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Heather honey and hard work

2009-11-01T12:00:00+00:00

Picture the scene. Blue sky... singing birds... the rolling Derbyshire moorland covered in a blushing pink eiderdown as beekeepers across the country arrive for the annual ritual of taking the bees to the heather.

That's how it should have been on that August day when the Farming Today bees arrived at the much hyped moorland in order that Aunty and her team of thousands of workers would produce gold standard heather honey.

However, the cold, foggy rainy day which greeted us in Derbyshire was not the idyllic scene I had been expecting. As we unloaded the Farming Today bees from the trailer our trousers became heavy with rain, our feet started squeaking and large drips of water were rolling down the backs of our necks.

It had taken 2 hours to drive there, but 10 minutes after arriving and unceremoniously dumping the Farming Today hive near the soaked heather, we were on our way back. Praying that the weather would be kind to our bees and, at the very least, they wouldn't starve.

In September we brought the bees back. They didn't starve. Quite the contrary it appears... Now it was time to harvest it.

Heather honey extraction is not easy. Other types of honey are spun out of the frame in a centrifuge. Heather honey is thicker and no amount of spinning will get it to shift. Instead, it is pressed out using a converted wine press. 40 tonnes of pressure are put on a stack of honeycomb filled with heather honey. The pressure makes the honey runny and it trickles out into a bucket.

For me, honey extraction is the worst part of beekeeping. It's sticky, it takes an age and the cleaning up afterwards would test the patience of a saint. It took 2 hours to extract the honey our bees had produced. It would take another 2 hours to clear up. Add that to the time taken travelling to the moor and back... heather honey production is not for the faint-hearted.

However, Aunty and her gang had done Farming Today proud. They'd produced 30lbs of the stuff. For those who haven't ever tried heather honey, spread thinly. It's not like other honey which can be eaten by the spoonful. It has a strong taste. Chris and I are ashamed to say that when we first tasted it at our evening classes last March we wrinkled our noses in disgust.

We would both now agree that the hard work that bees and beekeepers put into producing the seasonal crop of heather honey produces a sublime product. The consistency of liquid fudge and the taste of... well, you'll have to try some. But when you do bit into a piece of toast smeared with heather honey do think of the work the bees have put in to produce it, and of the lengths the beekeeper has gone to to bring it to your kitchen.

Fran Barnes is a producer on Farming Today

Readers of the blog are very interested in bees. The Farming Today Bees category is the most popular on the Radio 4 blog.
Farming Today is on Radio 4 Monday - Friday at 0545 and on Saturday morning at 0630. You can listen again online, of course, and there's a podcast.
The picture shows the machine used by Fran to extract the Farming Today heather honey.

The Farming Today bees in living colour!

2009-09-01T16:04:04+00:00

The Farming Today bees are on holiday in Derbyshire. Fran and Clive (our beekeeping mentor) took them up to the moors one rainy night. They're on a farm feeding off the heather. We're hoping, all being well, this well produce a crop of very rich tasting honey. They've been away a few weeks now and we miss them.

Clive's been a crucial part of this project, not just because he's been there to guide us through the process of beekeeping but also because he's an interviewer's dream - relaxed, clear, funny and able to get across what he's saying simply. And he's dedicated to his cause - to ensure the future of the honey bee. Fran and I went to see him recently at the apiary where the Farming Today bees normally live because he wanted to take us through treatments for varroa.

These are the parasitic mites capable of destroying whole colonies if not treated - and viewed as the biggest threat to honey bee populations. He showed us two chemical treatments which kill off the mites - one in a gel and the other on sticky strips, both of which are put in the hives and which the bees transfer around. But he also showed us a treatment using a more common substance - icing sugar. Once covered in it the bees groom themselves - and groom off the mite which is also said to have difficulty clinging to an iced bee. It was an unusual site to have dusty white bees swarming around us as we treated each frame.

Clive was keen to emphasise to us the importance of using all three of these methods. There are concerns about bees developing resistance to varroa treatments and by using a variety of methods we can help avoid this.

