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In many ways, beekeeping is where our smallholding journey started, so we thought it would be quite apt for our first post to be all about them. We hope you enjoy reading…
Let’s turn the clock back. Around sixteen years should do it. You’ll find us at university. One of us studying maps and climate change, the other jazz and song writing. On campus there was a stand, which would appear sporadically in the courtyard between the shop and bar, with a sign that read: Special Deal for Students! Buy a newspaper for 25p and get a free chocolate bar. We always bought a copy. Less for the broadsheet, more for the Dairy Milk. But one day, while flicking through the supplements, we came across an article about the desperate plight of honeybees, and each read it in turn. Afterwards we were both in agreement. We had to do something to help these deeply important little insects. And beekeeping sounded rather interesting...
After graduation, we secured jobs in London, and moved to the suburbia of zone 4, where our curiosity about bees continued to grow. We read all the beekeeping books we could find, attended talks by beekeepers and bee experts, scoured beekeeping forums, completed a weekend course with a beekeeping association, and researched the best plants and trees to grow for bee forage. There was just one thing we needed: somewhere to put a hive.
Eventually, after a long search, we came across a one bed garden flat for rent not far from where we were living. The outside space was small but had a whisper of The Secret Garden about it. It was overgrown and unloved by the previous tenants, but there were signs of promise within its crumbly brick walls. An old potting bench, a hidden stone path, a wizened asparagus bed, and a crooked apple tree scrambling along the fence. We could see it would be a perfect place to keep bees, and maybe grow some of our own food too. After a quick call between estate agent and landlady, we managed to negotiate a couple of tiny additions to the letting agreement before signing the paperwork:
Permission to remove a section of the lawn to make space for a vegetable patch.
Permission to keep bees!
That summer we moved in. We built two raised beds, planted a herb patch, and ordered a nucleus of bees to collect in the spring. Beekeeping always begins in the spring.
One blue-skied, cottonwool clouded, sunny day in May, we hopped in the car and headed down the M5 to the home of an extremely knowledgeable commercial beekeeper called Pete. Pete had apiaries dotted all over Exmoor. He also made hives and bred his own bees. And Pete’s bees were very special. Through careful selection he had created a gentle, highly productive bee that had little inclination to swarm, was resistant to disease, and made prolific amounts of honey. No beekeeper could wish for more.
As the hazy early evening light appeared, we finally arrived at the address Pete had given us. The strong scent of beeswax wafting into the porch reassured us we were in the right place as we knocked on the door. After a warm welcome, and some cheerful introductions to the other beekeepers also collecting that day, we got straight back in the car to travel in convoy to the apiary.