There’s been a surge of interest in beekeeping recently, with membership of the British Beekeeping Association up 25 per cent in 2009. People are keen to produce their own food, but many are also interested in helping conserve the threatened honeybee. Last year Which? Gardening’s Head of Research, Richard Gianfrancesco, took up beekeeping to find out what it’s like for a complete novice. He gives the following advice:
The first thing to do is work out how to get started, and the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) website www.britishbee.org.uk is a great place to start. It lists all the local associations, as well as plenty of useful information. You will need to find a course run by a beekeeping group as it will soon becomes clear that there’s more to beekeeping than you may think. Beekeepers have to understand the biology of the honeybee, and in particular how they form large social groups in which individuals have different tasks such as foraging, guarding, and laying eggs. Only then can you learn how to take advantage of their honey-making skills to turn them into productive livestock.
Mentoring is vital in the first year of beekeeping. Being able to recognise and understand bees’ behaviour, and respond to it appropriately, is not at all easy for a novice. You need to buy some kit: a protective jacket with hood, a pair of gloves (marigolds or leather gloves are fine), a metal hive tool which helps to pry, scrape and lift out individual frames, and a smoker (smoke helps to move bees away from where you are working, and can calm them down). You should be able to buy this all for about £100. There is plenty of other equipment available that you can buy, but this is not necessary.
Then there’s the hive. There are a few designs to choose from, all with slightly unusual names. Nationals are the most popular, then there are WBCs and Dartington Long Deep hives. There’s even a new plastic version – the Beehaus. All have their pros and cons and all types need to be managed slightly differently.
Early spring is the time to help the bees to build up a thriving colony, by feeding them sugar fondant and treating them for a type of bee dysentery. Bees, like other livestock have lots of natural enemies, and it’s down to beekeepers to make sure they’re well protected.
Swarming is something that many people will have come across. Huge footballs of bees hang off tree branches or gate posts as they meet up with the queen before flying off to find a new place to settle. It’s usually at this time that they’re spotted in people’s gardens, and local beekeepers are summoned to remove them. Most beekeepers are happy to oblige as free bees are something they’ll rarely turn down.
Marked queen bee (c) Photo: Margaret Davies
Bees naturally want to swarm and if keepers are not careful they can end up losing half their bees as they fly off to set up a wild colony elsewhere. Fortunately, there are a range of techniques you can learn to help control swarming. Another outcome of swarming is the generation of new queen bees. There is just a single queen in each hive responsible for laying the eggs. This task is vital, and so queens are often marked with a dot of paint to make finding her easier. It’s recommended that queens are replaced with new ones each year or two.
And finally, after months waiting patiently, it’s time to reap the benefits of beekeeping. Beekeepers use separate boxes, placed over the main hive, to encourage bees to produce honey. Throughout the summer they slowly add more boxes on top of the hives, and the bees fill them with honey. Some beekeepers are lucky enough to collect honey throughout the spring and summer, at which point the whole cycle starts again.
