Finally - I'm a beekeeper.

For a long time, I've fancied the idea of keeping bees. - Maybe it was reading Harry's Bee when I was a small child.  Last year I had a lot of time off work due to illness, and had a lot of time to read.  One of the things I drifted into was reading about beekeeping.  I stumbled across a book The Barefoot Beekeeper, and this suggested beekeeping could be relatively simple, inexpensive and relaxing without complicated equipment and processes. - The book inspired me to build a 'Topbar' hive as I got strong enough, and I hoped that if I built it, the bees would come. - Well, they didn't.

In March / April this year (2013) I attended a course at the Melksham Beekeepers association - this was very informative, and very interesting - I definitely wanted to be a beekeeper, and was still pretty determined to try to do so using a topbar hive despite 'mixed' thoughts from the members of the association with whom I discussed it.

Rolling forward to July. - No swarm had moved into my welcoming topbar accommodation, and as the year moved on, it was increasingly unlikely that they would.  I'd been to several 'hands on' sessions at apiaries across Wiltshire, and the general advice was that I was unlikely to catch a swarm, and hence would have to buy some bees. - There were none available from the association this year....

Well, putting bees from a standard nucleus package into a topbar hive is not straightforward, and it really doesn't look to be something which a novice beekeeper might attempt as a first solo interaction with new bees.  - So it is then that I bit the bullet and bought British National standard deep hive with foundation, frames and two 'supers', and then exchanged a large pile of banknotes for a humming box with a man on the motorway earlier today.

Despite the best efforts of the aircon in the car, the bees were clearly hot and bothered by the time we got home, and were very keen to fly the minute I opened the gate on the box. - This of course was the minute the rain started. - I guess some of them wouldn't make it back to the hive on their first flight in the new home in the rain, but it soon stopped, and as dark falls, the bees seem to have settled in and are now quiet.  They don't seem to mind me standing pretty much in front of the hive watching them from a couple of feet away.

There isn't a huge amount of forage in the garden currently, and the bees initially brought out a few of their dead sisters and seemed to be very keen on drinking. - I'm guessing this is because they were hot, some of them didn't make the journey, and that they are probably eating stores currently until they find sufficient forage, and I start feeding them - which will be in their new hive. - I had hoped to transfer them today, but the rain cooled things off a lot, and so transfer will have to wait until tomorrow. - The nucleus box is on the hive stand where the new hive will sit - the theory being that if I transfer the frames from the nuc into the new hive, and the entrance is at the same place, the bees will quickly adapt to the new surroundings.

Here they are having just opened the nuc.



I've not given up on the idea of the topbar hive, but with luck it's something I can either use from a swarm, or if my bees build up sufficiently during next year I could split them into the topbar - we will see what happens. - It's just that it's worked out a little more expensive than just the cost of a sheet of ply!
 For now, I'm very happy to have some bees and hoping I can help rather than hinder them in their new home.