Another Swarm

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July isn't worth a fly
A swarm in August is worth a pint of sawdust
A swarm in September is something to remember
A swarm in October is rarely seen when sober
- Traditional Rhyme

Well I am certainly seeing somthing to remember this September - swarms a plenty!
Today I found a second small swarm hanging in a tree in my garden.

I had noticed a lot of buzzing around the garden bench, and looked up to see a swarm.

It must have been there a while before I noticed it, as when I shook the bees into a skep, I found that they had already started building comb on the branch of the tree and had covered a leaf in wax comb.

This time, after shaking the bees into a skep, I placed topbars over the top of the skep, and wrapped a piece of thick wire around from the bottom of the skep over the top bars to hold them in place, and left the skep under the tree until it began to get dark and all the bees were inside.

Then I wrapped it up in a sheet and put it in the shed. My plan is to move the skep to where the hive is going to go tomorrow, and leave the skep and bees there for a while. Once they have started to build comb on the topbars, they can be moved to a topbar nucleus hive, or a full size topbar hive.

27th September - I attempted to transfer the bees to a topbar nucleus hive, but they were reluctant to leave the skep. About half the bees were transferred, and I carefully placed the queen in when I spotted her. I left a small gap between a couple of topbars and put an inverted large yoghurt pot full of syrup on top, with small holes punctured in the lid to allow syrup to slowly drip out for the bees to collect. I couldn't then put the roof on the topbar hive, so I placed the skep over the yoghurt pot on top of the topbars, which also served the function of encouraging the rest of the bees to move down into the hive. With a little adjustment, a hole cut into the roof of the hive, and a shelter built around the hive, I now have a rustic combination skep/topbar hive which I'm quite pleased with.

A Late Swarm

It seems I was wrong about the reason for the number of drones outside my hive a few days ago - they weren't being kicked out after all, but were more likely there for another purpose. Drones can often be seen around a hive when the Queen is about to swarm. A couple of days after seeing all the drones I looked through the obbservation window and noticed some swarm cells had been built. These are long peanut shaped queen cells which hang from the bottom of the comb. There are three types of queen cells: swarm cells, supercedure cells and emergency cells. Supercedure cells are generally built in the middle of the comb rather than at the bottom, and are for when the bees intend to replace their queen. Emergency cells are generally ordinary worker cells which have been built up into queen cells in an emergency situation where the queen has been killed or injured. Very young worker larvae can then be fed up with royal jelly and developed into queens.

I was rather concerned about this as it is very late in the season for swarming. I thought that the swarm cells had just been built, as I hadn't noticed them before, but on closer inspection I noticed that some were capped and two had already hatched out. As the weather was cold and wet I didn't want to do a full inspection of the hive, but lifted about 4 combs at the back of the hive to inspect. I saw a queen on the innermost comb I inspected, but am not sure if she was my original queen or a new virgin queen. I was also quite alarmed to see that there was hardly any honey in any of the combs, some of which had been full of honey on my last inspection. Lots of bees had their heads inside cells, as if looking for food and I was worried that the bees were starving. Bees were also clustered together all at the top of combs. I wondered then if the colony was starving and that the queen making was emergency behaviour. The bees had used up all of the sugar syrup/herbal tea mix I had put in a few days earlier, so I gave them some more. There also appeared to be less bees in the hive, but I would be expecting them to be reducing in numbers for the winter now. I did wonder though, whether my old queen has already swarmed, taking half the colony and much of the honey with her.
When I got up this morning and went to look at the hive, I happened to look up into a tree overhanging the apiary, and hanging from it in a high branch, was a swarm of bees!

It looked like quite a small swarm, and may well have been a cast. I called my man for help, got him to don a beesuit and together, armed with ladder, seceteurs and a cardboard box, we went to collect the swarm. We managed to shake most of the bees into the box, but there were a significant number flying around as well as small patches of bees in the tree, on the wall and on the ground.

I noted though, that a number of bees in the box began fanning, which is a good indicator that the queen was in the box, as they were fanning pheremones out to guide the other bees to the box. So I decided to leave them to it for a couple of hours. When I returned, I couldn't see any bees, and thought that they had absconded. I looked up in the trees and couldn't see the swarm anywhere, at which point I felt a bit disheartned, thinking that they had flown further away and that I may have lost them for good. But then I looked more closely into the box, and was pleased to see a very orderly cluster of bees under the lid of the box.

So I closed the box, taped it shut, wrapped it in a sheet and put it in my shed, where it will remain for a day or two whilst I prepare one of the Warre hives. I don't know how well this swarm will fare, as it is very small, and I still think that it may be a secondary cast rather than the primary swarm, and that I've lost the primary swarm; and it is very late in the season, not a good time for swarming, and they are unlikely to be able to build up the stores and numbers in order to be able to survive the winter. I have since read that there is such thing as a "Starvation Swarm" which can occur late in the year when the bees have insufficient stores in their hive and the nectar flow in the surrounding area is not good. The old queen takes off with a load of bees to try and find a new home where foraging is more plentiful. Unfortunately it has been a bad year all round as far as nectar flow goes, so they are unlikley to find any such place. I will feed them with the herbal tea and sugar mix (2 parts sugar to one part water for the Autumn feed, thicker than the 1:1 ratio used in the Summer) and use plenty of Thyme in the herbal tea to help protect against varroa, plus nettle which apparantly helps them produce more brood. I may also have to consider giving them a pollen substitute - a mixture of garlic powder and brewers yeast, as both pollen and nectar supplies may be insufficient now, and pollen is required to rear brood. Other than that, we are in the hands of the Bee Goddess!

The Casting out of the Drones and Preparing for Winter

Oh for a life of comfort in the warm hive
For a drone it is good to be alive!
When it seemed long summer days would never end
Our hard working sisters to us dearly tend,
Who never cease to toil away
Bringing pollen and nectar every day
Building comb, cleaning, feeding young
Making honey when the day is done,
While we would preen and strut our stuff
Not a days work expected of us!
Looking pretty is our role
And pleasure flights when we feel the call,
To explore and congregate with the chaps
Enjoy hospitality from another hive, perhaps
Til welcomed home by sisters dear,
We never had any need to fear.
Our every need and whim fulfilled -
Who'd have thought they'd have us killed?
Oh what has become of those carefree days?
Now forcibly ejected, pushed away!
Ripping at wing and leg
Sisters, why treat us this way I beg?
Rejected, ejected, left to die
Dismembered by wasps when we can't fly
Why this fate? Oh woe is me!
It shouldn't happen to a dandy bee!

Karin Rainbird 16th September 2011


When checking the apiary and observing the bees in the last couple of days I was struck by the number of drones I saw around the hive.

