From A to Bee (9 page)

  Pause for breath.

  I just want to start my journey and communicate my feelings and adventures to other aspiring beekeepers. I want to show people that, if I can become a beekeeper, anyone can.

  Ultimately, at the end of the day, I just want to start making my one pot of honey.

Jo, Sebastian and I went to a National Trust garden in Esher. It was one of those lovely sunny winter days with a layer of frost covering the ground, which meant it was also bitterly cold! The gardens were beautiful and dated back to 1715 and as usual old Capability Brown had an input somewhere along the line, with the rolling hills and sporadically placed tree copses dotted around to make it look all natural.

  We went back via RHS Wisley as I had been meaning to drop in there for some time now. The National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society are two institutions I cannot fault. RHS Wisley has a fantastic library there with every gardening book you could conceivably imagine. I had a feeling that they may have a good selection of books about beekeeping and fortunately I was not disappointed.

  Therefore on top of the house-sized
Beekeeping Bible
which I am trying desperately to get to grips with, I picked up
Keeping
Bees: A Complete Practical Guide
by Paul Peacock. It is by far the most modern book I have seen and has the best pictures. Not sure if this makes for a great read but it looks far more inviting than some of the others.

  I also picked up
A World Without Bees
by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, which I am looking forward to reading as its opening fact states: 'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.' This is supposedly a quote by Albert Einstein, though I have heard that it was a beekeeper by the name of Albert N. Stein, from the US – if this is indeed the truth, isn't it funny what Chinese whispers can do. Anyhow this book attempts to substantiate this claim and gives reasons for the problems they are facing.

  I am also going to go through
Beekeeping: Self-Sufficiency
by Joanna Ryde, which also looks pretty new and quite 'fashionable' with its muted, earthy-coloured front cover and modern typeface. We shall see how well it reads! Everything else seems so old and textbook-like.

  There I was in an RHS library, sitting on the floor with books all around me. There was a 'Yes' pile and a 'No' pile and then a sporadic jumble of books in a 'Don't Know' pile. I must have looked a bit of a test case and so when a lady approached me, I had a feeling she was about to ask me to leave for creating such a mess. However, she simply asked me if I needed any help with the beekeeping books.

  As I looked up at this rather demure lady, books everywhere around me, I could hardly say no. It turned out that she was one of our regional bee inspectors. Her name was Dianne Steele and I couldn't believe my luck. Maybe she was off-duty but, either way, my preconceived vision of an inspector was not really coming true. There was no uniform, no medals of service and no yellow and black beret. Dianne was just normal, lovely and thrilled to speak about bees.

  What a great person to bump into! Anyway she recommended
Bees at the Bottom of the Garden
by Alan Campion. To me, everything that
Keeping Bees
has in design, this book makes up for in functionality. It really doesn't look inspiring and is looking a little tired of life, but it does look like it is filled with detail.

  Therefore on my pile of rather modern beekeeping books I also had one rather moth-eaten book, but I was hardly going to disagree with a bee inspector. I trudged off to the counter a little bit worried about just how much reading I was about to take on.

In just the short time I have been on Facebook and Twitter I now have over 500 beekeeping 'friends', and every day I get updates on what they are doing. It's very weird having all of these virtual friends. And then, on this beginners' page, I now have over 1,000 beekeepers following the updates – amazing really, in such a short time.

  I am still working out exactly what I am doing on Facebook but it has certainly accelerated my learning alongside the course and books. Primarily it's because around the world, every beekeeper is at a different stage given their different climates, which gives me a fascinating insight. It is great to see photos and videos being shared of apiaries varying from one hive to several hundred hives. It's amazing to see the variety of hives and techniques as well as beekeepers.

  I am learning so much from beekeepers called Chuck and Chad, not to mention the number of Vladimirs and Machmels I am now in contact with. I like to think it will make me a more rounded beekeeper.

