I spoke to a few of the beekeepers at the association today and explained my predicament. It seems that almost everybody has now extracted their honey and is enjoying the fruits of their labour. Many have been saying that it has been the best flow of honey for years. They all said that getting a jar or two in that first year is always a difficult affair, but starting as late as I did would make it practically impossible. This just confirmed what I feared all that time ago but was probably not willing to admit.
A few were understandably sceptical of my motivations of trying to get a jar of honey and thought I was mad to go running around the country on the search. However, there were others who could see what I was trying to do and some suggested that I take a little bit from the brood stores. After all, if it was just enough honey for one small jar then it shouldn't affect the bees too much, especially if I planned to feed them as well. I had never considered this before but it gave me a viable backup plan. I wasn't particularly keen, but they had plenty of stores in the hive based on the inspection at the weekend so maybe, just maybe.
Originally I was planning for a nice large jar of honey to put on the breakfast table but now I'm thinking about altering this plan. If there is not enough honey in the super and I take some from the brood box, I don't really want to take too much after all. I was given two of the smallest glass jars by Omlet as some of the freebies that came with the Beehaus. These weren't quite on a par with those tiny plastic jam or honey capsules you get in a hotel but they weren't an awful lot bigger. As they are glass, I am sure I could get away with calling these a jar. Perfect: my standards have lowered to an achievable aim and I wouldn't be affecting the bees too much.
SEPTEMBER 12
I made the decision to leave the hive at the Devil's Punch Bowl for a little while longer as I would like to give them the opportunity to take on as much of the heather as possible, so I had only the Beehaus to check today.
I didn't see the queen but I did see that she had been laying recently, which was encouraging. There was one thing within the inspection that truly astounded me however; the 'waggle dance'. Now I have been doing plenty of inspections since I started back in June but I had yet to see a waggle dance at full throttle. It was fascinating. I thought originally that they just did a waggle and then disappeared to get on with other duties. Seeing a bee doing a waggle dance in a particular area and then moving across the frame a little to do it elsewhere, to then move again was really interesting to see. It probably explains how information can travel so fast through the hive. These magical little messengers were simply mesmerising to look at as they spread their good news.
When I was watching this amazing dance I was struck by the thought that I hadn't used a lot of smoke on this inspection. Maybe I had been smoking them too much previously and it was probably like dancing through the smog-filled backstreets of London during the 1950s. They must have given up, thinking that the darkness is bad enough, let alone this smoke stuff.
Regardless, it was lovely to see this dance for the first time in my own hive and not on a video of someone else's. Yet again I was reminded of how amazing they are.
SEPTEMBER 13
Something quite unexpected happened today. I have mentioned before that I live on a farm track. The farm at the bottom is owned by a gentleman by the name of Steve, a quite elusive character who keeps himself to himself. In fact, other than wave at him as he drives by our house, I have never really set eyes on him.
From what I have heard from others, he isn't the nicest of characters and certainly he doesn't get on with Farmer Ray who lives opposite. Let's just say there is a lot of historical politics going on which has got quite unpleasant from what I can understand. So I was quite wary of meeting Steve, who by profession is actually a carpenter and had now turned his hand to farming. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when his car pulled up next to me as I was walking down the track.
His big black van with tinted windows drew to a halt and the windows rolled down to expose a slightly gaunt face with aviator-style sunglasses. He must have been in his fifties and it looked like he hadn't had the easiest of lives. I am not sure how I can describe the greeting but it was certainly abrupt, and the entire conversation went like this:
Steve: 'You're the beekeeper fella, aren't you?'
Me: 'Yep, that's me, I just started this year and have a couple of hives, one is actually elsewh–' He cut me off.
Steve: 'Good, I have several thousand apple, pear and cherry trees up there at the farm. If you want to put your hives there feel free. I asked the beekeeping association before but no one returned my call.'