Hive 1 and two from hive 2. (The swarms in Hives 3&4 were still very small colonies). My first ever honey from my own bees.
The
first frame of honey
The smell in the pantry was amazing…...
I didn't have an extractor to get the honey off so employed a more primitive
technique. With no family around to help I pressganged my long-suffering
girlfriend Lynn into holding the frames of honey whilst I scraped at the
frames dragging honey, wax and all into a sterile plastic bucket. This
in turn was filtered through a fine mesh filter into jars. A long, slow
and sticky process that resulted in about 16lb's of fresh York Honey….
A lot of hard work but it was certainly worth the effort.
I immediately dispatched a jar to John in hospital. At least now he would
have something to taste to remind him of home!
And so to Winter. I fed each hive some sugar syrup and hoped that it would be a mild and short one. I've never really taken any notice of the weather, but as soon as you become a beekeeper then you certainly soon start to become an amateur weather forecaster.
And so to 99