The video was made by the Farming Today team and features Farming Today bloggers Charlotte Smith, Chris Impey and Fran Barnes.
Previous posts about the Farming Today bees from the Radio 4 blog.

How to stop your bees leaving home

2009-07-20T14:28:01+00:00

We may only have had our bees a couple of months, but they're already thinking of leaving us. Bees swarm as a natural way of increasing their numbers - typically over half of the colony will leave. But we don't want to lose so many of them just as they're starting to make us honey.

They've been showing signs of swarming for a few weeks - most notably by creating queen cells - as a swarming hive will need two queens: one to stay with the original colony and one for the departing bees. Fran, Clive (our bee mentor) and me have been destroying the cells, but they've been persistently returning. So Clive decided it was time to take more decisive action.

When I turned up at the hive that morning I was surprised to find Clive with a separate, empty hive just a few feet from the Farming Today hive. Over the next hour we proceeded to split the bees between the two hives, with Auntie (our original queen bee) in one, and some of the younger bees and a queen cell in the other. The theory is that because some of the bees have moved position, they'll think they've swarmed.

"Will it definitely work?" I asked Clive.

"No," he replied.

A couple of weeks on though I can report our bees are still in the hives, so all's looking promising, and we're hopeful that soon we'll be jarring up honey.

Incidentally Fran and I had a great time at the Royal Show. In between making Farming Today programmes we spent time at the BBKA tent - including giving a couple of demonstrations under Clive's watchful eye. Our honey and honey cake failed to win any prizes. We were all disappointed but took solace in some honey ice cream. Thanks to all the Farming Today listeners who came up and spoke to us.

Our bees are going on holiday to Derbyshire soon - more to follow.

All the posts about the Farming Today Bees from the Radio 4 blog.
Ian Douglas in the Telegraph is keeping his own beekeeping diary. Here's the latest entry.
Picture, No Exit Sign, by Chris Campbell. Used under licence.

When Farming Today bees go bad

2009-07-01T16:19:01+00:00

It was all going so well when I first arrived at the apiary to do another routine check on the Farming Today beehive. There was a light breeze, the sky was blue, the birds were singing.

I was just admiring the view and the wildlife when it happened. I wasn't anywhere near a hive and hadn't had the chance to put my protective veil on, when a bee (definitely not one of the Farming Today bees) took a dislike to my newly shampoo'ed hair and, after buzzing around my head for a few seconds, dive-bombed my eye. I think my reaction was something along the lines of "ouch" as the bee speared my eyelid with its poisoned dart. Clive Joyce, our mentor, was there and scraped the sting out of my eyelid. Novices be warned - never pinch a sting out, always scrape it out. If you pinch it you'll squeeze more venom out.

Yes it did hurt - I was expecting that. But I wasn't expecting the pain that followed for 12 hours nor the Popeye look I had the following 2 days. But, 4 days later, my eye is now only slightly swollen and almost back to normal.

I tell you this not because I want sympathy (though I'll take it if it's offered) but as a timely reminder about the dangers of working with bees. I'm sure many beekeepers may be slightly irritated that I am making such a meal of this, many of them feel that we should celebrate the positive aspects of beekeeping. But stings are a problem, and they really hurt. For some who are particularly allergic, stings can be fatal. For the rest, our mentor, Clive informs me that once you're stung 20 times to get immunity. I'm 5% there already. I'd be interested to hear any of your views on stings - why did the bee go for me when I was nowhere near any hive? Do you have immunity from beestings - if so how long did it take you?

On the positive side. Farming Today now has two hives. The bees were clearly trying to swarm out of our first hive, so Chris and Clive 'artificially' swarmed the hive. Chris will post the mechanics of this later. It has now occurred to me that we'll have to go through the process of naming another Queen.

Aunty is still doing well in the first hive. Honey production going well and we're keeping our fingers crossed for Charlotte's cake. We've entered 4 categories at the Royal Show. Light honey, medium honey, honeycombe and honey cake. If you're planning to be at the Royal Show do come along and say hello. Chris and I will both be giving demonstrations in beekeeping on Wednesday 8th July at the BBKA tent.

