Bees, bees everywhere – but where is the honey on my smallholding? (From Smallholder)

Bees, bees everywhere – but where is the honey on my smallholding?

1:43pm Friday 4th June 2010 in

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I’ve just read half of Bill Turbull’s book “The bad beekeepers club” in one sitting. What a fabulous, truthful book from a man who I am sure is a much better bee keeper than he claims to be. I winced as I related to his accounts of what the bad beekeeper does compared to the good beekeepers view. I, for example, have just been down to the bees and forgot my hive tool How can you forget anything so vital? Let me recap. At the weekend my friend Richard (a very good beekeeper) came over and we approached with some trepidation the hive that last winter we had fed and closed with the words, “we’ll sort it out in the spring!” It seemed such a long way off in October.

What had happened was that for some obscure reason the hive had only four frames in the brood chamber (presumably because the colony was so small or even empty). But it wasn’t at all empty. A very strong colony seized upon it and built their own city in the brood box around the few frames and so far have resisted any attempts to get them to move to the nice, orderly brood box, full of frames, above them. So we took the hive to bits and re constructed it – it was like lego at one point and we were seriously wondering which bit went where in our plan to get them to move. On the top was the brood box they were supposed to move into which they had filled with honey. The idea being that if we moved that away from the rest of the hive, the bees would leave it and we could try again with another brood box to get them to move up. So today my simple task was to go and see if this had happened. I have learnt the hard way to kit up every time.

Take no chances. Jeans, over trousers, jacket, veil, gloves – I have it all. But no hive tool. So when I go to take the lid off the hive it is stuck to the brood box – of course – because bees seal which obviously I did know. With a bit of wriggling I do get the lid off and then face the problem of getting the brood box off but luckily there is a piece of metal handy so I improvise and do what I need to do thinking that I more than qualify for membership of the Bad Beekeepers Club.

Mission accomplished I leave the girls to it. The really good piece of news is that being the bad bee keeper that I am, when I should have brought an empty hive back to the house I didn’t and I left it up in the apiary. Thank goodness I did because with no credit at all to me, there was a strong colony in it and all I needed to do was fetch a super and frames. I might even get some honey this year…..

I do want to go to Chelsea….

Flower show that is. I went on Saturday and it rained a lot. I was clad in my finest with no coat but I had remembered to take an umberella. I had a brilliant day and the emphasis was very much on green gardening, making provision for bees and birds and grow your own – wherever you are. More of this in a future Smallholder magazine but the specially designed bee garden attracted a lot of interest as did the sustainable Scottish croft including grass roof. The big plant sell off was something not to be missed and there was something peculiarly British about a row of plants walking along Hospital Road ( a bit like when the forest moves at the end of Macbeth) with people somewhere underneath them. As we all arrived at the tube station, Sloane Square, an employee of the tubes seemed to take particular joy in shouting “ Any plant over six foot cannot come in, you will be walking home” One woman shouted out – “people are over six foot” and it went a bit quiet. I certainly saw some rather tall plants on the platform. My modest collection of a free fennel (anyone see me getting this on BBC Chelsea coverage on Saturday night?), two violas and a white thyme, arrived home quite unscathed and are awaiting their final planting places. Mousie and the barren wastelands My Exmoor pony, Mousie, writes a column every month in our Wimblington news and I have reproduced it for your amusement. Please note the bearded one is my long term partner Mick of hay making fame. Mousie refers to him as the “bearded one” as Mick enjoys a challenging relationship with Mousie, calling him “a ratty little pony, no good to man nor beast” which Mousie rather takes exception to. Also in the field are two rescued Exmoors and an Exmoor broodmare who will be returning home to foal next month.

So here is Mousie’s latest effort written a few weeks ago.

It should be summer and the spring has sprung, (rather coldly and rather late), the grass has riz or rather it hasn’t in the field that Liz chooses for us to graze. It’s no accident that in our lovely big field there is not much grass. I heard her talking to the bearded one.

“I’m worried about them”, she said. “There’s not much to eat in here but I am really determined that this is the year that they don’t get fat. I have to keep them on not much grass as they get gross on a tiny amount. I have to be tough so that they are not at risk from the painful disease laminitis caused by over eating.”

The bearded one is, as usual, not listening. He is gazing at some tractor somewhere going up and down the field.

Liz pokes him hard. “Are you listening?” she demands. The Bearded One looks terrifed. He wasn’t listening and there is no right answer to this one. Desparately he makes a guess.

“They are looking very well” he states hopefully.

Liz is not fooled. “ You didn’t listen to a word I said and I am really worried” she shouts.

And then repeats herself all over again.

The Bearded One peers at us. “They are already getting fat. They have more than enough in that field – after all they have nothing else to do all day but look for food. And they have all the hedges to go at as well.”

Look mate, you cannot be classified as anything but on the plump side. I guess the field that you and Liz graze on has good grass all year round and you must spend hours munching away to achieve your noble figures. I think the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind here.

Regretfully Liz turns away. “Yes they do look really well,” she says. “And I don’t want them getting overweight and ill so they will have to stay in this field until the hay is made and they can be moved, later on in the year when the grass is not quite so full of protein.”

Hang on just a minute. It was September when you made the hay one year. You mean we have to look for grass and nibble at the hedge for er three months? While you pair are grazing more or less freely judging by the size of you both. Hello? Can you hear me?

“Mousie looks a bit miserable” concludes Liz. “I wonder if it is because he is a bit on the fat side?”

Er no it is not because of that. It’s the prospect of all that green grass where I cannot get at it and the realisation that I will need to work hard to keep this fine figure. Liz would be depressed if told she was to live on salads for the next few months. Salads without mayonnaise and chips albeit home grown spuds. How would she cope?

Mousie welcomes correspondence – he has a pen pal in America – and views from other ponies in similar situations!

Liz is reading The Bad BeeKeepers Club by Bill Turnbull and Hedgerow Medicine by Julie Bruton Seal and Matthew Seal published by Merlin Unwin. She is at Hay Literary Festival this weekend, in conversation on Sunday 6th June with GreenPrint Director, Andy Fryers at 2.30pm talking about her new book, the Book of Self Sufficiency published by Gaia.