It is that time of year when the hive begins to reduce in number and prepare for the winter. Drones may be forcibly ejected from the hives, the guard bees pushing them away with their bodies, and ripping at their legs and wings with their mandibles. Some drones who's wings are still intact, may fly off and try and gain entry to another hive, others will remain sitting in the vicinity of their own hives and try to regain access. I noted a number of drones trying to get back into my hive, and the guard bees are at the moment still tolerant, and allowing some of them back in.

Others seemed less fortunate, and I observed a wasp attempting to carry one of the drones (twice its size) off. Wasps will dismember drones and carry them off bit by bit, but I couldn't bear to see this and chased the wasp away. Tits, sparrows and other birds may also eat the drones and drone pupae which are ejected from the hive.
Drones can be easily recognised and distinguished from worker bees by their size and large eyes. They are longer, fatter and fluffier than worker bees and their eyes take up pretty much their whole heads.

Drones are also stingless, their sole role being to mate with a queen and pass on the genes from their mother. They have no role in collecting nectar or pollen, housekeeping or rearing brood, though they may well have a role in temperature control within the hive. Due to their limited role and use, they are ejected in the Autumn, to ensure that there is enough food left for the workers and brood to survive the winter and ensure the survival of the colony. If the drones are being ejected from a colony in the Autumn, it is a sign that the colony is "Queen Right", i.e. that the colony is doing well and has a good healthy queen who is laying plenty of eggs. If the colony does not eject the drones, then it is likely that they are planning to supercede their queen for one reason or another. So hopefully, my hive is queen right and doing well. My last inspection revealed plenty of new comb built, and some honey, though as I didn't do a thorough inspection looking at all the combs, it is diffiuclt to know how full their stores are. As it has been a dry year this year as far as nectar flow goes, I decided to give them another feed of sugar syrup to ensure they have stores through the winter. This time I made a preparation with nettle, which apparantly the bees love (according to Phil Chandler on the Natural Beekeeping course I attended in Devon last weekend); chamomile, to give some flower essence; and thyme, in the hope that the thyme will help protect against varroa mites. Phil Chandler also suggested on the course that a few drops of tea tree oil can be added to the sugar syrup feed and that this will also protect against varroa, and that the bees don't mind it. This is surprising as most insects hate tea tree oil. But bees aren't most insects! And tea tree is very effective against fleas, lice, mosquitos and other blood sucking insects, so it may well work against mites that suck the bees blood. I may try that next time if varroa appear to be a problem.

Other Visitors to the Apiary

All seems to be going well in the apiary. I have carried out a couple of routine inspections to check how the colony is coming along, and lots more comb has been built, which is slowy being filled with multicoloured pollen and honey. I could also see brood in various stages of development. I don't intend to inspect often though, and certainly not once a week, as however careful one is, it is virtually impossible to avoid one or two casualties with each inspection, and it stresses the bees, so I would rather just observe from outside the hive. I can check through the observation window to see how the comb building is coming along, and watching the bees coming and going at the entrance to the hive, I know that as long as I can see pollen coming in, that there is brood, and that the queen is alive and laying. I can also sometimes smell the lovely delicate scent of honey on a warm day in the apiary, Other insects can obviously smell it too, and I have seen a number of stripey insects buzzing around the hive, other than my bees.

The Hornet Mimic Hoverfly, Volucella Zonaria is Britain's largest hoverfly, being almost an inch long and has colonised Britain from Europe, once rare here, but slowly becoming more common in the south of the UK. I had never seen one before and wondered what this monster was that appeared to be trying to get into the beehive. Apparantly they like to live in hornet's nests, where they lay their eggs. So I'm not sure if it is trying to get into the beehive to live, in the absence of a hornet's nest, or whether it is just attracted by the smell of honey. It keeps returning though, and buzzes around the entrance to the hive for a while until accepting that with the number of bees at the entrance, it is not going to gain access.

I have also seen bumble bees buzzing around the entrance to the hive, as well as drone flies (which look a lot like bees and can sometimes be mistaken for honey bees) and other typs of hoverfly, and the odd wasp, so I guess it is the honey that is attracting them.

Bumble bee and Drone fly resting on top of one of the empty hives after failing to gain access to the occupied hive.

The Bee Goddess

Mother Bee
Solar Queen
True parthenogenesis,
You create from yourself
The Son/Lover
Without need of a father.
Then he, true Son of the Mother
Flies high to the Sun
In search of another Solar Queen
To unite in fiery joy
Giving of himself in divine sacrifice
100 Mother's Sons
Rising to the Sun
To die in that moment of bliss
Of union with the Mother
Spreading his mother's genes
To other Solar Queens
That they may produce
An army of daughters
Spreading throughout the land
Bringing life where 'ere they go.
Was the first ever bee
A Queen who, like the Goddess
Produced from herself her Son and Lover?
Did she nurture him herself
Then take him back into her?
Did he go to his mother/bride in willing sacrifice
As does our Lord?
From their union were all bees created
And thus the diversity of life as we know it
Made possible to come into bee-ing?
Is the Goddess a bee?

by Karin Rainbird 21st July 2011


Bees were worshipped and honoured all over the ancient world. Honey was seen as food of the Gods, divine nectar, and the honeycomb, with its intricate cellular structure is a perfect symbol of the interrelatedness of life, with order and beauty. The Queen bee, or Mother bee, like the Goddess in Pagan Creation stories, is able to produce male offspring without herself being fertilised by a male. These sons (the Drones) carry her genes to other colonies, fertilising other queens. Fertilised eggs then can become workers and new princesses

Sumerian Bee Goddess
Honey, beeswax and other bee products have also had a place in religious ritual from ancient times, until the present day. In ancient Sumer, honey was poured over thresholds ansd stones bearing commemorative offerings. Honey and wine were poured over bolts used in sacred buildings, and ground on which temples were to be built were consecrated with libations of wine, oil and honey. Cylinders describing the building of a new temple for the God Nigirsu dating back to 2450 BCE describe this ritual process (see The Sacred Bee by Hilda M Ransome, p35)
Honey was also used by priests in rites of exorcism, and descriptions of such rituals have been found from Sumer and Babylon. A bilingual text mentions a Honey God, but it is unclear which God it is connected with. Honey was also used as offerings to the Gods, and to embalm the dead in funeral rites, sometimes first smearing the body with bees wax.
Bees wax and honey have also been used in magic, and the practice of making wax images of victims is an ancient practice popular in Babylon and Assyria.
Unfortunately little is known about the Bee Goddess or Bee God in ancient Sumer, other than a few images and scattered references in texts.

Settling into the New Hive

I transferred the bees to their new hive yesterday while the weather was warm. Garbed up in my beesuit, veil and gloves I opened up the nucleus hive and began to carefully transfer the combs one by one. The bees did get rather agitated, and it was then that I realised I'd forgotten to prepare and light the smoker! So I remedied this problem as quickly as I could and carried on with the aid of the smoker. I added a couple of empty top bars between some of the combs, and a couple at the end of the row of combs, and placed a mix of chamomile teas and sugar in a feeder inside the hive under the empty combs to help the bees on their way. Although they did get a bit angry at the disturbance, and one of the bees followed me back to the house buzzing round my head somewhat angrily, they soon settled down again, and before long were all about their usual business. Maybe the chamomile tea calmed them down a bit too.

