What a momentous day. You are meant to leave the bees for a couple of weeks to allow them to start building the colony with the only intervention being constant feeding. After all, they have to build a new home and get the queen laying eggs as soon as possible to keep the colony going. Therefore I have done what I am told – there is a first time for everything – and today was the day earmarked to look inside.
I wanted to film the event for posterity but decided early on that asking Jo to pop up to the hive would not be a husbandly thing to do. Richard from the beekeeping association stepped in. He agreed to help out and film this exciting first inspection of my own bees and generally hold my hand through the experience – absolutely needed, I have to say.
There are not many things that scare me, and I've been fortunate to have grown up with the confidence to give everything a go. There are two things that have never sat comfortably with me, though. Firstly horses. I am particularly scared of horses. When I was a child, one decided my mop of blond hair looked far too inviting and bit off a huge clump of it thinking it was hay.
Aside from horses, bees have always held a slight fear and here I was about to open up a hive – and on film. That made as much sense as touching a horse's rear end as I walked behind it.
Feeling very nervous, I opened the hive, following the correct procedure of smoking in all the right places. The first thing that struck me was the sound. There was this amazing buzzing sound coming from the hive. Yes, I knew, of course there would be buzzing but this was really BUZZING! It didn't just sound louder. I know that bees buzz at middle C but this sounded an octave or two higher. Bearing in mind I have been using the small, almost runt-like hive at our association, this sound was an indicator that perhaps there were more bees than I was used to and also that they were perhaps not as placid as my usual bees. As I continued the inspection it appeared to be the latter and I was feeling a little stressed as a consequence. I can't really describe the feeling of bees, almost kamikaze-like, flying straight at your veil in full attack mode. Attack after attack came as they obviously weren't happy I was there. It felt quite uncomfortable and something I hadn't really expected.
I will not describe all of the inspection as it would go on for a bit but aside from the kamikaze bees, it was all looking good. I reckon I have about seven frames of bees and some frames where the bees have been building out the comb ready for the queen to lay in or to put stores (this is usually termed as 'drawing out' comb). I am really pleased with this because I also saw sealed brood and evidence of eggs and larvae. Therefore, though I saw neither Cleopatra nor Nefertiti, I know a queen is actively laying. The mystery continues as to which queen I actually have, but I am not overly concerned as long as she is laying.
It is incredible to see experienced beekeepers look at frames at the association evenings. There I was today studying each frame for several minutes trying to find the queen whereas an experienced beekeeper like Adam would literally spend a second looking and go, 'There you go: Queenie!' I must perfect this art.
Aside from signs of a laying queen I also saw some sealed stores of pollen and honey, which is great. Looking at the newly generated comb is just magical. Understanding that I have simply put wax strips into a box and within a week or two the bees had made the most beautiful honeycomb is quite astounding really.
Having put the hive back together again and taken a deep breath, I thanked Richard for all his help and tried to reflect on exactly what had happened. It may sound strange but in a way I am quite relieved that my first inspection is over. Not only was I nervous but they were far more feisty than I had expected. Maybe they were feeding off my nerves?
The enormity of the situation is beginning to hit me. Last week I was almost a beekeeper and today I actually became a beekeeper.
JUNE 15
Everything seems to be coming together quite nicely at the moment. My Beehaus is in transit and finally my nucleus of bees is almost ready. Fortunately there has been another little delay and so hopefully I will have the new hive set up in time for their arrival but based on what I saw in that inspection yesterday, I am also pretty confident that the jar of honey may be possible from that hive alone as they were going like the clappers.
I am really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about with regard to the Beehaus. It has received a lot of press and there have been lots of positive reviews and some not so positive. However, being a complete beginner I am going to be very interested to see which hive I get along with best.
I find it quite appealing that there are two hives lying side by side in the Beehaus; this seems to be one of the major positives about the design. I am slightly concerned that the old-fashioned method of collecting a swarm by giving your box to a swarm-catcher like Richard would be difficult with the Beehaus. It would be quite funny seeing them trying to catch the swarm in a brightly coloured freezer.