It’s been a busy old month with our bees swarming, and swarming and swarming! Luckily we’ve managed to catch the queen a couple of times and put her back in the hive so after an hour or so of frenzied activity the bees have come back. Backpack It’s certainly one way to get to know your neighbours. The ones who where around on our estate last Sunday when a swarm decided to head for the shady side of the tower block instead of the plan tree they usually head for, were fascinated by the bees and some came into our garden to look at the hive.

In addition to the swarming season, we began two hands-on training courses in May: the six week course on Wednesday evenings in Battersea and the summer-long course in King’s Cross funded by the Co-op. Both are going well. We’ve got two hives for the Battersea students, some of whom have graduated from the one day taster course we were running in the autumn/winter. At Camley Street Natural Park, the bees just arrived this week so the class helped transfer the nucs into the four hives which form the training apiary. avis It was great for them to finally handle bees after a couple of weeks of theory classes. The 20 aspiring apiarists have all been supplied with hives, smokers, suits and hive tools by the Co-op and should get their own bees by the end of June. internationalist Until then they’ll be getting the hang of handling the bees and hive inspections at the training apiary once a week.

As for the City of London festival, the sites have now all be chosen and the bees are excepted very soon.