By mid July we had found our queen bee in hive number two. It was an exciting moment when we first spotted her. She was much larger than the thousands of worker bees and the bigger drone bees.We made sure we marked her with a special marking pen made for just the job so that we would be able to spot her more easily in future. Without queenie doing her job laying more brood the hive would not survive and thrive. The worker bees were returning to the hive laden with white pollen and the knapweed in the meadow came into flower creating a purple haze. This gave the bees another food source.

The swallows had also been busy raising another brood and this time around three chicks had fledged by the end of July. Even though the swallows created a lot of mess it was worth it to watch them swooping over the fields like aerial acrobats in the early evening.

The lavender and buddlia in the cottage garden was covered in white butterflies and they floated like a cloud  across the garden in the summer sunshine, while the peacock butterflies seemed to enjoy resting on the warm gravel on the drive.

 

We scrubbed our  hive using a solution of soda crystals ,burnt the wax frames we had not long before assembled and washed our bees suits to reduce any chances of any virus or infection lingering. We bought some new sheets of foundation wax to put into the wooden frames for new bees to build their comb on.

In the meantime we struck a deal with a local beekeeper who was downsizing and bought a hive and bees to get us started again. After wheeling it up the meadow in a barrow to its new home we left the bees for a week to orientate themselves to their new surroundings. We hope the purple knapweed in the wildflower meadow which had yet to flower would be a good source of food for them. We also made sure we provided fresh water in a shallow dish with some rocks in nearby so the bees could get a drink.

The teasels at the end of the  meadow had now grown tall and were like multi story drinking vessels where the water collected in the large leaves where they met with the stem and created pools of water for wildlife. They were however very prickly but the seed heads when they came into flower later on could be very useful to the bees who would alight on the lavender coloured seed heads.

The dawn chorus had quietened down but a song thrush had taken to perching on top of the cottage roof to sing. It was a joy to hear this beautiful bird singing. Its speckled chest was so pretty and was quite a rare sight.

 

Early summer saw the first swallows fledge on 9th June. They had been looking very precarious perched in a row on the edge of the nest for some days and then suddenly one day we arrived hone to find the young swallows flying circuits around the roof of the house like a squadron of spitfires. They screamed and chattered with obvious joy. In the evening they returned to perch on the shelf we had erected below the nest to catch the copious amounts of droppings. They seemed to be using it as a resting point as they built up their stamina by short burst of flight. They were a joy to watch.In the evenings they made forays out across the fields swaying with corn to catch flying insects in the warm summer air.

A whitethroat that had nested on the ledge above the south facing kitchen window had also left her nest.She had steadfastly sat on this nest while we went to and fro from the adjacent door. The birds dedication to rearing the next generation in the face of bad weather conditions, unknowing interference from mankind and some strange choices in nesting sites is amazing.

We also had blue tits nesting in the box fixed to the rose trellis. You could not fail to notice them as when the babies hatched they were very noisy and chattered away as soon as a new beak full of food arrived a the entrance to the box. The nest box was surrounded by an evil rose which would draw blood as soon as I touched it but the parent blue tits flew in and out with no trouble and the babies fledged to line up on a branch of the convenient birch tree to wait to be fed.

The wild birds were thriving and we had to make a decision about what to do about our lack of bees.

A week had passed and on Friday we woke to a thunderstorm and more rain. Bad bee weather. However, the storm passed,the day brightened it became warmer. I ventured up to the hive and sat and watched for any signs of activity. There was definitely a change, more activity and a steady stream of bees flying in and out of the hive and no more dead bees on the floor. I felt so happy to watch this simple  natural activity that had been going on for thousands of years. My appreciation for our bees increased further and I hoped our bees fortunes were changing for the better.

I cannot say whether the bees fortunes changed because a few days later they just disappeared. We can only assume the bees swarmed and what was left of the colony left to set up home elsewhere. So we were back to square one, no bees.  According to the local beekeepers quite a few hives were being lost to bee paralysis. It seemed some of the qualities that bees required, perseverance and resilience were needed by beekeepers too!

 

A few days later things were not so rosy. The hive was very quiet and bees were starting to literally drop out of the hive entrance on to the grass. For the next couple of days we monitored activity around the hive. Bees were continuing to drop out of the hive and looking into the entrance we could see that the bottom of the hive was covered in dead bees. Our hearts sank.

When we joined our local beekeepers club I had ticked the box on the joining form to say I would like a mentor. It was time to call for help. After recounting our sad story of the ailing bees we followed advice to conserve the bees energy by blocking up the entrance to the hive to leave only a small entrance and exit point thereby reducing any draughts, replaced the mesh floor with a solid one and provided some food in the form of syrup or fondant to supplement their foraging and limit the energy required to survive.

In the meantime our helpful mentor spoke to the local bee inspector who suspected bee paralysis, a virus with no cure that seemed to be rearing it’s head this season.

The weather conditions were not great for the bees either. The spring temperatures were very  variable from one day to the next with some very cold days.

The garden was lush with lots of new growth, we had swallows and a wren nesting in the cart lodge, baby blue tits squeaking in the nest box and a whitethroat had taken up residence on the ledge above the kitchen window but our focus was on the bees.

Our beekeeper neighbour in the next village arrived in the early evening with a swarm of bees safely enclosed in a ventilated box in his car. After suiting up in the drive in his white bee suit, we followed his example by putting on our newly purchased pristine jacket, veil, gloves and boots. We followed him up the meadow, excited and a with slight trepidation to the site we had prepared for our apiary. Grass had been mowed and a wooden stand constructed for our very first hive to rest on.

With a couple of shakes from the box the bees were deposited into the top of the hive. We now felt a responsibility to do our best to help our bees thrive. For the next couple of evenings we sat and watched our bees making forays from the hive,setting up home. They had a lot of work to do to build the comb they needed from the pristine sheets of foundation wax we had provided for them.

The fields either side of the meadow were planted with oil seed rape and although the flowers had just started to die off there was plenty for them to work on. The meadow was shining with golden buttercups and we looked forward to the taste of our very own honey.

It all started in May 2015. We had a call to say a swarm of bees was available if we wanted it. This is what we had been waiting for and after a false start a few weeks previously when the swarm we were offered absconded before a friendly experienced beekeeper (not us) had captured it, we gratefully accepted the offer. Beekeepers we were quickly finding out were a friendly bunch, keen to share their knowledge and encourage newcomers into the world of beekeeping.

After enrolling in an Introduction to Beekeeping course earlier in the year we were ready to take charge of some bees, 50,000 bees!  Or so we thought.

I have created this blog to share our experiences of living in the countryside and the pleasure that nature can bring. By simply being more observant and not taking for granted the wonderful wildlife that surrounds us in the British Isles our lives have become richer and every day a new story unfolds.