Settled into the new hive

They found their way in and out no problem

Through the observation window

My First Colony

I arrived back in Cardiff with my topbar nucleus hive complete with nucleus colony of bees at 9pm last night, after a 5 1/2 hour journey back from the Lizard. The bees are British Dark bees, and I collected them from Heatherbell Honeybees in Cornwall, who supply bees, hives, honey and all sorts of beekeeping equipment. They are to go into my full size topbar hive which I bought from Amazon, from Leeway Woodwork. I was a little confused about topbar hives, as there is no fixed design, and having read The Barefoot Beekeeper by Phil Chandler, I found that my topbar hive didn't quite match his description, and I wasn't sure where to put my bees. Phil Chandler's topbar hive has entrance holes in the middle of one side, plus holes on each end of the same side. He suggests that the bees should be placed in the centre of the hive with follower (or dummy) boards on either side. Extra top bars can then be placed between the dummy boards, to one side of the built combs, as the colony expands. The dummy boards are moveable, so the space the bees occupy can be expanded up to the full size of the hive. Dummy boards also, however, allow for the hive to be divided up, so that more than one colony can live in the same hive (hence the extra entrance holes), and makes swarm control and dividing the colony that much easier. The hive I have has holes in one side and in one end, so I wasn't sure how that fitted with Philip Chandler's description.
I asked Robert Bell of Heatherbell Honeybees for advice on the matter when I collected the bees. He advised that the bees should not be put in the centre of the hive, but at one end, and entrance holes should always be in the end for topbar hives in the UK. This is because the UK climate is generally rather cool, so, the hive entrance should always be "Warm Way" so as not to chill the brood. In hot climates, such as Africa, where topbar hives are the main type of hive, the climate is very hot, and the problem is that the brood can overheat, so, in hot countries the entrance hole is always "Cold Way". Warm Way and Cold Way refer to the positioning of the entrance holes with respect to the direction in which the combs are built. If the entrance holes face the edge of the comb, in the middle of the colony, more air gets in which cools or ventilates the brood. This is called Cold Way. If the entrance holes face the flat part of the outer comb, the brood is protected from the incoming cool air. This is called Warm Way. This explanation makes sense to me, so this is the way I shall put the bees into their new home. A follower board can then be put behind the colony and moved along as the colony expands.
At the moment my bees are still in their nucleus hive, where they will remain for a day to orientate themselves to their new environment. I plan to transfer them to the full sixe topbar hive tomorrow, weather permitting. I put them out in the apiary immediately I got home last night, and unplugged the entrance hole to let them out. Several bees poured out and flew around for an orientation flight, but as it was late evening and getting dark, the activity soon stopped. Today there has been lots of activity, despite the rain (British Bees cope much better with British weather than do Italian bees or other foreign bees that are often kept in this country). Its also encouraging to see that many bees are returning to the hive laden with pollen this afternoon.

I will need to give them some supplemental feeding though, to help the colony build up, as the poor weather is likely to mean that there is not a very good nectar flow, and I don't want the bees to starve. White sugar is not ideal for bees, but feeding them honey from other bees carries the risk of passing on infections. Brown sugar though healthier for humans, is not good for bees, as they can't deal with the other substances in it, so pure white sugar, mixed into a syrup with a one to one ratio with water is generally advised. This white sugar syrup can possibly be improved on for the bees though. Rudlof Steiner's biodynamic approach uses various herbal teas (Chamomile in particular, but other herbs as well) mixed in with the sugar rather than plain water. The herbs are best grown and gathered according to biodynamic principles, and not only provide micronutrients which are lacking in pure sugar syrup, but add the living energetic content of the plant. Things in the living world are both substance and process, and the energy of the particular herbs is important for the bees health. This is something I intend to learn more about, and will no doubt write about in future blogs, but for now I shall use a bit of chamomile tea in the mix.

Leafcutter Bees

As I'm preparing the apiary for the iminent arrival of my first colony of honey bees, I've noticed quite a lot of buzzing going on. Apart from the bumble bees and hoverflies that I've seen in the garden throughout the summer, I noticed some bees carrying small pieces of leaf.

These are leafcutter bees, which cut pieces of leaf and carry them off to build their nests. I have found the following information about them from the Bumblebee.org website : Leafcutter bees cut holes and semi-circles out of rose leaves, and other leaves, to line the cells in their nest. Leafcutter bees nest in a variety of places, in the ground, under stones, in cavities in wood and stone, pithy plant stems, and in dead wood.
Leafcutters do not have pollen baskets on their legs as bumblebees and honeybees do, but carry the pollen in hairs on the underside of the body.
The female bee places a supply of honey and pollen in the cell; lays an egg on this, then seals the cell and builds the next one in the cylindrical hollow. The cells look like stubby cigars - see right.

Once she has sealed the last cell she goes off and dies. When the new adult bees are ready to emerge they eat their way through the leaf parts. The last egg laid is the first to hatch. The last eggs laid are usually males, and they hang around on nearby flowers waiting for the females to emerge.

In the UK they fly from June to August. The female uses rose, birch, ash and many other leaves as long as they have a serrated edge. The tunnel diameter is 7 -8 mm, and 9 - 12 pieces of leaf are needed for each cell. The cells are thimble shaped inside, and each is sealed with 4 - 12 circular pieces of leaf.

There are usually 6 - 10 cells per nest. Each cell takes the bee around 6 - 8 hours of work to construct, provision with honey and pollen and to lay an egg. She does not have pollen baskets but carries pollen back to the nest in the bright orange brushes on the underside of her abdomen.

At night she rests in the nest entrance facing outwards and will bite anything that tries to enter. The eggs hatch in 12 - 16 days, feed then spin their cocoon 17 -18 days later. Fecal pellets help stick the outer layer of the cocoon to the inner leaf layer of the cell.

Setting up the Apiary

My Cornish Horizontal Topbar Hive finally arrived last week, and I'm due to collect a top bar nucleus from Heatherbell Honey in cornwall next weekend, so its all moving now. Been busy clearing the plot of land and getting it ready, with some help from friends, and treating the hives with a mix of beeswax and linseed oil.

After checking on the Natural Beekeeping Forum, it seems the general view is to use between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 parts beeswax to linseed oil, and to apply the mixture whilst it is hot to the outside of the hives only. Apparantly one coat is sufficient, and it takes a few weeks to dry completely, remaining slightly sticky to the touch for quite some time. Another coat can be applied yearly to keep the hives in good condition.

