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.
MAY 26
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.