Hard to believe our good fortune sometimes!! Mike always says: “Careful of what you want, you might just get it!!” The Law of Attraction! We have always wanted to have bee hives in our small backyard. Mike read a book on bees, and how us humans would survive something like 5 years before we died out, if we lost all of our bees! That’s how important they are to our survival! Think about it – our fruit, our veggies – all pollinated by mostly bees!
We attended a Bee Keeping Course. Sadly, after our Bee Keeping course, we decided we just did not have the TIME it took to care for the little critters, while working, growing our food and maintaining home and garden. I approached 2 local bee-keepers, offering them the chance of placing bee hives in our bee-wonderland-backyard. Not interested at all. The guy who ran the bee-keeping course said he could place some hives in our garden, but we waited several months and nothing happened. We called. He said he would come. We waited. Still nothing happened and a year went by. So we shelved the idea.
Then I read in the newspaper that a local beekeeper was asking for space to place his hives. I eagerly rang up and offered our backyard. The beekeeper’s wife, Alison, promised they would come to have a look to see if our place was suitable. I waited eagerly, but tried not to get my hopes up this time. They came! 2 weeks later, Barry brought 2 hives. We were so excited, we could barely contain ourselves. We watched with bated breathe as he opened the hives and the first little buzzy guys emerged. Barry wore no protective gear and assured us they would be happy for us to walk past. I would sing, “Hello Bees” each time I passed by, so they could used to the sound of my voice.
Barry was able to come and go as he pleased and the arrangement suited him well. In fact, Barry would often come and “steal” some bees to populate his other hives which weren’t doing as well! This happy arrangement lasted nearly two years until Barry decided he was getting too old to carry the heavy bee hives when he was harvesting the honey, and sold his business. We were a little sad to see our buzzy friends go but there was no way we wanted to tend the bees ourselves.
Fast forward a year later (sans bees) and we have been gifted another wonderful opportunity to have backyard bees again! This time, our son’s friend Chris, has placed a hive in our backyard. What joy to know we have our little buzzy friends back again. It’s a win-win situation, as our fruit and veggie garden gets pollinated, while we provide a chemical and pesticide free environment for them! Chris was afraid that where they were, a neighbour was spraying his orchard.
So our new batch of buzzy friends are happy in their new home, and the garden is literally buzzing with their busy foraging frenzy. We shall wait and see if the harvest is again as prolific as when our old bee friends were living with us. I have learnt that it can take 1,100 bees to make a kilo of honey, and they would have to visit 4 million flowers in order to do that!! Wow! But don’t worry, Bee Happy!
Cheers from Jizzy.
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