Beekeeper's Day -July 8th

"He who has tasted honey
Knows how sweet it can be"

Says an old Bulgarian saying. In Bulgaria honey is valued, not just as a sweet food, but as the elixir of life and immortality. It is used in rituals, healing practices, celebratory meals, rites of passage, and has an important role from birth to death. Various rituals still take place throughout the year in remote villages to bless the hives. In Spring, the girls sing songs about bees and honey to bless the new farming season.
In past times, newborn babies were welcomed into the world with a honey blessing which was chanted by the mother and grandmothers as they bathed the baby "may you buzz like a bee and be sweet like honey", meaning that they wished the baby to be healhy, skilled, industrious and sweet and kind. Ritual bread glazed with honey was shared for births and for weddings. After a wedding, the bride would place honey and butter on top of the gate and threshold before stepping into her new home, and was welcomed by her mother-in-law with a bowl of honey and a bowl of salt. An old Bulgarian saying still in use is "may your life be as smooth as butter and as sweet as honey".
With the importance of Beekeeping in Bulgaria, it is no surprise that there is a Bulgarian Saint of Beekeeping. Saint Procopius or Saint Prokopi is connected to beekeeping and his day is July 8th (tomorrow as I write). Beekeeper's wives would bake two ritual loaves and take them to the beehives before sunrise, burn incense and coat them in honey. A bowl of honey is then carried to church and left overnight in the church. The honey is then believed to have unique healing properties. On this day, women make "grass bread" in the shape of a beehive. The hive holds the bee family together, and so the bread is given to relatives to hoild the human family together, to be healthy and to live long.

Bulgarian Carniolan Bee on a Poppy

The Wonders of Bee Venom

Eros stung by a bee
Ran away and cried for plea:
Venus, mother, I cry,
Please help me or I'll die.
What a terrible disgrace
A dragon bit me on the face.
Venus, comforting her son
Speaking with a mocking fun - The little bee's tiny sting
Is for you an earnest thing
But far more painful and real hard
Are your stings in human's heart

from Anacreontean songs, 6 BC
Reprinted from Bee Venom: Composition, Health, Medicine: A Review


Apart from the obvious useful products that we get from bees such as honey, bee venom may also have great therepeutic value. Apitherapy is a medical term which encompasses the medical use of all honey bee products, and this can include honey, pollen, bee bread, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom. Apitherapy dates back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt, Greece and China, and the healing properties of honey are mentioned in ancient religious texts including the Bible, Quaran, Vedas and Ancient Greek writings. Although less is written of the use of bee venom in the ancient world, bee sting therapy is mentioned in Huandi Neijing, an ancient Chinese medical book, dating to around 500 BCE, and by Aristoteles in his Historia Animalia around 300 BCE. Hippocrates also used bee venom for therapeutic purposes, calling it Arcanum, a mysterious substance, who's healig properties he didn't fully understand. Pliny, the Elder, in his Natural History, prescribed honey and bee venom as a cure for baldness, and Charlemagne (742-814 CE) reputedly used bee stings to treat his gout. Monfat (1566-1634) is reported to have used bee stings against kidney stones and to improve the flow of urine. The use of bee venom in Shamanic ceremonies is also likely. The modern study of bee venom healing was, according to Wikipedia and a number of other sources, initiated by an Austrian Physician Phillip Terc, who published a document entitled Report About a Peculiar Connection Between the Bee Stings and Rheumatism, in 1888. Bee venom has also been used in homeopathy and in 1858 C.W. Wolfe discussed it in his book Apis Mellifica or the Poison of the Honey Bee Considered as a Therepeutic Agent. In homeopathic preparations, whole bees are used in different potencies. Although I certainly wouldn't aprove of killing bees to make medicine out of them, perhaps the "natural wastage" of dead bees that can be found around a hive, ones that have come to the ends of their lives naturally, could be used in medicine.
Bee venom is thought to be good for arthritis, rheumatism, bursitis, tendonitis, dissolving scar tissue, herpes zoster and a number of other conditions. Bee venom is a complex composition of enzymes, proteins and amino acids, which stimulates the release of cortisone. It can be applied directly or by intramuscular injections. It is hemorrhagic, unlike snake venom which is coagulant, and contains substances which have the opposing functions of stimulating the heart and adrenal glands and inhibiting the nervous system. It also contains antibiotics and sulphur, which is the main ingredient in inducing the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands and in protecting the body against infection. The most powerful ingredient however is thought to be melittin, which has powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and antiviral actions. Bee venom therapists apply bee venom to specific points on the surface of the body. Applying bee venom topically has been found in many cases to provide a long lasting effect in helping rheumatism and arthritis.
More can be found on the healing properties of bee venom in the illustrated online Bee Venom Books

I also found this on the Internet - Cosmetics made with Bee Venom, Natures answer to Botox apparantly.







Bee Venom Therapy: Bee Venom, Its Nature and Its Effect on Arthritic and Rheumatoid Conditions

Warre Hives

Well my Warre Hives finally arrived, which I ordered from a company in Austria back in April. I had given up on them as I had heard nothing since placing my order, and they had not replied to several emails enquiring about the hives. So in the meantime I ordered a Cornish Topbar Hive from another source (which is also taking forever to arrive, due to the delivery company losing it!). Then suddenly I had an email from the company on Austria telling me my warre hives were ready and requesting payment! They arrived within a few days of making the payment. Both are made of untreated Spruce (Cedar is better, but twice the price), and I now have the task of coating them with a mix of beeswax and linseed oil.

One hive has observation windows, the other doesn't. Neither have a varroa mesh at the bottom but have solid floors, so I'm not sure what to do about that. I need to do a bit more research and maybe post some questions on the Natural Beekeeping forum. I'm also not sure about how many coats of linseed oil and beeswax will be needed (quite a few I should imagine), how long it will take to dry (ages!) and what proportions of beeswax to linseed oil should be used for the best results. I have used 1 smallish disc of beeswax from a craft shop, melted into 500 ml of linseed oil.

I also accidentally received a Queen bee a couple of days ago, but unfortunately I had to send her back, as without a colony of workers to look after her, she wouldn't survive. I had sent a deposit to the Glocester company to reserve me a package of bees for next Spring, and they misunderstood, and sent me a queen instead. I couldn't immediately find anyone who might want her, or obtain some bees to form a colony with her, and couldn't really hang about waiting to find some in case she didn't survive, so had to return her quickly. I hope she got back safely. I'm hoping that the Cornwall company will have a topbar nuc ready for me in a few weeks though, and that my cornish topbar hive will have arrived by then. Although I could of course put the nuc into a warre hive. The topbars may not be quite the right size though. In the meantime, I also need to clear the land and level the ground sufficiently to place the beehives.

