When we lived in Holland, Dick trained to become a beekeeper and since that time, all of those years ago, he has kept bees and produced his own honey.
I don’t have any difficulties at all in having the beehives at home and our children learned over the years that they should have respect for the hives and never disturb them. Undisturbed, you almost don’t notice they are there. Our children have also learned that honey from our own hives is one of the most delicious things you can ever eat! As you taste the honey, you get a sense of what the area we live in smells like, for example if the bees are finding a lot of heather, you can taste the heather. For our children, a spoonful of honey in a mug of warmed milk has always been a favourite treat just before bedtime and although they are now in their twenties, they still love this. Honey is sweet, but it is much healthier than sugar. It is actually incredibly healthy and full of beneficial properties from our local area that resonate very well with our bodies. It has been said that if you suffer from allergies, you should eat honey that is from your local area as this gives balance to your body. I am not a doctor so cannot give any advice on this, but it does make a lot of sense to me.
I grow many plants in the garden especially for the bees; Borage in particular is a very good plant as not only does it have beautiful blue flowers, it replenishes it’s nectar very frequently so the bees can keep coming back for more – a bit like an ‘eat all you can’ buffet for bees!
In the main, the keeping of bees is rhythmic and I believe that Dick finds it very therapeutic when he works on maintaining the hives. However, from time to time, we do have an exciting moment that requires a little extra attention and is something that only he can deal with – for an inexperienced person, handling the bees could be quite dangerous so I keep away at these times!
An example of this would be a swarm. No matter how much attention you give to tending the bees, if they are healthy, there is a possibility of a swarm early in the season. This is nature’s way of reproducing. We live in the middle of a forest area and any swarms that do fly away to freedom, have a good chance of surviving in the wild rather than become the unwelcome guests in the eaves of some unfortunate person’s house. However, Dick does his best to avoid this and if we do have a swarm, he collects the swarm (whilst wearing his bee suit!) and allocates them to a new hive. This has happened to us twice this year and we are 2 hives wealthier because of it.
I have taken some photos of the bees swarming and Dick gathering them up from a tree. Once he gathered them, they all climbed up a ramp into their new home, where they are now living very happily.
The bees are such an intricate part of our lives that I will write much more about them as this blog progresses but for now, I am busy with getting the last batch of honey into jars!