It’s good to have a hobby and Duplex’s central area BDM, Neil Anthony recently decided to try his hand at bee-keeping, here’s how it went…
So you decide to keep bees …very admirable; but what’s required?
Well my story starts out with a fascination for bees and making honey and as I don’t get on very well with class rooms and the internet only goes so far I ventured out and found somebody who had a hive. Can I come and see, says I and straight in the middle I went-needless to say some bees weren’t so enthusiastic on seeing me and I learnt lesson number one, you are going to get stung!
Not to be put off and still interested the story goes on and on until last year when my chance to get a suitable piece of land and a bee keeper who had too many hives meaning my chance had come. So, we plotted over the winter months and prepared a suitable area not too exposed and south facing and come spring, the big day arrived.
The Thursday before Easter I had a phone call ….it’s warm enough (you need 15 degrees) we’re ready to go Easter Monday and the task of moving 80, 000 bees presented itself. How do you do it? Well the answer to that is easy- CAREFULLY.
The previous evening, just before dusk the last stragglers arrived back at the hive. It was sealed and at 7.30 am the next morning, before they would really get going the hive was carefully lifted (it’s not heavy around 10KG max at this time of year), laid on a cotton sheet, wrapped and placed in a vehicle to be moved about a mile.
Once in its new position it was left for 20 minutes just to let the bees calm down and then the big moment had arrived-it was opened up and some foliage placed right at the entrance and we sat back and watched as they came out and realised that something was new and they started orientation flights, coming out and facing the hive to get their bearings.
With the expertise of an experienced bee-keeper it was simple really, all it needed was a little patience. So, many thanks to all that made my dream come true …..Not forgetting Madonna of course…. Who you ask? She’s the queen bee!