School's Out!

Enjoying the surprise sunshine on Tuesday 27th.

In the previous post, we were just fresh from our Bee Keeper, 'preliminary' level written test and waiting on a slot for our practical 'exam'. Well, that came through the same day and we were instructed to show up on the Monday (26th) at the Longford Group's club apiary out north of Longford town, in the forest alongside Cullyfad village. We had to be suited and booted, gloved and armed with a smoker. We were also advised that because this test was to be done by Mary H, one of the "Two Marys", whose specialist subject is bee and hive diseases, that we'd do well to bone up on that subject. Further they thought it a good idea that we should all know how to take a sample of 30 bees for sending away for testing, should you need to. You use a special technique to catch them in a matchbox, but more of that later.

Back on the knitting - a cardie for R

Off we trundled the now familiar hour's run to Longford, but diverting off just short, headed for Cullyfad where we luckily came upon one of the Committee members out of his car and knocking a 'Bee Exam' sign into the roadside turf with a hammer. We followed him 'home'. The club has half a dozen hives well up a forest track where the road widens enough for them to have parked the club's container and the hives. We looked a bizarre sight, 20 odd bee keepers all in our brilliant white new 'space suits' but sadly no-one had thought to bring a camera, so no pics, I am afraid. Liz volunteered to go first. She had about 10 minutes of being asked to open a nuke-box (small nucleus colony) while naming parts, telling what she saw and answering questions about diseases like Varroa mite and American Foul-brood (AFB). I was next up for my session. I got the impression that they were being very gentle and friendly, coaching us and guiding us all to succeed; as if the group wants a good pass rate to show off and all of us safely onto the first rung of the training ladder.

George Junior learns to peck up food from Dad (l) and Mum (r)

Then it was all over, we could unzip the (sword fencing style) mesh-visor hats and compare notes. It seems we both almost fell into the same trap - asked about sending samples off for checking when you suspect AFB, we started down the 30-bees-in-a-matchbox route. AFB though is a disease of larval bees when they are still in their brood cells, so you should send off chunks of comb or a whole frame. Oops. A dubious and schoolmarm-ish look from Mary H had us both, in our turn, stumbling in retreat from our matchboxes and hurriedly correcting ourselves.

George Junior

Ah well, every day's a school day, as they say, and in the case of Bee Keeper training to preliminary level, we are done, 6 training sessions, a revision session and 2 exams, and school is out! We don't know when we will see results or the certificate. Apparently, it might be as long as 3 months, but we don't really mind. In  general we have been mightily impressed by the quality of the training laid on by Longford Group under the wing of the Federation of Irish Bee Keepers' Associations (FIBKA), and delivered via the Government quango "Teagasc" (the agriculture and food development authority in Ireland). It certainly knocks any training days we've done for goats or pigs into a cocked hat, excellent though they were for privately run one day courses. We feel very well trained, prepared and knowledgeable. The icing on the cake is that the Two Marys have now emailed to let us know that the bees have been breeding like Billy-O over in Drumshanbo, much better than 2013, and our 'nuke' should be ready roughly mid-June. We'll be ready for it.

The three colours of Goldie's babies - now 4 weeks old. 

One final anecdote on the bee exam. Poor Lizzie had a massive streaming cold that day as well as having just collected new specs from the optician. Worried that looking for tiny bee larvae would be 'close' work, she opted to leave the specs off for the exam. Worse, the suit is not quick to get into or out of - all those poppers and zips around the mesh visor to keep the bees out, so she was worried that she might have to break out of the exam to open the suit enough to blow her nose. In the event she went for a massive nose blow, quick bit of suit zipping, pile into the exam and get out fast to open the suit and blow the nose just in time. She wonders whether in between being 'half blind' and dripping from the end of her nose, she might not come over as a very professional bee keeper. Ah well. All over bar the shouting now. Water under the bridge etc.

Goldie with 9 of her babies. No room at the feast.

Where do we go from here? FIBKA runs all manner of increasingly expert courses through 'Intermediate' and 'Senior' up to the impressively named 'Bee Master', with a little siding out to 'Honey Judge'. Most of these you have to have been in the grade below for a year prior to taking the next level up. Liz opines that she has done with all this and is happy with just the Preliminary Certificate but I don't know. The idea of being able to call yourself 'Bee Master' has put a new gleam in my eye. I may well try for some upgrades at some point in the future.

Bee School

'National' standard style hive.

We have decided to get into bees and keeping our own hive on the holding. This has got to be good from the point of view of the environment; reacting to the falling bee populations but would also mean that we had more bees locally to pollinate our fruit trees, veg and other plants. Plus it would be fun and it is something I have wanted to do for many years but never had the chance. We have therefore started to ask around for local bee-keeper contacts and have received a lot of help from friends on the internet (Thank you, Rho!) and locally who have now put us in touch with the Longford Beekeeper Group just over the county border. This (hour's drive) might seem a bit daft as there would surely be a group locally, but these were the group we found first and they are a lovely bunch of friendly people, so we are getting in with them for the moment.

