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.]

John

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.

Google is your friend!

Keywords "keeping bees" filtered for UK only sites.

http://www.bbka.org.uk/faq2.php


Richard.


--
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea --
massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a
source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect
it." Gene Spafford (1992)

"John" wrote in message
...
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.]

John

Find a local beekeeper - if you help establish the hive, they will even give
you some honey.....

Nick


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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.

My thoughts exactly!

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.

I don't know about how to establish them, but yes, they seem to be able
to look after themselves. We have them in the stone walls in one of the
attics. I tried to make traps/boxes after googling in the hope of
setting up another hive elsewhere but didn't suceeded so now I just
leave them alone. I think alot die off in the winter but enough seem to
survive to keep the colony going and sometimes they swarm and have now
set up a new one. They are nice to have around.

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

Likewise :-)

--
Holly, in France
Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.
http://la-plaine.chez-alice.fr

John wrote:
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.

Hm, difficult. There's a pest at large now (a type of mite) which
would mean your colony would not last long without treatment. Also,
your "small hive" will quickly fill to bursting point, and throw
off swarms all over the place at the right time of year. I have
kept bees in a large garden - however, it did cause "neighbour
problems", and renders part of the garden unusable. Perhaps you
know of some land nearby which a beekeeper could use for an out-
apiary? Another *possible* alternative would be to encourage
bumble bees, which don't suffer from the mite mentioned, and have
far smaller colonies (tens to hundreds of individuals, rather than
several tens of thousands). N.B. having a bumbles nest somewhere
awkward can be a nuisance, too.

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

On 15/3/06 9:10, 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.]

You *could* let them get on with 'doing their own thing' because the reason
they make honey is so that they can eat it! However, once the Queen
produces more queen eggs, you will start to get swarms and goodness knows
where they will end up. You and your neighbours may prefer not to have
nests constantly reproducing themselves in your chimney, walls etc.
I used to keep a hive but because I am extremely allergic to bee stings a
lot - not all but a lot - of the management of the hive was done for me. I
used to inspect it every so often to make sure there were no queen cells
developing etc. and put in the anti-varroa strips which must be done every
year after the honey is taken off. And that's the other drawback, the
varroa mite is a killer and an unmanaged hive which does not have varroa
strips put in is a sitting duck. I don't know if it's the case in UK but
where I used to live (Jersey) it was compulsory to put them in each autumn.
There is also a tracheal mite or infection - I forget which now - which
killed my colony eventually. We kicked ourselves for not having taken off
a nucleus because they were exceptionally well-behaved and highly
productive of honey.
If you really do want bees to complete your rural idyll, find a local bee
keeper and ask them to put a hive in your garden. Most bee keepers will be
delighted to be given extra space for their bees, so there's every chance
you'll find someone co-operative. There isn't really a lot of work involved
in keeping a colony, though. There is a need to check queen cells aren't
developing so the bees don't swarm but that's only two or three times in the
spring, from what I recall. About three or four days before you take the
honey off at the end of July, you put in an excluder which prevents bees
going up into the supers in which the combs hang. And then you have a
lovely sticky time whizzing it around in an extractor and pouring it into
jars, with all doors and windows tight shut so that the bees don't come in
to reclaim what is theirs! If you are so inclined, you can take the
propolis, which is the stuff bees used to seal up cracks and stick things
together. It's a marvellous natural antibiotic. Then you put in the varroa
strips and perhaps put a bit of old carpet on top of the glass covering to
the interior of the hive, so that they're warmish in winter and give them a
feed of syrup. It's certainly not an everyday task by any means. From
memory, I'd say you only have to open the hive 5 or 6 times a year. If
there is a bee keeping show in your area, go along and have a word with the
bee keepers and also have a look at an observation hive. It's absolutely
fascinating to see them at work.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
)

By the way, living as I do in a densly populated area, with a garden
thirty foot by (at most) less than twelve, I'd gently and mildly
disagree with someone who said that you need a big garden to keep bees.


The key is fencing the colony in, or at least facing it against a
fence, wall or hedge. this way bees coming and going fly straight up to
their normal travelling height of fifteen feet or so before setting off
on their one or two mile journey to where they're going to feed.

There are other important things, like giving them a good supply of
water before they fix on the neighbours' pond or water-barrel, and
making sure that you have a peaceful, gentle strain. There's no excuse
for keeping bad-tempered bees.

I totally agree with Sacha. There are few ways of getting so much
enjoyment out of so little work.

Lazarus

Lazarus Cooke wrote:
By the way, living as I do in a densly populated area, with a garden
thirty foot by (at most) less than twelve, I'd gently and mildly
disagree with someone who said that you need a big garden to keep bees.

snip

I totally agree with Sacha. There are few ways of getting so much
enjoyment out of so little work.

I know we have bees in one of the roof spaces of the terrace we live in.

I've never found out which, but the most likely candidate is between
ours and the house next door over a ginnel.