Other Ways of Obtaining Bees

In the absence of a swarm of bees being attracted to my bait hive and coming to live in my garden of their own free will, it is very likely that I will have to end up purchasing some bees from somewhere. I've already thought about the problems with buying a Nuc or a colony of bees in a National Hive brood box, and considered the Rose Hive method as one way of moving to a more natural approach with bees purchased on frames and artificial foundation. I have, however, found a company in Gloucestershire that sells "package bees" - bees shaken from an overwintered hive, with a queen added, such that an artifical swarm is created. This would be much easier to transfer into a top bar hive, as there are no frames and no brood. The bees are supplied with some sugar syrup t keep them going until they are installed in the hive, but once in the hive they can start going about their business and doing what bees do, creating comb, the Queen laying eggs, etc. The only problem is, that it is not a natural swarm with the bees following their queen, but rather an artificially created swarm with a foreign queen. The bees may not therefore have such an allegiance, and there may be more chance of the swarm deserting. I have read some good reports from Natural Beekeepers who have bought bees this way though, so it may be worth considering.
However, I have also found a place in Cornwall where they produce honey, keeping bees in topbar hives and also sell topbar hive nuclei - i.e. a small nucleus topbar hive in which a small colony of bees has built some natural comb and produced brood, all with British bees and British Queens.
I feel a plan coming on...
I'm probably too late to get any bees this year, but may place an order for next Spring.

Alternatives to the Top Bar Hive

Aside from the totally leave 'em to it methods of Natural Beekeeping, there are other, in-between methods of organic beekeeping, where more natural and less invasive methods are used in traditional frame hives. Ross Conrad's book "Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture describes methods of organic beekeeping in frame hives. He says "many of the modern organic hive management techniques that are emerging are not all that different from those of conventional apiculture. This is simply because the basics of honey bee biology and behaviour must still be observed. In fact to be succesful at organic beekeeping, it is even more impotant to learn to work with the natural biological processes and instinctive behaviours of the bees. Whereas conventinal apiculture tends to force the beekeeper's will upon the hive organism, the organic beekeeper is more inclined to work with the colony in partnership rather than in domination." It is this attitude of mind that makes the difference between a beekeeper and a bee-exploiter.
The Rose Hive Method, outlined by Tim Rowe in his book of the same name, is slightly further along the Natural Beekeeping spectrum, using a hive with boxes designed to fit together with a National Hive, but to allow for conversion from the National Hive to the Rose HIve, by slowly replacing National Hive boxes with Rose Hive boxes over time, as the bees move down the hive. All boxes on the Rose Hive are one size, rather than the somewhat unecessary division into Brood Boxes and Supers in the National Hive (designed purely for the beekeeper's ease, not for the bees). Queen excluders are not used, and frames may be used without foundation, so that the bees can still build their own natural comb, but within a frame which is easier to manage if they do need to be moved.

The Rose HIve method seems to me like a good option if I do end up buying either a Nuc of bees, or a colony of bees in a National Hive from someone, as it would allow an easy transition to more natural beekeeping.

Inviting Bees to Live in My Garden

Well having learned a bit about bees, the next thing is to try and encourage them to visit and to make their homes in my garden. Since attending the Natural Beekeeping course at the beginnning of April, I have sown a few packets of bee/butterfly friendly flower seeds, in the hope that my ducks won't eat them all, and that a few plants will survive and grow to flower. I have also placed some bumble bee and solitary bee nest boxes around the garden in the hope of attracting different varieties of wild bees to nest. My garden is still very much a work in progress, with the new pond taking up a large protion of it, and the new fruit trees planted in the early spring not yet producing blossom (after my gardner cut down my apple trees last year! Not hiring that gardner again!). I have a few flowers in the garden, but its certainly not the year round blanket of colour, buzzing with bees and butterflies, that I would like it to be. I am currently in the process of buying an extra plot of land adjoining my garden - just a small piece 6 metres by 5 metres, which will be ideal for a couple of beehives for honey bees, once I've cleared the rubish out and planted a few flowers.
The next thing is how to get the honeybees to live there. I have a topbar hive on order which I expect to arrive in the next few days, which will make a nice naturalistic home for a colony of bees. But where to get the bees? The ideal would be to find a swarm, or to attract one to my garden, which can then be encouraged to live in the hive. To that end I have placed a bait hive (a Skep baited with lemongrass oil as a lure) on top of my conservatory roof. The idea is that scout bees from any swarms in the vicinity will be attracted by the smell, and check out the skep, then finding that it meets the requirements for a new home, go back to the swarm and tell the others, who will then come in mass and move into the Skep. It is then simply a matter of transferring them from the skep to the top bar hive.
I'm not too hopeful that it will work though. Firstly its probably too late in the season now, secondly I don't know if there are any honeybee colonies in the immediate vicinity that would be likely to cast off a swarm. Judging by how few honeybees I've seen in my garden, I think it unlikely. Thirdly, there still haven't been any takers for the bumble bee houses that I put in the garden earlier in the year, despite the fact that I've seen loads of bumble bees in the garden, including queens who appeared to be looking for nest sites. Oh well, maybe the bumble bees houses will be occupied next year. Regarding the honey bees, I may have to resort to buying some.
Bees bought from commercial beekeepers generally are bought as "Nucs" - nucleus colonies, consisting of 5 or 6 frames with artificial foundation, on which the bees have built cells for brood and stores. They come with a queen and a good number of workers. The frames will fit into the brood box of a National Hive or WBC Hive, but will not fit into a Topbar Hive. Although there are ways of adapting Nucs to fit into a Tobbar Hive, it is messy, and can result in the loss of brood. Either a "Shook Swarm" can be created, by transferrring the Queen and worker bees into the Topbar hive, but leaving the brood, so that the bees will act like a new swarm, and start building comb in the new hive. Some of the foundation containing honey and pollen can be cut down to size and put in to the Topbar hive to feed them, as they will not have tummys full of honey as swarming bees do in preparation. This means however, effectively killing all the brood from the Nuc (or leaving them to die), something which I really don't want to do. One can attempt to remove all the combs from the frames and cut them all down to size to fit into the Topbar Hive, attaching them to the top bars, but this is difficult if the comb is full of brood, and may be impossible to do without destroying brood. Again, not desireable.
Another method is to convert a National Hive or Dadant Hive into a Top bar hive. Phil chandler (the Barefoot Beekeeper) shows how to do this on Youtube. But this means buying or obtaining a National Hive (which is expensive) or at least a couple of brood boxes of a National Hive, in which to put the frames of the Nuc. It is a less destructive method, and the transfer takes place over time.

Bait hive on my conservatory roof.

