The BeeHolder, July 2009

The fateful words “why don’t we get some bees?” were uttered quite innocently. I can’t remember who first suggested it, but the touch paper was well and truly lit and it’s been all go since then.

Myself and one of my oldest & closest friends Christine are both consciously trying to become more self sufficient and be more environmentally aware and often have lots of good but totally impractical ideas on how we can achieve this, but beekeeping seemed relatively attainable…or so we thought! After doing our own research on what would be involved we decided we had better have a go at handling some bees to see if we had enough courage to do it. Not minding a few bees going about their business in the garden is one thing but 20,000 plus in close proximity is a whole different ball game.

The internet was our first point of call but the closest BKA we could find was Shropshire. As we were debating how far we would be willing to travel, fate and the County Times intervened. “MBKA AGM at “Plas Dolerw”, Newtown. New members welcome!” It’s obviously meant to be we decided and waited anxiously for the meeting.

We didn’t know quite what to expect when we got there but were encouraged by the mix of old and new beekeepers and the amount of people there. Unbeknown to us this was a surprise to everybody else too!

Even with all our previous research the people at the meeting seemed to be speaking in a different language. What were we letting ourselves in for? But by the end of the meeting we had chatted to a lot of different people, found somebody local who sold beekeeping equipment, had been invited to observe a hive being opened up after Winter and signed up for a training course with Brian Goodwin.

Phew! It was hard work but with determination and arm twisting things were moving on.

Now most of the conversations between Christine and myself seem to consist of anything bee related. “Where can we get some second hand hives?” “How would we treat for Varroa?” “Who do you know that would buy honey from us?” “Can we make candles?” Yes we were definitely becoming “Beebores”, but our enthusiasm was growing and not diminishing.

We attended and thoroughly enjoyed the training day with Brian Goodwin. After over 70 years as a beekeeper he kept us entertained with lots of information and anecdotes and we came away with plenty of handouts for future reference. The next day we went along to an apiary visit hosted by John and Brigit Newbury. They are new beekeepers too and wanted advice on where to site their hive when they get it. We thought we could only benefit by going along and how right we were! While we were enjoying a lovely tea Graham Winchestor very kindly offered to loan us a hive and equipment to set as a bait hive to catch us some bees! This was a great helping hand until we can get more equipment together and is much appreciated. We’ve also been for a visit to Graham and Jean’s apiary to have a go at handling some bees. Hopefully we behaved ourselves and didn’t upset the bees as nobody was stung. It was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done and as Christine said “the time whizzed by”

My advice to established beekeepers is to be friendly and offer lots of advice. Make any old or redundant equipment available. We need your experience and knowledge to help us keep this essential pastime alive.

And my advice to any new beekeepers is to join your local BKA, go along to meetings, apiary visits and social events. Ask lots of questions and be a bit cheeky and ask for old equipment either to borrow or buy. And the main thing I’ve learnt so far is that there doesn’t seem to be a right or a wrong way in beekeeping just your own way! All we need now are some bees!

Alisa Cakebread