They swarmed in 2004, frightening the neighbours, who didn't know what
was happening. We called the local beekeeper who came and took them away.

I would love to keep a beehive at the end of the garden but feel that it
would go down like a lead balloon with my neighbours.

My father kept bees and I find them absolutely fascinating. I could
always keep them on my brother's paddock but he lives five miles away so
I wouldn't get the benefit of them being close by (although I would get
the honey). I've always fancied making mead.

Sacha wrote:
However, once the Queen produces more queen eggs

Somewhat OT, but there's no difference between eggs
to be raised as workers or queens. I won't go through
the rest, as there's a beekeeping group.

On 15/3/06 11:36, in article
alid, "Lazarus Cooke"
wrote:

By the way, living as I do in a densly populated area, with a garden
thirty foot by (at most) less than twelve, I'd gently and mildly
disagree with someone who said that you need a big garden to keep bees.


The key is fencing the colony in, or at least facing it against a
fence, wall or hedge. this way bees coming and going fly straight up to
their normal travelling height of fifteen feet or so before setting off
on their one or two mile journey to where they're going to feed.

There are other important things, like giving them a good supply of
water before they fix on the neighbours' pond or water-barrel, and
making sure that you have a peaceful, gentle strain. There's no excuse
for keeping bad-tempered bees.

I totally agree with Sacha. There are few ways of getting so much
enjoyment out of so little work.

You don't need loads of space as long as the hive is facing the right way
and they have a good approach path, you're quite right. My garden had a tiny
pond and they used that as their source of drinking water. It always
fascinated me on hot days, to stand near the hive and hear the immense
humming noise coming from inside as they used their wings to cool the hive
down. And the other thing that is both fascinating and mystifying is to see
a row of say, six hives, with every bee knowing which is its own. I believe
they do it by scent, IIRC.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
)

In article , JanieB
wrote:

I would love to keep a beehive at the end of the garden but feel that it
would go down like a lead balloon with my neighbours.

When I first began beekeeping, I asked my teacher about this. there are
two answers:

1 - they need never know. Really. Keep the hive hidden from sight and
there's a fair chance that none of the neighbours will ever find out.
You can also, of course, keep the hive in a shed with a way out, facing
in the right direction, at the top.

2 - A present of a jar of honey does wonders. Many people are really
interested.

L

On 15/3/06 12:02, in article , "Chris Bacon"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
However, once the Queen produces more queen eggs

Somewhat OT, but there's no difference between eggs
to be raised as workers or queens. I won't go through
the rest, as there's a beekeeping group.

No, it's the manufacture of Queen cells that sets off that process, strictly
speaking. You're quite right. I know there is an American bee keeping
group but perhaps there's a UK one now?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
)

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.

To add to what others have already posted:

Whilst you can keep honey bees in even quite small gardens if you plan
things properly, because of the varroa mite it's unlikely that an
unmanaged colony would survive very long -- I've heard it suggested that
wild colonies aren't expected to last more than two or three years these
days. There are also diseases which are notifiable and it wouldn't
really be responsible to keep a hive and not look out for those.

It's probably also preferable to keep two hives rather than one, just
to provide a bit of insurance against a colony dying out because it is
unable for some reason to produce a new queen when needed.

If keeping bees doesn't pique your interest sufficiently to join a local
bee-keeping group who can teach you the basics and loan equipment when
necessary, perhaps you would be better off creating potential homes for
bumble bees or mason bees instead. Different types of bee (and there
are many) prefer different plants for gathering pollen and nectar -- the
bees and the plants have "co-evolved" to suit each other. For example,
I think I'm right in saying that honey bees don't tend to visit apple
trees because their tongues aren't long enough to reach the nectar in
the flowers. If you want to watch honey bees at work without the effort
of keeping them, maybe planting suitable types of plant would achieve
that.

Honey bees are fascinating creatures though and operate at a level of
complexity which is mind-boggling for such a small animal. If you'd
like to find a bit more information before making your decision, you
could probably do a lot worse than having a read of Ted Hooper's "Guide
to Bees and Honey" or Alan Campion's "Bees at the Bottom of the Garden".
The former is a "hard facts" book that many regard as the definitive
text for beekeepers, whereas the latter is apparently somewhat more
light-hearted (I neither own it nor have I read it).

James

I'm a little miffed that my reply earlier only seems to appear on
google so this is coming from there. We eventually found our local
beekeeper through someone we knew. Surfing using the obvious criteria
only got us something to do with MGB cars. Both the local gov website
claim to have knowledge but are not available at the weekend, and the
police (who are supposed to keep a directory of such people) didn't
comprehend what we were asking and suggested the council pest site (not
open at the weekend). The site to look at is www.bbka.org.uk. They
are absolutely brilliant and the chap who came and collected our swarm
told us where they were going, invited us to see them when we wanted
and if we wanted our own hive to help us establish it.