Royal Festival Hive

Beecab

A visit to the Wellcome Trust this morning for the Press Launch of Pestival, an inter-species festival celebrating all things insect which is happening at Southbank Centre in September. The Hive is delighted to be involved, and greatly looking forward to welcoming a host of friends large and small to the site. 

Star attraction at the launch was the Beecab which as you can see is a customised London Black Cab fitted out to screen short films in the back seat. Beekeeper Steve Benbow (who looks after the Fortnum bees amongst many hundreds of other hives) will be driving the cab to various events over the summer before touching down at Pestival. All hail the beecab!

One In One Out

Strict door policy at the hive today.

I’ve been away from the hive for a couple of months on a US road trip but the bees have been in the very capable hands of John and Mikey, with Barnaby from Walworth City Garden in the sweeper role. 

Mikey took away a number of brood frames and has got himself a hive on a rooftop near Old Street, where some of our bees (and their relatives) are now hanging out with the cool kids near Hoxton Square. 

On my first visit back we are joined by a couple of new beekeepers who John met on the course he gives at Roots & Shoots. The bees are a little angry. 

We also have David, a retired engineer who is part of the Bio Electromagnetic Research Initiative who got in touch in order to take some readings up on the roof and see whether there are any clues about colony collapse in the airwaves. David didn’t get the high readings he expected, which i think means that our bees are in a good spot. 

 It raises interesting questions about how beekeepers can work with scientists to combat the problem of colony collapse. John offered to let David come along to check readings around his hives in Acton, but apparently he’s got a sub station at the end of the garden so the readings there will probably be off the scale. 

Which brings me on to some exciting news. I’ve received a travel grant from the British Council Darwin Now Awards to visit migratory beekeepers and scientists in California to find out what they’ve discovered about unexplained bee disappearances. More news from that trip when it happens.

A Minor Swarm

Yesterday Mikey and Barnaby came up and took away five frames to prevent such an eventuality, but today there were reports of a cluster of bees on the QEH. Luckily they quickly disappeared so security didn’t need to draft in reinforcements but in honour of this apparently now annual event here is a poem which Becky Shaw ‘rearranged’ from an all staff bulletin which went out during our fun and games last year: 

Internal Communication: Our Beekeeper is on his way 

There is - 

currently a large swarm of bees

near the QEH main entrance.   

Please - 

can you keep clear of the area.   

Our bee keeper is on his way.   

Security guards are - 

currently

redirecting the public away

from the area.

The Bees Are Flying

1967 - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened the Queen Elizabeth Hall  

2007 - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened the refurbished Royal Festival Hall 

2009 - We discover a new Queen in the Royal Festival Hive 

On the bus up to Waterloo there are bursts of blossom in the trees. The sun is beaming for the second day in a row, and as we approach the hive the bees are happily flying in and out. It really does feel like Spring.

John pops the lid, examines the 5 frames of brood and notices we have a new queen - she has no marking on her so the hive has reared a new one. 

Through means mysterious to me, John is able to discern that she has mated with “a lot of common Londoners”, which sounds like rather unqueenly behaviour. These bees are an Italian strain, but originally from New Zealand, and much more docile than native English bees. I hope we don’t catch her hanging around outside The Walkabout wearing a rugby shirt and talking funny. 

John decided to remove the heaviest frame of brood and take it home to put in another hive as a way to keep the numbers down and as an experiment to see what the West London bees make of their Southside bredrin. 

We were joined on today’s visit by a former bee researcher who had been exploring bio control of the varroa mite five or six years ago until DEFRA removed the funding into bee research at Rothamsted, an institute in Hertfordshire where they had been conducting bee studies since the 1920s. A world expert on bee viruses is now working as a dinner lady in her daughter’s school and we’re no closer to understanding why the bees are disappearing - John lost a third of his this winter. What is that all about?

Ten Amazing Facts About Bees

Here

Beez Meanz Stingz (sometimes)

The day begins with a couple of slices of toast covered in John’s London Honey from last season. It has a great consistency - not quite set, not quite runny. West London’s finest. Delicious. 

Up on the roof, Mikey peers in. Not much activity, although a couple of bees do poke their heads out before returning to the warmth inside. 

John fires up the trusty smoker and rolls up his sleeves. 

Not a good move as it turned out, those exposed forearms proved an irresistible stinging opportunity for at least 7 bees not best pleased to be disturbed on a damp February morning. These are John’s first stings of the season - he hasn’t begun inspecting his own bees yet. But when he takes a good look inside we’ve got 4 frames of brood, which means that as far as the bees are concerned, the season has begun. Spring has arrived in the beehive! Amazing when you think that only a couple of weeks ago there was a foot of snow on the ground. Perhaps they’ve been fooled by the sunshine last weekend, but John explains that mahonia, crocuses and  willow  are all in flower and the bees will already be out collecting pollen (nectar doesn’t flow until we hit 15 degrees C, so we might have a little wait for that). 

Something has been bothering me since the last visit so on the way down we have a proper ‘birds and bees’ conversation. I want to know how if the hive is completely female over the winter the queen can begin laying again in the spring. It turns out the queen is fertilised only once in her life and keeps the love within her from then on. I don’t quite understand this bit, but Mikey reckons a male bee (a drone, or unfertilised egg) has a grandfather but not a father. A grandfather but not a father? And the females have a father? Oh, i get it. No, no, i’ll have to have a bit more of a think.

A bee-filled musical blast

now how did they train the bees to do that then?

Bumblebeez

The Bumblebeez - Dr. Love 

New Year, New Honey

The first visit of the New Year is traditionally a slightly nerve racking one. I’m really not sure whether we’ll find a hive full of dead bees. When we arrive there are no bees in flight but it is bitterly cold so John reckons they’re inside keeping warm. He and Mikey lift off the roof for the first time in 09 

And will a little help from the trusty crowbar manage to dislodge the propolised inner lid. At this point a few bees took to the air and one landed on Mikey’s ear. I was so busy removing it with the aid of his hat that i missed the shot of the bees inside, but there were plenty of them and they seemed fairly happy considering someone had just let all the heat out. 

John dripped a weak solution of Oxalic Acid (made from rhubarb leaves) on to 7 frames of bees, and then quickly covered them up again. 

There was food in there from their own stores, which means they’re still eating the honey they made during last year. Winter bees live from October to February apparently, and it’s a completely female colony at the moment. 

In the sprit of new years resolutions it has been decided (in consultation with the hive of course) that now we’ve established it’s possible for bees to live surrounded by concrete and culture, we’re going to up the ante and go for award glory. This season we’re aiming for 1st prize for Best Honey in the London classes at the National Honey Show in October. Rosettes shall be ours. 

Great news today as we drank tea downstairs afterwards - Mikey recently became a father and told us that he and Jules have decided to give their daughter ‘Honey’ as a middle name. Now there’s dedication for you. "Put that on the Blob" said John, so I have. 

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