Natural Beekeeping Course continued - A Year in the Life of a Bee Colony in a Hollow Tree

1. Swarm cluster arrives in the Spring, a median of 200 - 300 meters from the mother colony.
2. They begin to make wax to hang the comb structure from the top of the cavity. Temperature is kept at 40 degrees C.
3. Bees forage up to 3 miles in every direction for water, nectar, pollen and resin.
4. Bees ripen the noey in the comb.
5. They beging reasring brood.
6. In the summertime, the brood is raised in a near constant temperature to ensure optimum development. Foraging continues. Nutritious honey and pollen with enzymes, trace elements and vitamins used to feed brood and workers, keep brood warm and make wax. Nest atmosphere of pheremones and antiseptic propolis.
7. Autumn time, lots of honey stored for brood raising and to keep the bees through the winter. Colony prepares for winter. Stores increase and number of bees decreases. The drones are "kicked out". Stocks of nutritious honey built up.
8. Winter time, the colony clusters in warm pocket under its stores, consuming the stores of homey and pollen to keep warm. Middle of the colony is kept at 40 degrees C.
9. Winter/Spring, brood rearing starts. Brood are fed on nutritious honey (commercial beekeepers take all the honey in autumn and feed their bees sugar syrup in spring, which will raise inferior health bees, fed on a junk food diet). During the spring, the bees raise brood, feed them keep the tempoerature constant and sustain the colony.
10. Late Spring, more brood are produced. The colony expands rapidly into empty comb. Foragers gather fresh nectar, pollen and water. When affluent enough in bees and stores to reproduce the colony, they prepare to swarm. Egg laying reduces, queen cells and drone cells are raised. New pollen and honey added to stores.
11. Queen stops laying to slim down for flight with swarm. Swarm bees are selected from older nurse bees and young foragers. The swarm will leave when the new queen larvae are capped.
12. Virgin queens hatch. Often the first out kills the others. Sometimes casts are sent off (small swarms with a young queen). Sometimes the worker bees will prevent regicide in order to allow for multiple swarms, particularly if the cavity they are in is too small, and honey bound with no space for expansion. Virgin queens are assisted by workers. The new queen will take a week to prepare, and then will take her mating flight. The new queen inherits half the origial colony of bees, with ready buylt combs, stocks of stores, sealed food and hatching brood. Egg laying is interrupted for 2 -3 weeks.

What Does a Colony Need?
1. It needs shelter from the elements, preferably a South facing entrance.
2. Location near forage. A variety of food sources. Food that has not been sprayed with pesticides. Not too close to competition.
3. Protection from predators, suitably thick walls, small entrances off the ground.
4. Seclusion, not too noisy, free from disturbances.
5. A suitably sized cavity with enough storage space to survive the winter. They need 20 litres of honey through the winter. Optimal size for a natural hive is minimum 40 litres with wall thickness 4-5 inches. Ideally they will require more space than this for expansion to about 60 litres. Bees should be left with plenty of honey to last them through the winter. We can then harvest some in the spring if they haven't used it all. Generally there will be quite a large surplus, unless it has been a particulary severe winter or poor summer.

Ideal Home
It should not be too close to the mother colony. A dry place, or at least possible toseal up any gaps. It should enable the bees to thermoregulate the nest. Space sufficient for expansion of colony. Anchors for comb structure to suit bees plentiful stores of nutritious food. Defendable entrance. The beehive should not be moved ideally. If you do move a beehive, you can mov e it up to 3 feet, or more than 3 miles. If you move it more than 3 feet, they will go back to the orignial hive site and not be able to find it. If you move it more than 3 miles they will have to adjust to new surroundings. They depend on landmarks for navigation and have a foraging radius of 3 miles.

Do Not
Open hives routinely,
Manipulate combs,
Top sugar,
Inhibit swarmiing,
Feed poor quality food,
Make multiple splits,
Keep crowded apiaries.

Do
Provide dry, warm, draught free hive
Reduce repari and heating costs to bees
Allow bees own pace
Let bees build freestyle comb
Ensure proper nutrition
Enable brood wax changes
Monitor entrance behaviour, floor debris, bees and comb
Intervene only when symptoms dictate

Natural Comb
Is sized to suit the colony requirements, with worker cells and drone cells (artificial comb foundation is sized for worker brood only, to inhibit drone cell production).

Natural Beekeeping
Enables colonies, communities and superorganisms to thermoregulate, live on their own honey, behave naturally, solve their own problems, raise brood as they require, including drones and queens.

Things that can go wrong in the hive
Physical damage to structure
Cooling/chilling of the brood - likely if you open the hive up and inspect frequently as do conventional beekeepers.
Insufficient space for adults and new brood
Loss of Queen
Brood disease - European Foul Brood, American Foul Brood (notifiable diseases)
Pests - Varroa mites, Small Hive Beetle, Mice, Birds
Chemical Damage - Varroacides (Formic Acid preparations), crop pesticides.
Diseases may be transmitted vertically through swarming, which tends to be benign pathogen transmission, and horizontally through bees drifting and robbing, which can transmit more virulent pathogens transmission. Beekeeping practices of moving frames rom hive to hive, manipoulating the bees, vcreating artifical colonies, merging colonies etc. increases the chances of horizontal transmission.

Natural Beekeeping

What is Natural Beekeeping? Before attending any beekeeping courses, I assumed that all beekeeping was natural, after all, what could be more natural than a colony of honey bees doing what they are supposed to, going about their business, collecting nectar and pollen from the flowers and making honey? How wrong I was, beekeeping methods vary from the completely natural, leave 'em alone to do there own thing methods, only taking from them any excess honey leftover after the winter season, to the commercial beekeepers "factory farming" methods with artificial breeding, culling of drones, use of artifical comb, chemical pest treatments, swarm prevention, stealing all their honey and feeding them sugar instead. there are various shades of grey in between, each with its pros and cons. Modern cpommercial beekeeping methods are one of the reasons (that and the widespread use of pesticides) that our honey bee populations are in decline, that whole colonies are dying off, that they are more prone to disease and parasites.

Rudolf Steiner warned of this over 80 years ago when he gave his lectures on bees, and he noted how the techniques and the mind sets of beekeepers effect the evolutionary process, and thus the survival of the species. He said:
"Onre is able to say - in the whole inter-relationship of the bee colony- of this organism- nature reveals something very wonderful to us. The bees are subject to forces of Nature which are truly wonderful and of great significance...It is becoming increasingly obvious today that wherever man clumsily interferes with these forces that he makes matters not better, but worse...Nature is everywhere hindered, though notwithstanding these hindrances, Nature works as best She may.
...One finds that calves bred from cows that have been brought to an excessive production of milk, are considerably weaker... in artificial feeding and breeding of bees things ar not so bad, mainly because the bee is an animal that always knows how to help itself, since it is much closer to nature than a cow, which really can't help itself that much when raised and treated in this way. And this ability to help itself out of difficult situations is a truly wonderful thing about a beehive...you will get on with bees only if yu go beyond the normal, basic understanding of things and actually begin to follow matters with an inner eye. The picture of things you get in this way is indeed wonderful. Using this type of insight you will have to say that a beehive is a total entity. You must try to understand it in its totality. And with such an entity the potential damage is not at all noticeable right away...There is no way, based on the current situation with artificail methods used in feeding and breeding bees, to predict what the significanceof these procedures will mean for the future fifty or sixty years, or even a century from now".

