From A to Bee (35 page)

  Spurred on, I have spent this evening planning. There hasn't been much success from my social media following. I was offered a few fields of heather up in north Yorkshire but I don't think that is feasible. However…

  I have conjured up a plan to contact the National Trust to see if they could help. I have fond childhood memories of going for walks every Sunday with my father and our dogs but I am not sure whether it was the walks that I enjoyed or the warmth of the pubs we frequented when we had finished. Occasionally we would walk over a patch of National Trust land that was covered with heather. I have no memory of where this was exactly but it couldn't be too far away. I could have hit on a goldmine here; a light bulb had lit above my head.

  I have tweeted the National Trust PR team, who have recently signed up to Twitter (@nationaltrust), to see if they can help and I will also call the regional office tomorrow to find out if they can put me in contact with the right people who may know where this land is. Given they are well-known supporters of the beekeeping movement, as I know some of their properties currently have beehives, I have my fingers crossed. Surely placing one of my beehives in an expanse of their heathland cannot be too much to ask, although I suppose an organisation like that would require lots of health and safety regulations. That could be a headache. Let's hope not.

As I logged on this morning there it was, a tweet back from the National Trust: 'Hi @surreybeekeeper, we would love to help you if we can', and they then proceeded to email me the number for their regional office and the name of the person to speak to.

  I phoned the office and having got passed around a couple of times I ended up speaking to the head gardener of Polesden Lacey, a most beautiful property not far away, with gardens designed by Capability Brown. I knew that they had just put a hive in the gardens there and we started out talking about that. He sounded fascinated by the project and was obviously enjoying having the hive in the gardens. I took my chance and explained my predicament and it was obvious from the outset he had some sympathy for my cause and stated he was keen to help if he could. However, he did not have any control over that particular area of the National Trust. He thought it sounded like Frensham Ponds, which rings a bell with me and is in the area that Dad and I used to walk – I must check this with him later.

  He offered to email the head warden for that area, which I was really thankful for and, as luck would have it, he is apparently a very keen beekeeper. I also managed to get his phone number. I couldn't believe my luck; this was looking better and better. I just hope he will allow me to put my hive on their land.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, there may be a way I can get this elusive jar of honey.

'What a Difference a Day Makes' was the first dance at my wedding and it is rather apt here too. I have gone from literally being unbelievably down in the dumps to being excited once more. This is all to do with the prospect of my one jar of honey.

  Having waited twelve hours for the head warden to email me, I decided to take matters into my own hands and call him up as I wasn't sure how much time I had left. The last thing I wanted was to get the OK, to move my hive and then to realise that the heather had finished flowering.

  I got through immediately and introduced myself. Fortunately he hadn't been ignoring me; he just hadn't checked his emails for the last twenty-four hours. What a way to live your life; I have become far too dependent on them and it takes someone like this to jolt you out of your little world.

  I started to give him the quick précis of what was going on as I had done yesterday but I reckoned I had now got my pitch down to a T, keen but not too desperate, and tried to big up the National Trust for helping me. I even got to the point of saying he couldn't refuse on the principle of helping a fellow beekeeper – OK, perhaps that did sound a little bit desperate.

  Once I had got through my five-minute diatribe on why I needed help, he simply responded, 'What a fabulous idea! I am sure we can help.' I LOVE THE NATIONAL TRUST!!! He then proceeded to tell me not to think about the original area I had considered for various reasons but another area, which I was familiar with but not aware of its heather credentials; the Devil's Punch Bowl near Haslemere. The reason he knew this to be such a good area was that he lived there, and just a short walk away from his home were several hectares of flowering heather. My heart was beating far faster than usual and I felt on top of the world.

  Until this moment I had kissed the jar of honey goodbye and now the door was back open again to hopefully get something out of the year. I had genuinely never thought I would get this reaction from the National Trust and had feared it being a little bureaucratic in its outlook. Here I was however, with not only an answer but a positive answer at that and all within a ten-minute phone call.

  We talked further about bee-related things and then got down to the subject about what would be flowering at the moment. Apparently the heather isn't always a great harvest but thrives in wet summers – hence the last two years have been pretty good. This did mean that this year wasn't looking great as it has been so dry but the last two weeks of wet weather may have helped me out. He did state that the heather had been flowering for a little while and he only hoped there would be enough nectar left for the bees to utilise.

  He pointed out another flower which I should look out for, which is apparently going great guns at the moment, rosebay willow herb – I have never heard of it but if it helps then I promise to plant it in my own garden next year.

