My dad, in the UK, is a beekeeper, so i've been around bees and bees stories for as long as i can remember. The desire to become a beekeeper was growing inside me and one day passing a sign for 'Honing' (dutch for honey) i pulled off the road and paid the first of many visits to Henri Daems, who took very little persuading to buy a new German norm square polystyrene hive for me and to fill it with a new colony of bees with a young fertile, marked and clipped queen. This was in late june and he said the best time for establishing new colonies was september and that he would ring me when it was ready. Part of the deal was that i would swap the colony for a beeswax skin cream recipe of my dads.

When the phone rang, three months later, with the simple message that my beehive and bees were ready, a wave of excitement and panic built around me: the complication was that i had no where to put them - i had agreed with my wife that they could not inhabit a corner of our garden, given the constant games of football, cricket and golf played by our 5 kids and friends. The grand father of a girl friend of our youngest son is a local beekeper but i hadn't got round to finding him and making the neccessary arrnagements.

On the appointed day i set off with Edward (eldest son) to pick them up and hopefully drop them off at a medieaval hall, under a line of old lime trees, where a friend and i are due to give our training on leadership inside out. They lady of the hall rang through their ok just in time and i remembered as we were on the motorway to hassle my dad for the hand cream recipe, which surprised and amused him as i had kept the whole project to myself.

At about 2030 we picked them up, drove to the hall, and just about in daylight, we put them quietly under the trees, facing south away from the trees towards a field of cows. Amazing.

The following days were a bit unreal as i talked to my dad and the bee shop lady (who just happened to be 5 minutes up the road near my current work in Herentals) about which kit i needed and how i should feed them. It took nearly an hour and a half to get out of the ladies basement shop, bee people can just talk and talk....

I made a wooden base and painted it and the second lift in the special green paint which henri had carefully supplied, and with my new hood and gloves set about giving them the first of 12 kg of special syrop bought from the bee shop lady, in the upside down plastic bucket with holes punched in its lid, from henri. note:- the smoker is a pain with the hay granules being very difficult to keep alight; dad uses rolled up card board, much better and easier he says.

Next challenge is to treat for verroa, here henri has lent me a burner to evaporate a special natural acid (found in rhubarb) in the top of the hive.
I'll try it at the week end, in the evening of the training which starts on friday.
j