Well, now more than 80 years on, we can see that Steiner was right, with the current decline of the honey bee. I had booked on a conventional beekeeping course before I discovered (through the Demeter Trust, an Anthroposophic al Organisation, based o the works of Rudolf Steiner) that there was a Natural Beekeeping course running in the London area on a weekend that I just happened to be in London. So I booked on the course, and was very glad that I did, and that I atttended this course prior to going on the conventional beekeeping course. Otherwise, I think I may have been put off beekeeping. On the conventional course there was too much aggravation of the bees, too many bees getting squashed each time the hives were being opened and closed, the (as far as I can see needless) destruction and culling of drone cells just to check for mites, and being told that feeding the bees sugar syrup is just as good for them as their own honey (!!!??).
Having been on the Natural beekeeping course first, I knew there was an alternative, that it isn't necessary to aggravate the bees and stress them out by opening up the hives every week, that it isn't necessary to kill the drones, and that one can still get large quantities of honey from the bees in a good season without having to resort to feeding them junk food. Also, I knew that there were lots of diffferent types of beehives, not just the standard National Hive and WBC hive used by most conventional beekeepers. There were, however, good points to the Conventional beekeeping course, and I got hands on experience of the bees, which was lacking in the Natural beekeeping course (which was more about leaving them alone). Even if keeping bees in a totally natural way, one is porobably going to need to handle them, the combs, the hive, etc at some point, particularly if one inetnds to collect honey, and the conventional course allowed me to practice that and get used to handling bees without fear. I also got to see the Queens - something that one may never see if keeping bees the totally natural way. So I got someting positive from both courses, but if I hadn't been totally convinced by Natural Beekeeping after the first (Natural course) course, then I certainly was convinced after attending the conventional course. I do, however, feel that In need to know more, and have booked on a further Natural Beekeeping course with the "Barefoot Beekeeper" http://www.biobees.com/ to learn more about Top Bar hives.

Here are my notes from the Natural Beekeeping course run by the Natural Beekeeping Trust http://www.biodynamic.org.uk/events/natural-beekeeping-trust-events.html which concentrated more on the Warre Hive, an uporight top bar hive consisting of a number of topbar hives stacked on top of each other. See http://thebeespace.net/tag/emile-warre/

British bees are best to keep, as they are more suited to our climate, are more adaptable and can survive when other bees are failing. Italian bees are often imported because they are more gentle and more productive to begin with, but they can get more nasty and stingy after a couple of generations. Hybrids between British and Italian beescan be less adaptable and more bad tempered than British bees.
Bees naturally make wax combs, but this involves a lot of energy and therfore involves them consuming a lot of homey, so conventional beekeepers like to give bees artifical honeycombs called foundation, which is made of recycled bees wax and can be used again and again. However, use of the same wax foundation again and again can spread disease as teh foundation can become contaminated with chemicals or diseases. If foundation is moved from hive to hive,diseases are spread. Bee metabolism requires bees to make wax, if they don't it interferes with their health and functioning. Although the use of foundation doesn't stop them producing wax altogether, as bees draw out the foundation into full size cells, t does lessen the amount of wax they need to produce and afedts their communication. bees naturally work in pairs to produce comb - having a sheet of foundation in between prevents them from doing this.
When an adult bee hatches out from the pupa, the first thing it does is clean its cell with proplis. Propolis is antibacterial and antivirualand very important for bees. Cinventional beekeepers hate it because it is sticky and glues up the hives, making them difficult to ope and inspect. As the new bee's glands develop, theri first job is as a house bee, feeding the brood, receiving food from incoming foragers and when the wax glands are developed they begin building honeycomb. As their venom glands develop, they may become guard bees, and lastly, they become foragers.
The Queen is the only bee to lay eggs, after her maiden flight, during which she will have been mated by several (amybe several hundred) drones from different colonies. The eggs she lays will therefore be genetically diverse, providing there is sufficient genetic diversity in the area (something which artificial breedingseverely limits). Depending on genes, some bees will be better at some activities and others will be better at other activities. If the queen is not properly fertilised, her eggs will only produce drones, and if this continues, the workers may decide to replace the queen, if there are still sufficent female brood in the brood cells. They will do this by raising new Virgin Queens, by feeding some of the female brood with a specially enriched food that allows their ovaries to develop and therefore turn into queens rather than workers. They will produce a numebr of virgin quyeens or princesses, and teh best one will survive and get to become queen of the hive. In conventional beekeeping, beekeepers will often remove all queens apart from one or two,to prevent swarming. How can they be sure that they have left the best and strongest ones? Answer - they can't! The bees know best and left to their own devices they will make the wisest choice of queen.
Beekeeping is an ancient art, with rock paintings in Spain dating back 17,000 years depicting honey collectors. In the beginning baskets or skeps were used, which were kept in bee bowls (cabinets). Honey and bees wax were and still are used extensively in churches and religious ceremonies of all kinds, and most modern hives were designed by priests. Beekeepinh has been a traditional activity in monasteries, with the phrase "Sweetness and Light" referring to the honey and beeswax candle produced.

What are the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder in modern bee colonies?
1. Environmental factors such as climate and loss of biodiversity
2. Chemical factors, such as pesticides and plant protectino products
3. Biological Agents - varroa mites, bacteria, viruses, animals
4. Beekeeping and husbandry practices - feeding, migratory beekeeping, treatments, artificial breeding, importing foreign bees

To be continued...

