In my 20 somethings I had many ambitions. They were mainly all centred around a means to buy silly priced, beautiful Chanel sunglasses that I can't really afford. Oh.. and sustaining my partying lifestyle. Beekeeping doesn't usually naturally fall onto the radar of someone who's main priorities start with a Friday night Vodka and end with a Sunday evening hangover.
It has been on my peripheral radar however since the age of 15, this is when we moved in with my Stepfather. He kept bees at the school which he taught at, and having our own honey was something I took for granted. I had no real interest in his hives at all. Then one year an electrical fire burned the lot, all those years work looking after multiple colonies was destroyed in a matter of hours .
Being a brat, with far greater concerns (such as how many shades of Barry M eyeshadow I could wear at once, and trying to snog skateboarders) I barely even noticed. It wasn't until the following summer when I got my first bout of hayfever in years, I realised that there were significant and definite perks to having our own local honey. An immunity build up to the local pollen was one!
I just assumed that my Stepdad would get the kit and start over, but as the years went on It seemed like his heart wasn't in it. Who's would be after losing everything that had taken years to build?
By my mid 20's that little part of your brain that controls empathy, (the one that seems to hibernate in youth) had kicked back in. I thought it was a real shame that he didn't seem to want to keep bees again, it was such an interesting thing to do. So, I got scheming. I figured if I went out and learned how to do it, it might be something he would be up for doing together. A chance for some father daughter quality time.
Sure enough when I enrolled on the Cheshire Beekeeping course that year, he enrolled to.. you know.. to err "keep me company" and so the journey began. It was on this course I noticed that I didn't have a great deal in common with anyone else other than learning about bees. Everyone was lovely, but I was very unlikely to bump into them that weekend raving it up in Manchester.
My course was in two parts. A theoretical course in the winter (Bees are like anyone else, they get narked off if they get cold or wet so you leave them alone in the winter) and a practical part in the summer where you get stuck in to the hives.
It then took another 18 months to find somewhere to put a hive.
Beehives seem to be idiot magnets. Oxygen thieves take great pleasure in throwing rocks at them, then wonder why all of a sudden they are surrounded by a bunch of very angry house proud, stingy women. So you need to find a place where they won't be bothered by said idiots. Then when you have found this place, you need to convince those in close proximity that the bees have far better and more pressing matters than to go round on suicide missions stinging everyone. This, is most definitely the hardest part.
Just for the record, I have worked hives in colonies of about 8 when on the course. That's a LOT of bees (average of about 40K per hive I think) and I am still yet to be stung. That even includes 2 occasions were bees have managed to get into my protective hat. I'm not saying they never will, and I'm sure over the course of this blog I will get stung. But bees don't fly around looking to start fights unnecessarily, it's us humans that do that.
Then, whatever you do. Once you have found this rare and special place, please please dear reader, don't then go out all weekend, get heroically drunk and get pregnant. Because as I found from first hand experience, they don't make maternity bee suits for good reason.
So this brings you up to speed and to the present. Last year was written off due to me doing my best impression of a hippo. Luckily my Stepdad, Harry and Melanie (our fellow beekeepers who kindly allow us to share a hive in their garden) got a hive built up and colonised. So begins the story of Swarm and the City, I hope you enjoy reading it over the coming months, now i'm off to find out if Jimmy Choo do wellies.
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