Urban beekeeping project – Michael, London 2011
Last year while on the tube I picked up a copy of the Metro and saw an advert that was being run by The Co-operative Group asking people to get involved with Plan Bee, its national campaign to increase the amount of bees in the UK. I looked at the Plan Bee website that evening and saw that The Co-operative was setting up and sponsoring the training of bee keepers, and that they had a training site in London.
Very soon after I was making my way to Camley Street Natural Park, which is based right next to the new Kings Cross St Pancras building. There was a real buzz of excitement as we all got to know each other and our tutor Brian McCallum. We were taken to the hives that are on the site at Camley Street for our first real experience of being up close with bees. There was some anxiousness but that went when we were looking at the frames from the hive carpeted with bees busily doing their jobs and not bothering with us at all.
My excitement dipped slightly when I realised that the hive came as a flat pack. Being a bit of a stranger to a hammer and screwdriver it was with some trepidation that I opened the very large box to assemble the hive. However, I did manage to put it together and it now sits proudly on its stand (in an almost square fashion).
I can now be seen in my protective bee suit checking the hive throughout the week.
Urban beekeeping project – Kate, London 2010/11
4 May
Bee Day – our first evening of learning about bees and becoming London’s newest apiarists. Nineteen of us found our way to Camley Street Natural Park – a small oasis, belonging to the London Wildlife Trust, created on an old coal yard, sandwiched between Kings Cross and St Pancreas stations. It has clearly changed much since it was founded 25 years ago – it is now a verdant, two acre sanctuary full of an extraordinarily diverse range of wildlife and plants in woodland, meadow areas, ponds, and marsh and reed beds. It will be a fantastic site for our training hives, providing food and shelter for the bees, and it will be a good place for us too - a beautiful contrast to the surrounding urban environment.
We met up in the main hut and Brian McCallum, our tutor and the founder of Urban Bees, introduced himself. We did some swift speed meeting to get to know people in our local areas, as well as other members of the group. We are a wonderful mix including a young financial analyst – it was his first day at his new job as well as his induction day into bee-keeping – a charity worker, a few teachers and academic administrators (who will be using their hives as teaching aids at their educational establishments), a successful entrepreneur, a redundant company director, a pioneering and eminent chocolateer, a guy who mends the organ in St Paul’s Cathedral, a café owner and a couple of retired individuals. There is no doubt that between us we have a wealth of skills and experience and we are all keen to support one another.
11 May
I can feel the buzz, it is bee-keeping night again - the past week has rushed by. I was a good girl and practiced with the smoker in the garden. Rolled up plain cardboard seems to work quite well (once I learned to prevent flames from shooting out of the spout as if I had a small dragon trapped inside the pot). Not long now until we get the bees themselves - I wish the flat-packed hive would turn up, as I have to make it before the bees arrive or they will have nowhere to live.
Today’s session at Camley Street was more formal than last week. We were sat at desks and, as the bees have yet to arrive, we commenced with a slide show and a lesson from Brian on the lifecycle of the honey bee. There was much ribald discussion about drones. Brian showed us brood frames (the frames on which the queen lays eggs that grow to form the colony) and pointed out different chambers that are used to grow workers, queens and drones. It takes 24 days for a drone to develop and 21 days for a worker bee but only 16 days to grow a queen. In the warm summer months a bee colony will number circa 50,000 bees – this number drops to 10,000 during the winter.
25 May
Suits, gloves, hats to the ready…
Arrived 10 mins early looked at the first real bees – in a special glass observation box– identified the queen, marked with a blue spot. Brian was concerned that this lot, were starting to get hot and bothered, the day was warm. There was also the box with the other half of the colony which had been separated from their queen for a few hours and bees don’t like to be away from the comforting pheromones of mum. We chatted about building the hives which had been delivered to us in flat pack form. Some of the group are gifted woodworkers, others struggle with Ikea and I think these hives are probably half way between in challenge terms.
Suited and booted, we went down to meet the bees and assemble the hives.
We took all the kit, including a bath of soda to keep the hive tools clean, buckets of sugar syrup, and the smoker. We lit the smoker first, built the hives on their bases, placed the veroa screen, and the the brood box on top, we took out all but two of the frames and then the moment we had all been waiting for, we unpacked the bees from their nuc boxes. In fact Brian had opened the entry hole on them earlier, so that they could go out if they wanted, and they had started to get used to their new environment. A brilliant evening – and not a single sting!
22 June
What a wonderful day! Warm and dry with no wind – perfect for inspecting the bees at Camley Street. After meeting up at the hut – a great turn out of enthusiastic participants, with people animatedly exchanging news about friends’ hives, bee related functions and events – we ambled through the park, past the diving wildfowl on the pond and through the woodland, to the fenced off area where we keep our hives. If it wasn’t for the shadow of the gas storage tower looming over us, the distant (but constant) hum of traffic and the rumble of trains setting off for the continent, it would be hard to imagine that we are in the centre of London.
To reduce the risk of infection between the different colonies we have chosen to inspect and care for the same hives every week. My group was delighted to discover that our hive is really thriving – it is the most vigorous of the four. The bees have been very busy: the Super we placed on last week has nearly been filled – every frame has been drawn out and most are laden with sealed cells brimming with honey. Even Brian was impressed!