The average age is about 45 and about 60 per cent are male. Thirty per cent of them started the course with beards and now I would say at least 50 per cent have them and so it does seem that some are starting to morph into my stereotypical beekeeper as the course goes on. Fortunately I don't seem to be changing just yet, although I do seem to be enjoying more cider recently…
OCTOBER 29
Last night at my session not only did I learn a little bit more about my fellow classmates, we also learned a lot about swarming. Before now I had never considered swarms, other than hearing horror stories about people seeing them fly by with almost military precision, with a noise equivalent to a jet plane flying past, and everyone diving for cover. Needless to say I was pretty sure swarms were not a good thing. I was quite taken aback when I realised it was quite the opposite in fact.
I had never before considered the reason for a swarm. I discovered that it is an example of the amazing perception of the colony that knows it is under threat and does something about it. A 'new' queen is raised – how, I do not know yet – and the old queen leaves the hive with between 1,500 and 30,000 bees to set up a new colony elsewhere. There are a multitude of reasons for this, which could include a diseased hive or the fact that they are running out of space but in any case, they do it in the interests of the colony.
It also transpires that this is the time that people are least likely to get stung. David showed us pictures of beekeepers with various limbs being inserted into a swarm once it had come to rest. He then decided to show us a picture of a beekeeper with a 'bee beard', which is exactly what it sounds like, i.e. thousands of bees that affix themselves to someone's face. As they are in a swarm state they are said to be calm and docile. Having looked online tonight, while thinking about this whole swarming malarkey, I found out that the current 'world record' – how is there a world record for this sort of thing?! – was 57 pounds of bees!
The crazy thing about these bee beards is that they date back to the 1700s. Surely there must have been better things to do than layer your chin with bees. Another ancient technique was known as 'tanging' – apparently back in the day, people saw a swarm as good luck and hence tried to lay claim to the swarming bees. They would run after the swarm banging pots and pans to try to calm the bees and 'tempt them into stopping'. People would then rest their handkerchief over the swarm to lay claim; another piece of silly British tradition and a practical demonstration of just what you can do with a handkerchief.
NOVEMBER 4
Tonight it really struck me just how much I have already learned about bees but, at the same time, just how much more there is still to learn. David took us through the mechanics of the queen bee today. It just shows how important she is with a whole session dedicated to her, and to be honest she is quite an amazing subject. However, David was quite quick to state she was simply an 'egg-laying machine', and though it was a relatively complex job, that was all she really was.
I can't quite imagine our queen wanting to be labelled this way but it was interesting to hear that actually the queen isn't the real leader in the hive. Like us, a democratic society, the workers and drones are the real decision-makers (OK, I realise that might sound a little naive!) and arguably, because of the variety of jobs they do, are also the more advanced bee.
The queen bee seems to keep the colony together and calm by emitting pheromones. Apparently, if the queen suddenly dies, within fifteen minutes the colony will be aware of this and will immediately set about raising a new queen. This is also true if they feel that the queen is losing a bit of strength or if she has accidentally been damaged; the bees will start raising a new one, even if she is still present in the hive. I find this all rather astounding. How on earth can a colony of 60,000 make a collective decision on these sorts of matters within fifteen minutes?
I have a theory that it is either a very complex game of Chinese whispers (although unfortunately if that were true, what started out as 'we must raise a new queen' could end up something completely different) or evidence of a highly functional, structured and organised set-up which, at my current level of expertise, I simply cannot explain.
Can you imagine this happening in our world: 60,000 people trying to make a decision to essentially bump off the Queen? It would take fifteen years, not fifteen minutes. I couldn't see Queenie being too pleased if, while walking around Buckingham Palace, she saw one of her footmen desperately hiding a new queen behind a coat of armour in the corner of the throne room. In the bee world, the old queen gets the hump and flies off with half the colony. To top this off, David went on to tell us some even more amazing facts about queens that I wasn't already aware of: