From A to Bee (21 page)

The Chelsea Flower Show started today without me as I didn't order tickets in time this year. I have decided that scaling the fence is not an option so I will just have to watch it on TV. I feel slightly upset as I have gone for the last few years and loved it. However, it is all hotting up regarding the bee situation.

  I heard a rumour yesterday that one of the local beekeepers was running out of boxes to collect swarms. As I've mentioned before, to collect a swarm, you basically give your association a brood box full of frames and foundation, and when they are called to a swarm they take your box with them. I am definitely going to hand over my brood box on Wednesday when I go to the practical evening. The temperature touched 28 degrees Celsius today so there are plenty of swarms around at the moment and I should almost be guaranteed some bees.

  I also texted the guy who said he would be supplying my nucleus to see what he's up to, having not heard back by email. Considering I was meant to be getting the bees at the start of May it does seem a little bit late and I haven't heard a thing. I got a phone call back almost immediately but he rang my home number and left a message. In a fit of confusion – we do have the most complicated and stupid phone set-up in the world – the message was mistakenly deleted before I got a chance to listen to it but Jo is certain it said something along the lines of, 'Your bees are OK and it will be another week.' Rumour has it that he is having a problem with the queens – God knows what problems he is having but I suppose queens will be queens.

  As I said, this could be a very interesting week.

Today's practical session with my local association was the best session yet but there were two very significant incidents.

  It all started with me trudging through the car park with my brood box, filled with frames, ready to hand it to the first person who said, 'Ah perfect, just what I need, I have a swarm for you.' However, I doubted it was going to be that easy, and it didn't help that I was finding the simple task of walking with a brood box difficult enough. After taking only two steps, I tripped and fell into the bonnet of my car promptly putting a great big scratch along it. What a great start.

  One of the ladies in the group, Suzy, was there to greet me. She has actually been reading my blog and asking about my lack of bees, and she said that I should speak to Richard at tonight's session. This is the same chap who was running out of boxes and my mentor, Adam, had also recommended I see him tonight. Great news, I thought, only to find that Richard wasn't in fact there. Just my luck.

  In fact, it got even more farcical when I found out that almost all of my fellow beekeepers had now got their bees. Bearing in mind I had thought long and hard about where I would get my bees from and didn't follow the crowd, and opted for a guarantee of bees by buying a nucleus, I was spitting feathers as it slowly dawned on me that I had got it all wrong. This often happens in supermarkets when I pick the wrong queue, having analysed them all for some time and thinking I had picked the one that seems to be moving the quickest. It's just typical that this year is a very swarmy year, too many swarms around, while my nucleus maker is having a few problems…

  Apparently Eddie, another beekeeper, would be happy to take on my boxes to catch a swarm and so I went to meet him in Richard's absence. Nice guy, but he took one look at my box and said nope, I had the wrong type of floor for a swarm. I was slightly dumbfounded and saw others around me smirking. According to Eddie, swarms prefer a solid floor and not an open mesh floor, which I had been told to buy from pretty much every other beekeeper. Stumped once more, here I was with what I believed to be a five-star hotel of a bee box and it wasn't quite right, for Eddie at least.

  It was evident from others later that Eddie is a little rigid in his beliefs about swarms only settling in certain boxes and won't hear of any other opinion. I couldn't really argue with him.

  To cut a long story short, once we were at the pub and I was being consoled by the others, Adam said he would take my box and deliver it to Richard but did mention that Eddie wasn't wrong about the type of floor to use. He stated that it is generally accepted that solid floors are better for bees when housing a swarm than an open-mesh one. Usually people will swap a few weeks after housing the swarm. Result. Either way, maybe I will get my bees this week after all.

  The other story started with Tom, my worldly wise tutor, suggesting we all learn how to pick up the bees. In went Tom with finger and thumb and just effortlessly picked one up.

  This was a step too far for me. Picking up bits of wooden frame with bees on them was one thing. Actually picking up a live bee complete with a weapon of mass destruction was quite another. Tom suggested starting with drones as they have no sting and they are a little fatter and therefore easier to pick up. I was still not convinced, but in launched Richard and other fellow group member, Andrew, without even thinking. They both harpooned a bee immediately and looked at them studiously. Neil, a nice guy and the only other in the group tonight not to attempt to pick up a bee, looked at me and I at him; gladly I could see that he was as sceptical as I was.

  I couldn't be made to look like a wimp and so I made several willing advances towards the bees, finger and thumb extended and doing the occasional pincer action to show intent. Each time I got to within a whisker of a bee it moved. Damn moving things! In fact, I was breathing a deep sigh of relief each time they moved but kept up the pretence by making huffing noises and claiming the drones I was going for were obviously a fast strain. I'm not sure I fooled anybody.

