No prizes for guessing. I have some concrete slabs to lay in front of my hives – saves getting stung when strimming the grass.

Putting the first down on the ground and WHAM! sting to the ankle –  bees pouring out of the hive – this is a cold day in December! What is going on?

No suit, no gloves, no boots, no smoker!

No Future Girls! She’s been a bitch from day one as a nuc from Hazel’s monster hive!

 I wish I had had time to take a picture of them out but following and stinging I headed for cover.

Here are the rear guard.

Am seriously not happy with them.

 As I now work from home in my alternate reality as Finance Manager for 101010 Digital I needed an office – can’t pack family of 5 humans and 4 dogs into 3 bedroom house and have room for an office.

My lovely Boss Louis Halpern, CEO of 101010 Digital, put up some funds and the 101010 Finance Department and Ahipara HQ was created! My long term plan is to be able to offer training for ‘Newbies’ using the HQ as a lecture room – sweet- I keep the job I love and mix in my other fascination!

Although Louis is the highly talented Internet Maestro CEO of 101010 Digital he can still find time to keep a watching brief on the needs of Apis Mellifera, always enthusiatic and supportive of Ahipara Apiaries. Check out his book Personal Reputation Management at www.reputation-book.com

Here is the family Queen Bee – Lottie, she arrived with her family ( My next generation humans!)

Lottie is a Llhasa Apso / Yorkie cross, sweet lovely and ferocious to intruders!

My Lovely drone arrived in Newark with me:

Luke is a Kennel Registered pure bred Llhasa Apso who has an amazing range of vocalisations and an interest in sexy attractive little Lottie!

I was away at Stoneliegh when the deed was done……………. and lo! on Chloe’s birthday we increased our family by 5! 4 adorable little drones and 1  sweet Queen in waiting.

Food Swarm!

Three have left for new homes but we kept 2 beautiful boys!

So have now spent one whole year in Newark!

I brought up all my girls from London in Nov 10 – and all through came through both  the move and the winter in excellent condition.

I bought the property mainly because it came with a hedged sun area ideal as an apiary site – nice tall fences to keep the daughter in law happy –  my grandchildren wouldn’t get stung! My cunning plan has borne fruit as I now have a budding beekeeping granddaughter !!

She loves her yellow suit – quite the fashion statement! Inspections take a little longer but I have nowhere else I’d rather beeeeeee!

Swarm season swept in and I eventually had 14 hives + nucs on the go. My son got freaked out so reduced to 9.

Had some ironmongery being extracted from the garden which my girls found to be a good staging post – back in the hive they went – eventually they swarmed out again – twice and then lost them.

These girls behaved themsleves and were taken home.   

 My grandson is not confident around the girls but has great plans to make his own hive!

Soooo excited!

I arrived well before cock crow and had a nice guy take my picture. Haines is situated just outside the town of Kaitaia, they have over 4000 hives dotted about the manuka heathlands in the northern peninsula. I arrived just in the last few weeks of their winter when they were beginning to set out the overwintered hives.

Cool Guy

Tony was a lovely guy and made my 2 days very interesting.

After loading their truck with about 40 hives we set off on the 60km drive to the out apiaries. I went with Reece who is a crazy driver, the trip took an hour and a half to get to the out apiaries but so very picturesque.

The manuka heathlands are owned by the maories and they charged a rental of NZ$25 per hive – big business.  Manuka is very much like a giant heather growing 7ft tall before they burn it off to regenerate. It has very pretty pink and white flowers with five petals and a nice little collecting pot for the nectar – very easy for the girls to land and sup it up.

The special thing about Manuka honey is something they call UMF- Unique Manuka Factor- so called because they can’t yet determine what the unique factor is but they can measure it!???

Personally I find the Manuka honey on sale in the UK to be foul tasting but fresh out of the hive it has a nice flavour – possibly it is treated so much before it arrives on the shelf that the taste has degraded – or they may well be pushing the point that if it tastes nasty and is a murky brown then it just has to be doing you some good!

Busy Girls

They use plastic frames a lot in NZ and the bees fill them just the same as wooden ones - if you have 4000 hives with say 3 supers and say 11 frames per super you could be looking at over 132,000 frames – way too many to be sitting with a little hammer making up wooden frames. Multiple this for the Tweedales Apiary I also visited – they had prepared 40,000 –  yes, 40k – brood boxes alone for the upcoming season – plastic makes sense in these proportions.

Beauty

The land is stunningly beautiful and free of people up here in this subtropical wonderland

Water as clear as the sky!

I have never been anywhere before that was so free of pollution.

School Photo !