Jo and I have just staggered back from a fantastic wedding in Oxford. Not only was it at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, which was stunning, but it was, far more importantly and of far more historical importance, the first night we have been away from Sebastian together. It was quite surreal to actually have time together. We even got excited going into Beaconsfield Service Station, for example, knowing that we could sit down, have a coffee and read the paper! It is odd to have reached the stage where even a motorway service station is an exciting prospect.

  However, I got into her bad books as I decided to extend my trial of whiskey. I have never liked whiskey but really want to 'learn' how to drink it. I went through three or four samples at way past bedtime. I just love the ideology of whiskey, the heavy tumbler, the ice, a roaring fire and a traditional drink that is steeped in history. The pub had all of those elements and so I couldn't escape it, especially as our friends Ian and Darren are seasoned whiskey drinkers. A couple of hours later, and feeling as if I could say I was a whiskey drinker, I stumbled away from the bar. Great wedding, Sarah and Ben, congratulations.

  Sebastian loved being away from us, by the way. He had a great time with Nanny, not realising we had gone away.

  On a separate note, I have now had more time to read through the plans for the beehive. They look far more complicated than I initially thought and this is not because they are somewhat misshapen and littered with teeth marks from Sebastian's attempts to eat them a few weeks back. I thought it was essentially a box. I hadn't really considered the types of joint that were required, the glue that was to be used or the paint to preserve the hive. It was all very particular and precise.

  A hive should be perfectly square and have absolutely no holes or gaps anywhere if you want your bees to survive through the winter and generally accept the hive. It does state quite clearly 'competent woodworker required', as I noticed when I first opened the plans, and the fact that I struggle to identify what is wood and what isn't probably doesn't put me in this category. I was beginning to think that the Dearsley Bodge Job and a beehive were looking an unlikely combination.

  There was another funny comment in the plans and my eyes just went out on stalks when I thought of the consequences! It states that the National hive is preferred by many because 'more hives may be packed on commercial vehicles or the domestic car' – yes, the domestic car! Who would be crazy enough to put a beehive in their own car? Can you imagine if just one of the little insects got out and the carnage that could cause, let alone all 60,000. I then read on a little further: '… and up to eight, transported in estate models.' WHAT!!!! One hive was mad; eight would be bonkers! Imagine if they all got out: 480,000 bees flying around the car. What on earth would other drivers think?

  Tomorrow I will be sending my plans to my father to get prepared. I have to find the cedar wood to start with as this is what is recommended. Where on earth am I going to find that?

There I was, at work, logging on to my Twitter account as usual. I use it a lot in my corporate world, much to the amusement of my colleagues who hear me 'tweeting' all day long with the bird type sounds the computer makes every five minutes or so! I was settling down to my cup of coffee, catching up on the news and information flying past my eyes on the computer screen. Suddenly a message popped up from @stevefreeman, someone I had been conversing with and a relatively local beekeeper.

  It read: 'Might have some bee news for you James, can you send me your email if you are still interested in a nuc or two? Thanks, S'.

  Wow, could this be the first step to getting some bees? A 'nuc', or nucleus, is a small amount of bees; usually a hive will have eleven frames and a nuc will contain five, ideal for a beginner. Would my journey actually turn into something real? What exactly did he mean by 'bee news'? My heart was beating a little faster and I got a little excited. I realised this could be the moment my beekeeping life kicked off and became real.

  I immediately sent a message back with my email address, trying to sound all nonchalant about it. Deep down though, it felt similar to being a teenager again after a date. Working out how keen you want to sound by the speed of your reply and then, when you do reply, carefully sculpting that reply to not sound too desperate.

  An hour later and Steve hadn't replied. Maybe I had scared him off by replying about five seconds after the message. Oh no, my teenage years were coming back to haunt me. Perhaps I should have left it at least ten seconds before replying. It was awful; I was literally on the edge of my seat, waiting for a message.

  Come the end of the day, there was still nothing. I sent Steve another message. Again, nothing. It is now 10 p.m. and I have just sent another. I'm slightly concerned now that I may be stalking him – another flashback from years past. I never thought I would be a beekeeper, let alone a stalking one. This is awful, I must stop.