search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
 Hobby Focus


BESOTTED WITH BEES


With spring well on the way, Jo Pierce is looking forward to warmer days ahead spent with the thousands of busy little insects she calls ‘my girls’ Here she explains how she caught the bug for beekeeping.


“I had always been interested in beekeeping and there were various places that did taster half-days. I just searched in Google for honey bee lessons and found there was an expert in the next village, Yalding, who offered these evening classes about honey bees. It was just 10 minutes up the road so I went along. Once you start learning, you get sucked in.”


Jo, who works as a children’s occupational


therapist from her 1850s cottage in East Peckham, started the lessons by Chris Morris in January six years ago and soon decided beekeeping was fun, so she bought a hive and a starter pack. The bees – a mated queen and about 1,000 bees – arrived during the May bank holiday, and began to get busy. In fact, so busy that she now has four hives providing homes for 50,000 to 60,000 honey bees in each one in summer.


She said: “It was a nice small number to start with. The queen started to lay and the eggs became bees. They were friendly bees. Each week I went, there were more bees so it was a gradual build-up as I was still learning. It was all very exciting.”


Time spent contentedly


watching her bees revealed that not all pollen is yellow, with the dust on the insects’ legs a signpost to where they have been in search of nectar. Jo said: “It’s fascinating to see the bees fly in and out. I thought pollen was yellow, but it comes in a rainbow of colours. By watching the bees with the different colours on their legs, you get to know what flowers they have visited so you can tell where they have been. I have found the bees made me much more aware of what plants are growing on the farms around here and the hedgerows and in people’s gardens. The bees can fly up to two or three miles.”


The hives start to buzz in March or April and need checking about once a week.


The amount of honey the bees produce depends on the weather as they don’t fly if it’s wet or if the temperature is below 8 degrees. Jo, who doesn’t sell it commercially, said: “The bees are my passion and that’s what I


28 Mid Kent Living


love. It’s for family and friends and people who know me. The first year I was thrilled we had any honey at all. It’s such a precious commodity. I do like baking so I make cakes and biscuits with honey in and I give it as Christmas presents.”


Jo’s assistant beekeeper is her


husband, Chris, a gardener and groundsman, who helps with building the flat pack hives and maintaining them. “He helps me spin the honey and helps me eat it, “she says. “We don’t have children but my nieces and nephews love the honey and are fascinated by the bees. Children don’t have any fear.”


Jo says she has only had a few minor stings, mainly through bees getting stuck under her sleeve when she is not wearing her protective white suit.


“My bees are very friendly, although I did have one colony a couple of years who got “really, really feisty”, she says.


“They were absolutely no fun. I almost had to have two bee suits on. We despatched the queen and that changed the genetics and they have been friendly since then.


“You need to be gentle and quiet. If


you are trying to hurry the bees will know. I do talk to my bees and tell them what I am doing. They do know. They are very clever. I feel very responsible for my girls.


“On a warm sunny day they are busy and


there’s such a hum. They are contented – it’s lovely.”


Bee amazed


 A colony of bees can contain 20,000 to 60,000 bees, but only one queen. Worker bees, who are all female, are the only ones who sting, and only if they feel threatened - then they die.


 The queen bee will lay around 1,500 eggs a day.  In winter, honey bees feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.


 Bees are the only insect in the world that make food that people can eat.  Beekeepers only take the honey that the bees do not need.  Bees have been around for more than 30 million years.  A third of all the plants we eat have been pollinated by bees.


Get the buzz


If you are interested in looking after honey bees as a hobby, contact your local beekeeping association. By taking part in an introduction to beekeeping course, you can find out what it involves before you decide whether to invest in equipment and your honey bees.


Contact Kent Bee- keepers’ Association on www.kentbee.com.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64