From A to Bee (36 page)

It all looks so easy when you write it down over a coffee; but having done a move before I now feel a lot more at ease with it all.

OK, the move is underway. I first of all needed to test whether the hive would fit in the car as a complete entity, as there would be a problem otherwise! It was already obvious that the roof of the hive would have to come off but with the cover board in place, the bees would be safely inside. Before I walked to the allotment I took a tape measure and measured the height of the boot and then once I was standing behind the hive, I measured that as well. There were literally millimetres in it – too close to risk doing it early tomorrow morning and failing to get the hive into the car. I decided I needed to do a dummy run on getting the hive into the car just in case.

  I went back to the house, drove the car up to the allotment and reversed rather gingerly until I was about 10 feet from the hive. I tried to secure gauze around the hive entrance before securing the hive using the ratchet. I didn't fancy lifting up a whole hive of bees for them to come pouring out to see what was going on; that wouldn't have been pretty. My first attempt didn't go particularly well and the hive wasn't secure; the bees found it very easy to navigate around my drawing pin secured gauze. They must have just thought I was a complete fool. I left them alone for a moment hoping that they would lose interest as I went to the Man Shed to find some gaffer tape.

  I entered the messy oasis of the Man Shed, but none could be found and my hope for electrical tape was also in vain, so I had to put up with layering the rather feeble masking tape. I wasn't too concerned as it was only a temporary measure tonight to just move the hive into the car, but I would need something a little more robust for the actual journey.

  Back at the hive, the bees had indeed popped back inside and so I secured the gauze with the layered masking tape; it did look a bit of a mess but I wasn't overly concerned. I started using the ratchet to secure the hive together and all was going well, having watched someone using one on YouTube earlier for good measure. They are amazing little bits of engineering and my hat is docked to whoever designed them.

  The ratchet was secured and I started to lift the hive. I did everything right and bent my knees, not my back, but none of this was going to help. OH MY GOD. As I strained to lift the hive, I could not believe how heavy it had become since I moved it there nearly three months ago. I could hardly move it. I had no option, though, as there was no one else around and so I had to have another go; I only needed to lift it about ten feet to a car boot.

  I lifted and stumbled my way to the car, all the while listening, rather too closely, to the bemusement in the hive. I rested it on the lip of the boot and as I levered it forward a little, it dawned on me that I was correct earlier on. It was very, very close to fitting in and there were millimetres in it but not in the right direction. To be honest, now that I looked at it very closely, the hive should actually have fitted in given its measurements but it was the angle in which it had to go that was causing the problems, so I didn't feel too much of an idiot. There is a small lip on my boot that I had to ease the hive over first before sliding it in and this was causing the problem.

  It wasn't the end of the world. I just had to remove the hive stand on the bottom, which would give me another 10 centimetres to work with. Off I stumbled back to the hive area, and off came the ratchet to let me prise it all apart.

  This was where it got tricky as I tried to break the stand away from the hive. Even using the hive tool it was practically impossible. I couldn't get any purchase on lifting up the hive except with the stand. Because the super and brood box were filled with bees I couldn't be too heavy-handed, because they weren't fixed together. The last thing I needed was to force it and to dislodge the super from the brood box, and thus let countless bees out of the hive that probably wouldn't be too happy.

  It must have taken about half an hour of nervous and scary manoeuvres to create a small gap between the bottom of the hive and the stand. As I was fixing the ratchet I was literally putting my ear right up against the hive and all I could hear was the noise of 50,000 bees hemmed in, trying to work out exactly what was going on. I tried not to think what might happen if I dropped the hive off the stand. Just as I managed to get the ratchet in place, the stand wobbled and the hive moved about one inch off the hive stand, onto its dodgy and rather weakened leg – the one I had put the misplaced nail into all those months before. I saw it wobble, knowing this one leg couldn't take the weight, but fortunately managed to grab it in time. I had a very, very tense moment or two. The sound of the bees was terrifying, as it must have felt to them like an
Italian Job
moment, when the bus is precariously placed over the side of a mountain pass. I started to breathe normally again as I realised all was OK.

  I lifted the hive to the car once more but this time without the stand, and fortunately it fitted in fine. A wave of relief came over me as I realised the move was still on for the morning so I put the hive back on the stand. Having taken off my bee suit I put it and the rest of the kit I would need into the car and I was pretty much ready for the morning. The only thing I would have to do tomorrow morning is bulk up my entrance block. I am sure there must be something on the market that is far more professional than a gauze/masking tape bodge job but it's far too late in the day for that. I just need something that will keep them in place for forty-five minutes before I unleash them on their new home, which I am still to see. I wonder what it is like.