  We talked about heather honey for a bit. I knew it wasn't like any other honey but I hadn't really considered that you need to extract it differently. Usually, when you extract honey you have to spin it around at high speeds and it all shoots out of the frames easily. Heather honey is quite different and it simply won't do this. It will stay in the frames stubbornly refusing to move. Removing heather honey is a lot more labour intensive and involves pressing and squeezing it out of the frames. Great, just my luck, I thought – but then again I only need a jar of it.

  The head warden then started talking about a mate of his, however, who had designed a contraption that was made out of an old tumbledryer drum and spun at some ridiculous speed; enough to defeat the reluctance of the heather honey and throw it out of the frames. I suggested that this guy sounded like some sort of engineer. 'You could say that,' was the reply. 'He designed the engine for Concorde!' I nearly dropped the phone. I have to meet up with this guy, I thought. What a fantastic way to extract my honey under the direction of a Concorde designer. I made it a personal goal to meet this guy if I was in time for the heather nectar flow. This would be a far more entertaining way of extracting the honey than manually squeezing it out of the frames.

  Having taken all of this in, it just left a few moments to get things arranged and work out exactly where the head warden lived. Looking at the map, I thought I lived in the middle of nowhere but this guy took that to a whole new level.

  Saturday it is then. I will be moving my hive like a commercial beekeeper in America. I will literally be chasing the honey. Morally I know this isn't great as travel puts stress on the bees but I am only talking about one hive and a forty-five-minute drive. This is hardly the 3,000-mile journey the American bees make on the back of huge lorries, which usually takes two or three days. No wonder they get stressed out.

My preparations began today and I wanted to take a look in the National hive and assess the state of play before the move so that I could plan ahead. I was also interested to see whether there was any more honey in the super, just in case I was being a bit premature in this honey chasing.

  I lit the smoker as usual and took off the hive roof. There seemed to be a lot more bees than usual up in the super which I took to be a good sign. Taking out the best super I could see that only a little bit more honey had been collected since my last inspection. However, it was really nice to see that about five or six cells had been capped over, which means that the consistency of the honey was right. Five or six cells, though, is hardly enough, considering the other frames didn't really have anything on them at all. This just confirmed that I am doing the right thing.

  Stupidly, I was rushing a bit today and so was putting the frames back into the super quite quickly. This soon backfired as one frame, ironically the better frame with some capped honey, fell out of my hands. It was similar to watching toast fall from your hands at the breakfast table, spinning around in slow motion on its way down to the floor where it annoyingly lands butter side down. The same happened here but this time there were quite a few bees on it as well. I couldn't believe it. What had I done?

  On picking it up gently, I realised there was no damage done except a few displaced bees who were a bit perplexed, as moments ago they were on a lovely yellow smooth frame and now they were fighting with long green stems of grass. I replaced the frame a little bit more carefully this time, relieved that I hadn't lost what little honey had been collected.

  I lifted off the super and started to look through the brood box but no sooner had I done this than I felt a sensation like a mosquito bite on my leg. I couldn't believe it, especially as I was midway through lifting out a frame of bees. I calmly put the bees back down into the hive and then as a precaution I swatted at my leg. Walking away from the hive, it dawned on me that it was highly likely to have been a bee sting, especially as I was standing on the ground exactly where I had dropped the frame earlier.

  As I lifted up my trouser leg there was indeed a little sting hanging out of my leg, just above the ankle. In fact it wasn't just one sting, there were two little stings pulsing poisonous fluid into me. I was somewhat perplexed as it really didn't feel like a sting. However, the tell-tale sign was the long yellow stain going down my leg – this must have been the poor bee that got squashed as I swatted at what I thought to be a mosquito.

  I was no longer tucking my trousers into socks so this time the bees must have crawled up underneath my trouser leg to attack. There seems to be no option but to look into buying a full-on boiler suit next year. They just seem to like my lower limbs and there is no way of guarding against these ankle biters.

  I got back to the inspection, but decided only to check the National hive today as I was a little pushed for time and I was only really concerned about planning for the move. I was really pleased, though, as I saw the queen for the first time in weeks, but stupidly I didn't have my marking equipment with me. (I say this like I would have thought about carrying this out; there is no way alive I would have been able to mark her on my own.)

  I went back home, had a cup of coffee and concocted a plan for tomorrow morning. I think I have decided on the following: