In article , John
wrote:

For a few years now I've rather fancied having a beehive in the garden,
just to have bees coming and going, and adding a little more to our
flowery garden. Although large-ish [*by modern building standards
only*!], this garden belongs to a 60s semi-detached; we keep it hedged
with shrubs and small trees.

However I'm not that interested in "keeping bees" -- mainly because I
think I'd probably ultimately let them down through my natural laziness,
or waning dedication after the first flush of interest.

So: is it possible to establish one small hive, wherein the bees look
after themselves? I'd look after them to the extent that I look after
our frogs and other creatures, in that I'd make sure the environment
suited them as well as possible.

[Apologies to any bee-keepers who are insulted by what may appear to be
a mere dilettante interest.]

I am a beekeeper, with one colony at the end of my small Brixton
garden. I'm sympathetic to what you want, and indeed I like the look of
the bees coming and going. But there are three problems:

Firstly, there is a parasite, varroa destructor, which is now endemic
in Britain, and is wiping out the whole population of wild bees.
Beekeepers have to take regular action to keep the numbers down or the
population will expand in their own colony until it wipes them oout. In
doing this, it will provide a fertile ground for the parasite to expand
and infest all the neighbouring colonies of bees.

Secondly, even the most peaceful of bees (I virtually always handly my
colony bare-handed) can, in certain circumstances, (such as
queenlessness) become very vicious, and attack neighbours. If you're
not a beekeeper you won't know either that this is about to happen or
what to do about it when it does.

Three. Unattended, bees will swarm, and you may end up with angry
neighbours who have a swarm of your bees in, say, their children's play
house.

There are two solutions to these problems. Both involve contacting your
local beekeeping club. The first is to find someone who wants to keep
bees but has nowhere to keep them. This is common, and would suit both
parties.

The second (and this might easily follow the first) is to learn about
beekeeping yoursself. It's fascinating, and incredibly little work
throughout the year. Even in the peak season of May/June it involves
only an hour or so a week. For much of the year it's about an hour a
month. For winter it's nothing at all. I go away for the whole month of
August leaving my bees to get on with it quite happily.

Incidentally, for a few hours work in September, my colony provided me
with about forty pounds of wonderful honey. (For various reasons, city
honey is now often better than country honey)

Lazarus