Fran Barnes is Senior Producer at Farming Today

All the posts about the Farming Today Bees from the Radio 4 blog.
Wikipedia on bee stings.
The Royal Show's Honey & Honey Products schedule (PDF).

Honey cake help!

2009-06-17T17:33:04+00:00

Editor's note: I know I said that the Farming Today bees were off to their own blog a little while ago but we've now decided that they should stay here, on the Radio 4 blog, for the rest of the season. We've grown attached to them (and we like the honey). And, in a follow-up email, Charlotte appeals to you:

"I could really do with some pointers from people who have made this cake before! Is the oven too hot? in a fan oven does it matter which shelf it goes on? should I use a less runny honey? And in less than a month can I produce a cake I won't be ashamed to take to the Royal? Help?"

I am, though I say it myself, quite good at cakes. Both making and eating them. So when our producer Fran wafted back into the office from her latest foray to the Farming Today beehive, and informed us that the Royal Show has a honey cake competition, and we should enter, I volunteered without too much thought.

Mistake.

I have never made a honey cake. I assumed it was something like a sponge with less sugar and some honey. It isn't. It has lots of ingredients, and seems to require an attention to detail that doesn't come naturally to me.

Still, practice makes perfect and all that, so I embarked with some confidence on Honey Cake 1. I haven't got any of the Farming Today honey yet (there is already a queue and when I tried to jump it by mentioning my cake duties I got short shrift) so I am using some runny Yorkshire honey I got the other week at the Duncombe Park show. I needed 225g. Have you ever tried weighing honey? Its messy and sticky and doesn't come off clothes all that easily. Anyway, creamed that with the butter OK... Well actually it was margarine... added eggs, sieved the flour... Feeling a bit smug by this stage... shoved in the currants, sultanas, mixed peel, nutmeg and salt. Looked convincing, so put it into a cake tin. At this point I realised I hadn't put the oven on. I read the recipie, it calls for a 'moderate oven'. Arrghhh. Whats a moderate oven? So I go upstairs, log onto computer, Google Delia Smith - of course she knows - so I charge back downstairs to set the oven to 170 degrees C... Wait for it to heat up... Put cake in. Sit back and wait to taste my triumph.

I am not sure what happened next. I can't blame the family, as the kids were in bed and my husband at work... But somehow I forgot all about the cake. I only remembered when a singed smell spread through the house.

The 'cake' was more a burnt biscuit. It hadn't risen much at all, and was almost on fire when I rescued it from the oven. There is no photo. I am too cross.

So Honey Cake 1 went in the bin. Tonight I am attempting honey cake 2, having invested in an apron, a smaller cake tin, some butter and worked out how to set the alarm on my mobile phone. What can possibly go wrong?

James Martin's recipe for honey cake from the BBC Food site.
All the posts about the Farming Today bees from the Radio 4 blog.
Charlotte Smith's profile on the Radio 4 web site.
More pictures of Charlotte's second effort at honey cake.

Keeping the Farming Today bees occupied

2009-06-09T16:54:56+00:00

"The bees will beat us you know", our bee mentor, Clive Joyce, sagely told me yesterday while we tried, yet again, to stop the Farming Today beehive swarming. Clive is usually the voice of optimism, but even he - when faced with more Queen Cells than he's ever seen - is preparing to face up to the prospect that a significant number of our bees will up sticks and fly off. The problem is the good weather! Which is quite ironic, as last year the problem was the bad weather.

There's so much pollen and nectar flowing that the bees have more honey and more wax than they know what to do with and they're running out of room. We've put on another 'super' to collect more honey and we're hoping that will keep them occupied. But in the meantime, the bees are trying to produce another Queen to replace the one which is about to fly off. If we keep destroying the new Queen cells we have a chance of keeping "Auntie" safely ensconced in the Farming Today hive.