At the rear are our lovely Drones Ian and Geoff – both gentlemen in the true sense of the word – ever willing and warm!

Next our lovely worker bees – B (left (yes, that’s her name)) is  enthusiastic and along with Clare (middle) very confident, Patty (right) caring and coming along very well.

And, of course, Queen Bee – Me (although Geoff likes to call me TC)

During our last training session all found the nerve to handle drones bare handed and quickly realised the drone was more terrified than they!

JH begining the op!

 John, after opening the room of the hive, begins to lift out the top bars.

John supporting the swarm box in prep for Michael appearing below...

The swarm boxes were left in the hive to support the particularly strong swarm.

Biggest Drone in the World!

Michael has entered the hive from below to remove the other swarm box. 

Final Removal

I just know he was sweating ……!

Replacing the top bars

Job Done!

 The girls are now checking out the facilities, within 4 weeks we can expect to see beautiful drawn comb

Newbies (students) are always up for a quick look in the Observation hive when they come for their training. Unfortunately the climate is not good to the girls and over wintering them is a problem but that’s for later.

GH Swarm My girls in GH1 decided they wanted to move elsewhere. Frantical callfrom home had me rushing away from work. The girls had settled three gardens up and were happily ensconced under a little metal table.The neighbours were not quite so happy apparently but they soon settled down when the girls did!Out came my homemade skep to gather them up.Then it was back to a nice new hive in the garden.Going Home!

I couln’t resist the white sheet march method and I wanted to see which Queen was leaving home.

Ultimately it was GH1′s original – left a brood frame in her hive when doing the split which had eggs and uncapped brood! Duh! wont do that again!

Running Out of Room!

What’s a couple of splits and a swarm and a queen rearing lesson all got in common?

Well………….. a serious amount of money spent on equipment……….masses of stress……….an understanding Boss……..and a desire to live in another desres area!

Populating New Hive Enclosure

I am beginning to think I didn’t make the enclosure big enough!

This artificial swarming business…. thank goodness the flow is on and the girls have something else to occupy their time!

The far hive was created from RH1 which came through the winter roaring and determined to cause many hours of stress.

The middle  tiny hive was created using a swarm collected from a plush hotel in High Holborn. I received a call, grabbed my superhero swarm kit and enticed the swarm to Camden (not a lot of choice for the girls really! Nuc’s are costing a fortune with the upturn in interest!).

The hive in the forground was created from a swarm which was hanging aroung the aircons on the roof. Not a lot of evidence that they were from RH1 as she still has the Queen from last year – possibly from the split from RH2 – or maybe they wanted to join in the desres environment of Camden.

RH1 - and growing

RH1 in all her current glory. For a Queen in her second year she is performing remarkably well – original dam was a Buckfast Queen.

Exit to London Forage

Here is a view of the exit from the small room enclosure enjoyed by RH1 to one of the greenest Capital cities in the world. We have Regents Park, Hampstead Common  and myriads of gardens ground based and those with loftier pretensions all pumping out Nectar and Pollen for my girls.

Pretty soon the Lime trees planted everywhere along the street are going to come into bloom and then there will be honey by the gallon loads – the labelling will be Halpern Honey which has a nicer ring to it than HC Bee Project Honey.

Our fabulous design team is working on it as I type!

My girls in RH1 have been out and about  – my mad panic to keep them alive and healthy over the winter has paid off by the thousands. Today was warm and not too blowy  so in I went. The eke I forgot to take off last year was filled with capped brood and larva and has effectively meant I’ve had 3 brood boxes on there.

Stores are plentiful and the pollen is going in by the thighload. I have added a fourth brood box to give them some room. All this population explosion is going to be the foundation of the HC Bee Project  Apiary. Some of my girls seem to forget they live on the 3rd floor and have been spotted by passersby at ground level.

I have spent the balance of last year and the winter studying like mad and undergoing training at Blackhorse Apiary with John Hamer and Alastair Welch to widen the educational sphere they are so passionate about. I am about to get one of their covetted mentor sweatshirts!

We now have an enlarged Apiary enclosure to house the forth coming increase - RH1 will be joined in goodly time by RH2,3 and 4. My colleagues have been watching and listening with varying degrees of patience and lo! Six have answered the call!

School begins tomorrow!  and we are all set to go.

I’m very happy there is going to be a sale on at the Spring Convention – protection for my Bee Students is not going to be a problem. Certainly I can be more excited about this kind of shopping than the offerings in Oxford Street!

I’m thinking the girls like it so much in Camden that they may well consider looking for new desres’s – going to nip that idea in the bud! Artifical swarming and nuc building coming up next!