  My last job this evening was to simply open up the entrance again to allow some ventilation. This was pretty stupid as I had put everything in the car ready for tomorrow, including the suit. I couldn't be bothered to put it all back on again and as it was getting dark I didn't think there would be a problem. After all, it sounded quite calm in there now. I bent down beside the hive and prised the masking tape off and then gently took out the pins which held the gauze in place. I then gently took away the gauze and all was fine. For some reason I then decided to shine the torch at the entrance and WHAM, two guard bees came straight at me buzzing frantically. Why oh why did I do that?!

  I ran as fast as I could from the hive, leapfrogged my raised beds and headed straight for the exit of my allotment. They were still after me and weren't letting up. I continued at a rather fast walking pace towards home and after about a hundred metres it went quiet, much to my relief. However, all was not over and they must have regrouped, plotted and planned. Five metres further on they made another sustained attack and this time they must have split up. As one attacked my head, the other went in for the kill on my now exposed belly seeing as my arms were waving frantically around.

  One sting on the belly button and then within about five seconds I got a second. Ouch, they really hurt this time but I suppose that will teach me a lesson. As I trudged back in silence I made a mental note never to shine a torch at a beehive entrance again.

  All that aside, I am hoping that it is like a heather heaven when I open them up tomorrow morning at their new home as they fly out of the hive into a river of nectar.

Having had four stings in twenty-four hours, I was feeling a little bit silly today. I mean, how desperate must I be to get this jar of honey? I wouldn't have got stung had I not wanted to move the hive. There must be a moral there, or maybe the bees just know something is up.

  Anyway, when I got back last night I searched high and low for an alternative to masking tape and gauze and found… nothing. No electrical tape or gaffer tape as I had hoped, and no foam to block up the entrance either. I was stuck with the method I had used last night, which I didn't have a lot of faith in. However, I decided to take it one stage further and so I was now armed with masking tape (lots of it), the gauze and then tea towels; yes, that's right, tea towels.

  I was going for a thick masking tape primary layer, gauze secondary layer (just in case they nibbled through the tape during the journey) and a tea towel third layer. I thought it an unbeatable entrance and would tide me over until next year when I would get something far more professional.

  It was 5.30 a.m. and I was there early with the plan that I could get them into the car quickly, drive to the location, set them up and be back in time for breakfast. As I approached the hive and got it all secured it looked like it was a good possibility. My plan was coming together and my three-layered entrance block looked great and was very secure.

  I set off feeling confident and it wasn't long before I was driving in thick woodland close to the tiny turn-off I needed to take. I was heading down a main road towards the Devil's Punch Bowl with my eyes peeled looking for a sign advertising a youth hostel. The only problem I had this morning was that the head warden wasn't home and so if I got lost I was on my own.

  Ahead of me I saw it and immediately slowed down. There was a tiny unmade road off to the right-hand side. It was just wide enough for a car, with banks up both sides which prevented me from seeing over them. As I went further down the track and the banks gave way to views of woodland in all directions, it immediately felt remote. I realised it must have been quite damp because I kept seeing mushrooms and the woodland floor was covered with a thick, almost fluorescent green moss. The mushrooms were not just any mushrooms mind you; they were those beautiful ones that look like toadstools and will kill you in an instant should you take a bite.

  The head warden had mentioned that it was a little bumpy down the track. You could say that again. As I continued down, his words were ringing in my ears. I had thought I would be fine as I knew our farm track was pretty bad, and I had therefore taken his words with a pinch of salt. I was very glad I'd come in the four-by-four, as at points it felt like I was about to tip over. My main concern was the bees but they seemed fine.

  The tiny road kept winding round and round but was dropping in height quite considerably as I went down into the most beautiful valley. It was like a hidden world. I went past a very basic-looking youth hostel where, according to my father, he stayed many years previous, and carried on. The road narrowed further and it all became rather atmospheric with the trees feeling like they were smothering you; everything was almost too green.

  I turned a corner and dipped down once again, and up on my right I could make out the most beautiful old house covered in moss, the gardens overgrown in a nice and natural way, and the whole thing looked like something from a fairy tale. This must have been the head warden's house. I stopped the car and looked up at it for a while. It was one of the most unusual houses I have ever seen and given my history as an estate agent, there have been many.

  My instructions told me to drive past the house and then park in a little turning bay up ahead, which I found pretty easily and stopped the car. Behind me, over the boundaries of the fence to his garden, were the remnants of some beautiful WBC hives. Obviously they had fallen into disrepair but they looked lovely there, and so fitting of the setting. It answered one question for me: at least my bees wouldn't be fighting with others.

  As I stepped out of the car, it was immediately apparent how peaceful it was. Nothing moved around here. It was all still. I did a 360-degree turn taking it all in and that is when I saw the heather heaven that I was looking for. At the end of the road, there was a cattle grid and the valley opened out. In front of me were the rolling hills of the Punch Bowl and all I could see was heather, all in flower, which made these rolling hills look like soft pink blankets. I couldn't help but smile. I only hoped I wasn't too late.