A 'frame' of bees; not mine yet, picture 'borrowed' from the
Longford Group (Hope that's OK Elspeth!)

Off we went then last night to our first meeting in Longford town centre to meet our new friends, Joe, Kevin, Dieter and co. They are quite a big group (26 last night) and lively and friendly AND we were excited to find, they are just about to start a training course for beginners which runs through to May leading to the "Preliminary Bee Keepers' Certificate". We sat through the meeting and listened to the discussions on the agenda and both of us actually piped up with contributions from the complete beginner's perspective.

2 hens pick over our pile of John Deere Bob's calf muck

There was then a short presentation by an experienced bee keeper for the benefit of newbies like us on the parts of a standard "National" style beehive; he, Dieter, had one there with him, empty of course. We stayed on after the meeting to talk some more, to join up with the club and to enroll on the training course. It was a good event all round and we learned bags of 'stuff' about bees and hives. We feel as if we are launched already. We now need to get started properly with our beginner mini-hive (called a 'nucleus colony' or 'Nuke'). This is a box containing only 5-6 'frames' of wax on which a young queen and about 6000 bees are starting a new colony. If you play your cards right this Nuke box starts to quickly fill up with the thriving colony and you then buy a full sized hive (which can cope with 70,000 bees), transfer your frames into that and from there it is onwards and upwards, gaining more experience, becoming obsessed, starting to add more hives and so on. We are, for now, only thinking we'll run one hive, but you never know. More reports on this project to come.

I am always completely impressed by the idea of coppicing, the idea of cutting trees down to near ground level every 15-20 years or so, so that side shoots will sprout from the base/stump ("stool") and grow into poles which you can then harvest at the next cut. In Kent, in Challock Forest we had square miles of sweet chestnut cut this way, the poles having been used over the centuries for fencing and building wood, for charcoal making and for pit-props in the Betteshanger and other Kent coal mines. To me it is the ultimate form of sustainable forestry and therefore in sustainable cropping too.

When I was studying ecology at Uni, it was a given that coppiced tree stools in ancient woodland were the oldest known living things on the planet. They had been cut down at least 80 times, every 20-25 years or so for 2000 years or more. Each time the shoots grew from the outer side of the stool, so increased the diameter of the base, eventually marching out into a 'fairy ring', the centre having long since died off. The ring was now many yards across and interlocking with neighbouring rings like some complex Venn diagram or Spirograph drawing. The scientists could check DNA and estimate the rate of spread of individual plants and could thus estimate the age of each stool.

This big ash pole did not come from that tiny cut top left.
It is from a bigger cut out of shot (arrow)

Well, we don't have ancient woodland and our ash in the Secret Garden may only be a few cuts old but it gives me a real buzz to be taking down these ash stems knowing that it is entirely possible that I may be doing it again, aged 70 or so in the future. Meanwhile, they make great logs. Ash, seasoned, is one of our favourite woods for burning on the range. It is also beautiful to split with the axe when I'm feeling all macho and need to do 'man stuff'.

Irish 'Cooleeney' Camembert

We have been delighted recently to find some very nice cheeses in our travels. I have never been that confident of Irish cheese. Growing up, we loved our mature and vintage Cheddars and you could not be any ruder than to describe a cheese as 'like Irish Cheddar' - the only Irish Cheddar you could find back then was insipid and tasteless, described as 'Mild'. Yuck. Liz growing up was only ever given processed kiddies' cheeses like the famous "Calvita" brand. I am told it is worse than the 'Vache qui Rit' (laughing cow) stuff. So Liz, proudly off on her first French "exchange" as a teenager with the Treil family outside Paris, announced to her new hosts that she 'didn't like cheese'. Outraged by anything so preposterous, Mmle Treil set about introducing the young Liz to the huge variety of French cheeses starting with a creamy Camembert and working their way through to the smelliest Pont l'Eveques, Maroilles, Livarot (Le Colonel) and so on.

Rhubarb Crumble and 'real' custard made with eggs.

Of course, we are both real cheese hounds now and will try anything and enjoy them as long as they have a good flavour. We have even been on a specific holiday to the famous cheese area of Normandy hunting down some of these cheeses. We are happy to tell you that even our local Lidl Supermarket now stocks a nice Irish vintage cheddar (Valley Spire) and sometimes a very presentable Tipperary Camembert (Cooleeney) along with perfectly acceptable Parmesans, goat's cheeses, feta and so on. They feature regularly in our trolley load.