A Personal Viewpoint

Beekeeping has changed my life - but when asked how I got into beekeeping and why, I find it difficult to answer. I suppose I have always had an interest in country crafts and nature and it was this that led me to attend my first apiary visit.

A friend of a friend was going and I tagged along taking my wellies and rubber gloves as instructed. Unfortunately I was not suitable dressed, I was wearing dark woolly trousers and nobody had mentioned that bees don't like dark colours (NOW I know why beekeepers wear white suits) or that hairy fabrics cause them to get their feet trapped in the fibres, panic and sting. I also did not know that it was inadvisable to stand right in front of the hive in the direct flight path of incoming bees nor was I aware that the sting of a bee gives off a pheromone to tell other bees to come and sting! Consequently I got stung on my legs but I wasn't really hurt and anyway by that time it was too late, I had already become fascinated and resolved there and then to learn as much as I could and start to keep bees myself.

I have been keeping bees for about seven years now, have taken the British Beekeepers Association exams and have qualified as a Master Beekeeper. Of course there was no need to take any exams at all but I decided from the outset that if I had 50,000 bees per hive working for me for nothing, the least I could do for them was to become as good a beekeeper as I could.

Beekeeping for me is such a pleasure. Imagine a warm summer's afternoon in a quiet country field. Nothing around you but the sounds of the birds and the hum of bees, the heady scent of fresh honey and nobody to bother you, Magic.

May and June is the time when the bees start to get overcrowded in the hive. The queen is laying up to 2000 eggs a day, more than her own body weight, and the size of the colony expands greatly. When it seems necessary to thin out the population, the bees make one of the eggs become a new queen by building a special cell and feeding the larva on an exclusive diet of royal jelly.
When the new queen-to-be is nearly ready to emerge, the old queen and half the bees in the colony fly out to look for a new home, thus increasing the local bee population from one colony to two. This is what swarming is all about and it is the bees' natural method of increase (think of an amoeba dividing and you have the idea). After leaving the hive the bees cluster in a clump on a bush, post or some other suitable place and send out scouts to look for a new home. It is at this time that people usually notice them and call for someone to take them away. This is where we come in as local swarm collectors and we seem to spend half our time up trees or clambering about in awkward places collecting them.

May and June is my most busy time and also the most fun! The swarm is knocked into a suitable container, usually a straw skep or sometimes a cardboard box, and then put on the ground for the flying bees to rejoin the queen. By evening the bees will all be in the skep and the beekeeper can return, close up the skep and take it away. We often give the swarms to our beginners so that they can commence the wonderfully rewarding and ancient craft of beekeeping.

Our association run a six-week course for beginners every March at Keighley College which has proved extremely popular and has produced some first rate new beekeepers.
There are many other jobs to do when you have bees and of course one of these is taking your honey crop. The bees collect nectar and make it into honey for their own use through the winter as it is their principal foodstuff. However they always store a huge excess of some thirty to forty pounds of honey per hive which can be taken away with absolutely no detriment to the bees whatever. Beekeepers care for their bees and would not take anything from them if there was not this excess available.

As I said in the beginning, beekeeping has changed my life. I have knowledge of the workings and marvels of the hive, I have met countless other beekeepers, all of whom have proved to be so generous with their help and advice when it was needed. I talk to the public about beekeeping and have done so at local level and also at the Chelsea Flower Show and Gardeners World Live, something I never would have imagined myself doing a few years ago.

I have been to special beekeeping events throughout the country and have even organised one at Cliffe Castle that was attended by 140 beekeepers from all over the county. We show live bees and talk about beekeeping as always at Keighley Show and will be looking for new beekeepers for next year's classes.

Being a beekeeper is not just a hobby, it is something that you become and I am proud to say that I am a beekeeper and will remain one all my life.

Sue Chatfield
Hon Secretary
Airedale Beekeepers Association