Well, it has happened - granted, a few weeks ago - but we have bees. Peter, our mentor was as good as his word and he supplied us with a hive of bees. They were moved by us from a location outside Leeds, West Yorkshire, to our own location. I got stung twice - once on the arm and once on the end of my nose! That certainly makes your eyes water, I can tell you!

Since then, the bees have been transferred from Peter’s hive into our own and they have settled in nicely. After transferring them, Peter, Alison and I spent a happy evening extracting honey from them. Considering the bees had only found Peter’s hive about 4 weeks before we extracted, the fact that we got about 20 pounds (UK) of honey from them was a good haul indeed.

Since then, they have been feeding almost exclusively - or as exclusively as we can tell - on Himalayan Balsam which in the UK is a weed and should be eradicated. This, of course, leaves DEFRA and the Environment Agency with a huge problem. Bees are suffering tremendously at the moment with all sorts of problems and Himalayan Balsam keeps flowering late into the season - it’s still flowering now at the beginning of October - and keeps the bees alive. The other nice thing about HB is that the honey it produces (by way of the bees of course!) is the finest you can taste. What a problem.

As bee keepers (and we have certificates to prove it) Alison and I prefer the HB to stay around for a bit. The bees love it, the flowers are extremely nice - they look like orchids to us - but it’s an invasive weed. Who said life was easy.

Anyway, we are feeding the bees on a sugar syrup at the moment, but not for much longer, as we have robbed them of a lot of honey. The recipe is simple, 2 KG of sugar to one litre of water, heat slowly stirring all the time until dissolved. Allow to cool. If it starts to crystalise add some more hot water and stir again. Easy!

Lets hope we can get these bees through the winter and into next year where they will be able to make as much honey as possible and we will leave them with plenty for themselves. I think it’s better for the bees to feed on their own food rather than the sugar syrup we give them - and every little helps. Bees, at the moment, need lots of help.