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.