Rudolf Steiner's Lectures on Bees

Bees, Wasps and Figs

Apart from their importance as specialist pollinators - without which 90% of our food crops wouldn't exist, as Rudolf Steiner said in his lectures on bees given in 1923 "it is truly something to marvel at how the bee sucks the honey nectar commonly available in nature, transforms it within itself, and produces honey, which is so extraordinarily useful for human life". Steiner talks about how the same process, albeit in a different and less developed form, is found in wasps, although we can't get anything similar from the wasp that can be beneficial to humankind. Steiner describes the gall wasp, who deposits her egg on an oak leaf, causing the entire leaf tissue to undergo a complete transformation. Around the wasp egg, , sticking out of the leaf, a gall is formed. The wasp, by placing its egg in the leaf, takes the substance that it needs from the plant at the time, and transforms it. Steiner goes on to describe how this process in wasps is used in Greece to sweeten wild figs, where the wild fig tree is very attractive to a certain type of wasp, which places its egg into the fig. The fig grower takes figs from the wild fig tree, and hangs them in his fig trees on which the figs need to be improved. The wasp eggs and larvae in the wild fig speed up their development, due to sensing that the wild figs are drying out, out and emerge as adults from the wild figs, and as a result of their early emergence are forced into creating a second brood, ths time laying eggs in the cultivated figs. These eggs don't achieve maturity, but the figs become twice as sweet and are enriched and improved. Steiner compares this to the honey making of bees - the wasp gives the figs added sweetness. A wasp is unable to produce honey the same way that a bee does, but it can transfer, during its reproductive cycle, the sweetness of honey to the fig. Steiner says "using natural processes, they can make possible a certain type of honey creation invlving the transfer of something from one fig to another. The bee is a creature that has developed its wasp like body to such an extent that it can carry on independently, away from the tree, the process that the wasp can only carry on within the tree itself."
Steiner, of course was writing a long time ago, and before the process of pollination was really understood. It is interesting to note that in all his lectures on the improtance of bees, their role as pollinators is not mentioned, yet that role is now known to be of prime importance to our planet and our survival. It was known by the fig growers that the wasps gave sometihing to the fig trees that improved the figs and allowed them to develop into ripe, sweet fruit, but it was not known exactly how the process worked. We now know that the wasp sweetens the fig throug the process of pollination. The Caprii fig, is a wild fig that grows in the Mediterranean region and Western Asia. It has no commercial value itself, but cultivation is essential to the development of the Symrna Fig. The Capri Fig produces three crops of figs a year. Figs are unusual in theat the flowers are produced inside the fruit, and a specially adapted wasp, the Blastophagena psenes crawls inside the fig to the flowers. The spring crop (called the profici crop)of figs contain staminate flowers and "gall flowers", which are similar to pistillate flowers, but have shor ovaries. The fig wasp enters the young figs and lays eggs in the gall flowers. After about two months, the next generation of wasps emerges, becoming covered in pollen in the process, and enters the sumer crop of figs, which contain mainly gall flowers. As the wasp enters the figs it fertilise the gall flowers with pollen. The wasp will lay eggs in some of the gall flowers, but not all - those with eggs will not grow fertile seeds due to the presence of the wasp larvae, but those that don't contain larvae will. Later in the aseason the winter crop of fruit develops and the wasps over-winter in the fruit. The cultivated Smyrna Fig produces no staminate flowers, and is therefore entirely dependent on cross pollination from the Capri figs. Branches of figs, containing wasp larvae and eggs, from the profici crop are suspended on the Smyrna fig trees by the grower. The emerging wasps enter the partly developed Smyrna figs and pollinate them, but are unable to deposit eggs in the correct location i the flowers, as they are a different shape to the flowers of the Capri figs, with longer stamens. The wasps then emerge from the fig, and will pollinate several figs looking for somewhere to deposit eggs. Smyrna figs have a better flavour and sweetness once fertile the seeds develop. Thus, like the bee, the wasp is an important pollinator and indirectly, produces a sweet substance by allowing the fertilised fig to develop.
Different insects are adapted to pollinate different types of plant, and the little fig wasp can get into places where bees can't - everything has its place in the balance of nature - but bees are the major type of pollinator in the ecosytem. Different species of bees too, are adapted to pollinate and suck nectar from different types of plant. It is important thererfore that all types of bees are protected, and helped to survive and proliferate, not just the ones that give us honey. And even the much maligned and hate wasp needs to be treated with some respect, as it is also has a role as a pollinator, and predator of garden pests.

The Wasp and the Bee - a Fable reprinted from Evenings at Home

A wasp met a bee, and said to her, "Pray, tell me what is the reason that men are so illnatured to me, while they are so fond of you? We are both very much alike, only that the broad, golden rings about my body make me much handsomer than you are: we are both winged insects, we both love honey, and we both sting people when we are angry; yet men always hate me, and try to kill me, though I am much more familiar with them than you are, and pay them visits in their houses, and at their tea table, and at all their meals: while you are very shy, and hardly ever come near them: yet they build you curious houses, thatched with straw, and take care of, and feed you i the winter very often: - I wonder, what is the reason?"
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The bee said "Its because you never do them any good, but, on the contrary, are very troublesome and mischievous; therfore they do not like to see you. But they know that I am busy all day long in making them honey. You had better pay them fewer visits, and try to be useful!

What is a bee?

Bees are vegetarian wasps!
Somewhere back in the mists of time, the ancestors of bees, wasps in the family Crabronidae preyed on other insects, but as pollen producing plants appeared, they adapted to eat pollen possibly, starting by eating smaller plant dwelling insects that were covered in pollen, but adapting to live on the pollen itself.  The earliest insect pollinated plants were thought to have been pollinated by other insects, such as beetles, but bees developed as specialized pollinators, and thus allowed the development and spread of flowering plants.  Bees and flowers developed together, and one could not exist without the other. A perfect symbiotic relationship. Bees developed behaviourally and physically to specifically enhance pollination and are more efficient at the task than any other insect, including butterflies and pollinatiing wasps.  The earliest bee fossil that has so far been found is 100 million years old embeded in amber

Starting the Journey

Oh what a wonderful thing to be
A healthy, happy, busy, buzzy bee
What a wonderful way to while the hours
Supping up the nectar on the open flowers

I decided to create this blogg to share my experiences on my journey into working with bees - to share my learning, mistakes, insights, frustrations, joy, anguish, insights, thoughts and inspirations.  I say working with bees rather than beekeeping, because I believe that bees are wild and wonderful spiritual creatures, messengers of the gods, from whom we can learn a lot if we just but listen rather than seeking to control for our own ends.  The blogg will also therefore contain details of meditations and rituals, as well as a log of my attempts to establish a colony of bees in my garden.
My fascination with bees began when I was a small child, when I used to watch them in the garden of my parents house, and sometimes catch them in my hands and talk to them, on some occasions putting single bees that I had caught in my bare hands into jam jars temporarily in the hope that they would give me some honey - I didn't really understand how the bee/honey thing worked back then; how much work goes into producing honey, how nectar has to be gathered, transformed in the bees honey stomach, and condensed down in the hive through fanning and evaporation.  I just knew that bees gave us honey, and therefore they were my friends.   I would let them go after a short while, and they would buzz off on their way.  I never got stung.
As an adult I have been stung twice by bees, on both occasions I had accidentally either trodden on a bee with bare feet, or having felt a tickle on my foot, rubbed my foot with the other foot, squashing a bee.  I can't really blame them for stinging under such circumstances, and although it hurt, I felt more upset that I had killed the bee.  But even in stinging me, the bee gave me a gift.  Bee venom is therapeutic for a number of conditions, such as arthritis, rheumatism, tendonitis, and the sting in my left foot greatly alleviated the tendonitis I had been suffering with in my left ankle.  Bee venom therapy is an interesting subject, but it is a shame that the bee generally has to die when it stings.  However, something I learned on a Natural Beekeeping course I attended recently, is that if you can manage to stay very calm when a bee stings you, and resist the urge to brush it away, but stay still, the bee can sometimes manage to pull its sting out of your flesh and remain intact and so survive.  Sometimes, giving it a very gentle nudge can help it pull its sting out.  I hope that the next time I am stung I can see it as a gift, a blessing of the Goddess and manage to do that!
Blessed Bee