Swarms are a real problem this year. Last year in the area around our hive (Warwick and Leamington) there were 7 swarms in the entire year. This year there are reports of 13 a day - and that's just near our hive. Good news for new beekeepers hoping to populate an empty hive with a swarm... but bad news for beekeepers who open up their hive to wonder where all their bees have gone.

Beekeepers need to check their hive at least every 9 days... but ideally more regularly than that to prevent new Queens being produced. I was at my allotment the other weekend only to see a swarm of bees in a tree nearby. I called Clive and we climbed up the apple tree to collect the swarm - what an experience, I think the last time I climbed a tree was when I was 7 years old! On the upside, we've got about 20lbs of honey in the hive which we're hoping to extract this week. This vast amount of honey has been produced in just 2 weeks. Bees are amazing aren't they?

Previous posts on the Radio 4 blog about the Farming Today Bees.
The Farming Today web site.

Fran Barnes is Senior Producer at Farming Today

The Farming Today bees again

2009-05-24T07:26:00+00:00

The Farming Today bees are getting their own blog over on the Farming Today web site. While they're finishing off the design, Chris Impey and Fran Barnes, producers and trainee beekeepers, bring us news from the hive:

When Fran and I started this project we thought it would be an age before we started on the honey-making process - and that we'd be lucky to get a single jar in our first year. But if all goes well, our mentor Clive has assured us, we'll soon be rolling in the sticky stuff.

We've now put a 'super' on our hive. This is essentially a second storey on top of a mesh which allows the workers through but not the queen with her larger body. It means the honeycomb cells are only filled with honey - and not brood. When I checked after two days of it being on there was already some honey in there - but only enough for a teaspoon.

When we'll be able to start collecting honey depends on the weather. It's turned a bit cooler and wetter meaning the bees will be doing less foraging - so they'll be collecting less and feeding more off the current reserves.

One of the best parts of our evening classes was learning about the different types of honey, and that it's what the bees forage on which influences the taste. Honey from heather for example (very strong) tastes markedly different to honey from flowers (very delicate). Ours likely to come from a variety of flowers, trees and crops, and Clive says this will make it taste what he describes as a typically English honey.

The endemic nature of the disease varroa means it's very likely our bees already have it. Fran's off this week to do some work with Clive to monitor for it. There should be something on that on the programme soon.

And our suits are beginning to look and smell like the real deal. No longer pristine white, they're now covered in bee poo. And they stink of smoke.

Fran Barnes adds:

It's official, we have 'swarmy' bees. I've just been to the hive with our mentor, Clive Joyce. Only to discover in the 7 days of rain we've had the bees have been very busy. Unfortunately their efforts have not been directed into the honey-making deparment (it being too wet for them to fly mostly) but, instead, they have been making many Queen cups.

This is not good news. Queen cups are the spherical cells which a new Queen grows in. For the uninitiated (which included me up to a couple of weeks ago), the worker bees occasionally decide they want a new Queen (or 10 in our case). They then create big round cells which the current Queen lays an egg in. The workers then fill this with Royal Jelly to create a very large, fully formed bee - a Queen.

We really don't want more than one Queen in a hive as the bees will swarm off with the old Queen to create a new colony. When that happens the chances of getting any honey are remote. We 'dealt with' the Queen cells and will have to be very vigilant over the next few months. We're slightly mystified why they're doing this, usually bees only produce extra Queens and swarm when they run out of room. The Farming Today hive is still as spacious as a New York loft apartment.

If the bees do swarm and take our current Queen with them this would be very annoying, particularly as we've only just named her. She's called "Auntie" - thanks to all your suggestions - from the intellectual, to the surreal (Kenneth?). We need to keep Auntie happy in her hive.

While there, Clive also put in a varroa floor. This will enable us to count the dead varroa mite which fall through the holes of the new floor onto a piece of white cardboard. Any more than 6 a day is a problem apparently. Watch this space next week. Would love to hear your comments about swarmy bees and your efforts to control varroa mite. Anyone harvested any honey yet?

Previous posts about the The Farming Today bees are here (27 April) and here (1 May).
The Farming Today web site.
Picture of a European Honey Been touching down by Autan (used under licence).

