Honey (proper and pure) is one of those amazing foods, which can be described as a miracle food. It is a wonderful aid for many ailments, as it has antiseptic properties. There are many different honeys - including wild, Manuka (from New Zealand) and organic. The best honey to eat for allergies, is the one in your own area. The taste of honey depends on the pollen which the bees collect - heather honey, for example has a particular taste.
So I was delighted to meet Gracie, who does beekeeping, as one of her many outside activities, as part of her role as an estate manager for a large establishment in Sussex.
I went to see Gracie in March 2025 - she has been a bee keeper for a few years and incredibly - during her training, she was attacked by half a hive, and was stung 30 times through her bee suit! Many would have given up (I would!), but this strong Polish lady persevered. It was newsworthy enough to go into a bee keeping magazine.
I asked Gracie what got her into Beekeeping.
She said that as a trained gardener for 18 years, and running a complex estate, comprising of both wild and formal walled gardens, a kitchen garden and even hens, it was a natural progression to try her hand at bee keeping. The location was ideal for it and she promptly enrolled on a year long course, run by the High Weald Bee Keeper's Association - aka HWBKA.
I was amazed at how complex this subject is - I always thought one just bought a nice wooden hive and plonked it in one's garden - and got someone to put some bees in. Gracie sighed, and explained that that's what some novices do - and they run into many problems, finally calling for help from experienced bee keepers.
Gracie says Bees are clever - they don't travel far from the original hive - 3 miles at most. The female 'scout' bees look for suitable places to live. Around three quarters of the hive will swarm with their queen bee to a new location. The remaining worker bees stay in the original hive and look after baby bees, and will need another queen. Only 1 queen per hive - and it is well known that if there is more than 1 queen in a hive - they will fight each other viciously to the death - they even have a battle, or rather, beecry! