Our Disappearing Bees

Once, they wrecked our picnics; now their plight might wreck an ecosystem

The Observer, May 2008

Beekeeping, once the lazy hobby of men and women in summer hats, has become the preserve of entomologists, epidemiologists, propagandists and technical specialists. It has also become an occupation for the not badly off, particularly if one is in the market for the WBC Starter Kit. The WBC – a traditional, double-walled hive with a sloping roof, which makes it safe from bad weather and woodpeckers – has been hard to beat for more than a century, each one coming as it does in cedar, with one lift that has a porch, two lifts with a roof, a brood chamber with 10 frames, a steel queen excluder, a ‘super’ with 10 frames and a crown board. The £500 kit also includes a bee suit, gloves, a stainless-steel smoker, smoker string, a stainless steel hive tool, four pints of rapid feeder and the Guide to Bees and Honey by Ted Hooper.

But the starter kit does not include bees, and for those one has to travel to such events as the Gloucestershire Beekeepers Association’s annual open day and auction, held earlier this month at Hartpury College, an old agricultural school. In a field at the back, well away from the crowds and bacon bap van, are 15 sets of ‘nucs’, or nucleus starter sets of bees. These are small boxes crammed with up to 10,000 industrious insects and a queen, and will provide a good basis for a beginner. Manage this lot well, keep them free from disease, and you can have a hobby that will provide the time-tested antidote to stress and modern life. That at least is the idyll, and not just for rural folk. Many townspeople now also keep bees on allotments and terraces. For if we can avoid their sting, and they are not aggressive unless provoked, we have always welcomed bees and what they do.

They are the subject of nostalgia, the essence of a sweet summer. They are tirelessly productive, and as such are one of the few insects we trust enough to put into advertising campaigns. They have provided us with a useful terminology: we are busy as a bee, the place is abuzz, Angelina Jolie has bee-stung lips, the first word announcing we’re home is ‘honey’. Their closest competitors are singularly unpleasant: waspish.

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