Fran Barnes is a producer at Farming Today

More from the Farming Today Bees

2009-05-01T14:23:14+00:00

Fran Barnes, a producer on the programme and half of the intrepid bee team, has sent me a second installment in the Farming Today bee saga. I'm posting it on her behalf this time but she'll contribute directly in future and the programme team are planning a blog of their own:

"Just taken Charlotte Smith to the hive to record Farming Today This Week for broadcast Saturday 2nd May. Charlotte is pessimistic about our bees and raised serious questions about whether they would survive the year, given the disease problems the British honeybee faces.

This was a shock to me. I've always been perfectly optimistic. It hasn't really occurred to me that our colony could die (read about bee parasite Varroa in Wikipedia and hear more about it on last Tuesday's Farming Today). I had just assumed that was the kind of thing that happened to 'other' beekeepers. Should I start bracing myself for this possibility? Seeing our (still nameless) Queen working hard in the hive it's hard to believe at this stage anything untoward could happen. The Queen's laying 1800 eggs a day and the hive is looking very busy. The bees are starting to 'draw out' the comb from the new frames in the hive. I'm always so fascinated and taken aback by the industriousness of the bees that important questions like "when will we get some honey" didn't cross my mind. I must ask Clive next time.

On the subject of honey... Chris and I attended the most well-received of our beekeeping evening classes last night. It was the session about honey extraction and we sampled 5 different types of honey as well as honey cake and mead. We decided that honey tasting is very similar to wine tasting - if you're used to cheap plonk then expensive stuff doesn't quite taste right. We're both slightly embarrassed to admit that neither one of us particularly liked heather honey - the gold standard of honey. We had thought we'd take the Farming Today bees 'to the heather' this year, but perhaps not.

On another note, while at the apiary I re-hived a swarm Clive had collected. There's so much to learn, and the more we learn the more intrigued we are. More on the swarm next week."

Fran Barnes

Chris Impey's introduction to the Farming Today bees on the blog last week.
Listen again to the bees' on-air debut on Farming Today last week.

The Farming Today beehive

2009-04-27T15:42:54+00:00

This external content is available at its source: http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=70933

Chris Impey and Fran Barnes from Farming Today have been learning the art of beekeeping for a year-long project. They've acquired a hive and a colony of bees, which they're keeping at the British Beekeepers' Association apiary at the National Agricultural Centre in Warwickshire. They're going to see if they can keep the colony alive for long enough to produce a crop of honey. They're going to be visiting the hive regularly during the year and will be blogging about it too. Here, Chris Impey introduces the project.

So after five weeks of evening classes Fran and I have finally taken delivery of the Farming Today bees - the first time we've done any bee handling. Under the watchful eye of our tutor, Clive Joyce, we went from being beekeeping students to actual beekeepers - albeit inexperienced ones.

It was amazing to see how quickly they took to their new home. Within a few minutes one bee had taken up guard at the hive entrance while others were coming back and forth as if they'd been living there for weeks. I can't wait to see how they develop. There are 10,000 of them at the moment but that's likely to go up to 50,000 by the summer.

I was surprised to learn that even though our colony is new (it's been supplied by a local breeder) it's very likely it's already got varroa. One of our biggest challenges over the coming months will be to monitor for the disease which devastated so many colonies last year.

We had evening class again last night - the lecture was about how to handle bees so we felt at an advantage over the rest of the group. Fran was showing off the skill she learned from Clive in properly "turning" a frame laden with bees. People must think we're swots because we always sit at the front.

We can't decide what to call our queen. Fran suggested either Charlotte or Anna after our presenters. Any suggestions welcome.

The slideshow shows Chris and Fran's first visit to the hive
Listen to Chris and Fran's first visit to the new hive on this morning's Farming Today.

Fran and Chris have been trained by the Warwick and Leamington branch of the British Beekeepers Association.

Some photographs of Chris and Fran at the new hive, taken by Clive Joyce, their bee mentor.