There's a real buzz about the place

Times

July 19, 2003

There's a real buzz about the place

Carolyn Fry meets the new generation of beekeepers

CHARLIE MILLAR, an abstract artist, is about to take charge of his first community of honeybees. Having put on a white protective face net, Millar opens a wooden box and carefully lifts out a rectangular frame, to which cling hundreds of brown velvety worker bees. The high-pitched whine of the crawling mass rises as dozens of insects launch themselves into the overcast sky. Only when Millar has transferred six or so identical frames safely into the waiting hive does the angry, buzzing cloud subside. When a queen bee is introduced in a few days, the hive will soon become a fully functioning natural honey factory.

We’re in a quiet corner of Roots and Shoots community wildlife garden in Kennington, the new home of the London Beekeepers’ Association (LBKA). Hidden away among derelict, ivy-clad tower blocks, the one-acre site is a honey-bee’s paradise; blossoming clumps of pink geraniums, crimson rock roses, and 10ft-high spikes of purple-blossomed flowing echium are a rich source for the voracious pollen collectors.

Here, along with 17 other students, 38-year-old Millar mastered the tricks of the beekeeper’s trade on the association’s first beekeeping course since its relaunch in January. “I signed up for the course as a joke really because of the novelty value of taking a bee-keeping course in Kennington,” he explains. “I didn’t think I would make every evening, but by the end I couldn’t miss one. It was fascinating.”

The course tutors were surprised to find that the majority of people on the course were in their 30s or 40s, and that many of them were working professionals. Beekeeping has traditionally attracted retired folk, whose children have grown up and who have sufficient land, money and space to support a hive or two in their garden. Few people realise that keeping bees is not particularly time-consuming or expensive and offers “back-to-nature” experience that can help counteract the stresses of the city workplace.

“Beekeeping can take up as much or as little time as you like,” explains Cathy Cooper, 48, a financial manager who also took the Roots and Shoots course. “I’ve had my bees for five or six weeks now and I spend a minimum of half an hour a week with them. I was a scientist years ago and I’ve found it refreshing to go back into something quite academic, to talk to experts and attend lectures again.”

Outside the capital there are also signs that beekeeping is attracting a younger crowd. Thirty-five year-old Andy Sutherland, an electronics engineer at the University of Manchester, got his first hive when he was 17 and now has four hives on two sites. “The younger beekeepers I know range vary in age between 13 and their 40s,” he says. “I’ve just sold one of my honey extractors to the headmaster of a public school in Rochdale. The school has beekeeping on the curriculum so hopefully the age of beekeepers will be coming down.”

Most cities have their own apiary societies. Keeping bees is surprisingly well suited to urban life as the temperature is warmer and the season longer for foraging. The wide variety of plants and trees in parks and gardens provide a rich source of nectar and pollen — which in turn yields richer flavoured honey. In the country bees often have to rely on a huge field of a single crop that might flower only for a short time.

“We had lovely honey from here a few years ago,” says David Perkins, Roots and Shoots’s wildlife outreach worker and a lecturer on the beekeeping course. “One person thought it was lime but I thought it might be elder. It’s hard to know because in London the bees take nectar from such a wide variety of plants.” There are approximately 200 hives in London — distributed throughout private gardens, parks and urban farms. With around 40,000 bees in each hive there is inevitably going to be some contact between bees and humans.

When a community in a hive becomes too large to support itself, a new queen grows and the old queen leaves with half the bees to set up a new community. Not all neighbours are particularly happy to find a swarm of bees in their garden, but usually this is when the bees are carrying all their honey supplies and are at their most placid.

“I had some builders round who were being all macho about the bees until they swarmed and two or three of them got stung,” says Federico Botana, a London-based illustrator whose partner keeps bees in their garden. “After that the builders were terrified. When bees start flying around your head it can be psychological torture. But I’ve been stung only rarely and usually it’s been my fault, for example when I’ve been walking around the garden barefoot.”

If taking a few stings is the downside to beekeeping, gathering the honey is the bonus. Beekeepers generally extract honey from their hives twice a year and expect to gather between 20lb and 60lb in a good season. The new London beekeepers will have to wait until August to sample their first batch. For Charlie Millar, the honey is a big reward. “I just love the idea that honey was the original sweet thing that humans used,” he enthuses.

Cathy Cooper, though, is happy enough that she has given a home to a new community of bees. “I’m not in it for the honey,” she says. “I just like the idea of having a beehive at the bottom of my garden.”

For more information on beekeeping and courses in your area contact the British Beekeepers Association (02476 696679; www.bbka.org.uk).

For more information, visit www.honeyshow.co.uk.

The Hive Honey Shop, 93 Northcote Road, London SW11 (020-7924 6233) sells a wide range of English honey.

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