  I am determined, next week I must pick up a bee, even if it does turn around, shout out that I am trapping its leg and then proceed to sting me. I need to get it out of the way sometime, I suppose.

  All in all it was a great session and one really worth going to.

People have many traits that they take from their parents. I am fortunate to have picked up the best sides of both parents and am pretty laid back, quite decisive and a relatively good communicator (or so I am told). However, one of my many faults is impatience. Now I am about to pay for it.

  At the start of the week I felt it would be a busy week, and I wasn't wrong. I hadn't heard anything about the nucleus and the rumour mill was suggesting the first week of June, contrary to what the guy had told me. So, having become excited and given my box away to catch a swarm on Wednesday, which was apparently imminent, I received a phone call today to say that my nucleus was ready to be picked up. How typical and how completely ironic. This leaves me in a position of having some bees but now I have no hive, a complete turnaround on the last few months.

  In my head I had calculated that I could give away my brood box to catch a swarm and in the meantime receive delivery of the Beehaus. I would then transfer the bees from the nucleus to the Beehaus instead – perfect, I thought. In fact, having talked to Omlet today I now realise this is a pipe dream. It is not due to arrive at Omlet until the end of next week as there have been some last-minute modifications, which they want to update before giving me the hive. My shoulders sagged and I heard my mother's voice saying 'told you so' reverberating around in my head. I have therefore had to pass on the nucleus offered so he can give that one to someone else. I will just have to wait another couple of weeks to get the next round. Hopefully by that time I will have a swarm safely ensconced in the National hive.

  Trying to get a guarantee of bees I have put myself again in a position where nothing is guaranteed! Oh well, let's soldier on and hope that an army of bees is swarming somewhere around Reigate, that a nucleus of bees in Farnham is brewing nicely and that Omlet is confident that the Beehaus is on its way.

Well, today has been a most interesting day.

  Sebastian met up with all his mates today and was having a whale of a time just larking about. It is amazing the transition in just twenty months, now seeing the little characters coming out and long-term friendships settling in. At one point, Sebastian walked up to Jo, bottom lip out and quivering. 'Bee' was the word being uttered as his little eyes started to well up a little. Immediately we started to see what the matter was and decided he wasn't just uttering letters of the alphabet at us. We started stripping him off and checking he was OK and sure enough as we removed his arm from a sleeve, a little bumblebee just flew out, completely unharmed. Sebastian very quickly started smiling again, shouting 'Bee!' at the top of his voice and excitedly jumping up and down. After a check, no stings were discovered and we all concluded that the bee had been playing hide and seek for a little while.

  We got back home and put Sebastian to sleep and I then asked Jo to help me film my first lighting of the smoker in readiness to put the clip on YouTube; a very piquant moment. I realised I hadn't lit my new smoker yet and felt I had better just test it out. Thankfully, it went very smoothly and lit first time. The smell is something indescribable but already cemented in my memory bank. Jo was impressed, I think, and I felt caveman-like, much like most men do when they light a bonfire.

  Our lovely neighbours Jo and Nicky saw me light the smoker and were intrigued and so I popped around and showed them what it was all about. Walking back from their house I received the phone call which was to change my life. It was about 7.30 p.m. by this point and a lovely evening with a few clouds in the sky and a number I didn't recognise popped up on my mobile. As soon as I heard the voice and the name Richard I knew what it was about. Richard – the 'swarm-catcher' for the Reigate area.

  This could mean only one thing. Having given my box away on Wednesday to Adam, not only must he have given my box to Richard as he said he would, but he must have a swarm for me. Here was 'the call'.

  Apparently some bees had swarmed into a nursing home's garden. Not only that, but they looked like they were Suzy from the beekeeping association's bees, who were swarming for the second time in seventy-two hours. On the Wednesday she mentioned that she had some rather prolific bees swarming, and here they were, ready and waiting for me. It sounds as if they were simply running out of room in her hive and had to get out.

  Here I was talking to an experienced beekeeper who was having to deal with all of this late on a Sunday evening and it was quite a surreal, one-sided conversation. It went a little like this:

  'I have a swarm for you, I have your box, they are fanning at the entrance and it looks like it was a successful catch. Can you come and collect them?'

  With Suzy shouting various bits of information in the background as to how to get there it was all over in about a minute. At least he proved that you don't necessarily need a solid floor for a swarm – that was my first thought. I was suddenly incredibly excited but also a nervous wreck. Eight months' worth of reading, writing, investigating and learning was about to pay off with this simple and unemotional one-minute phone call. It all seemed so easy and straightforward with one exception: I still didn't feel remotely ready.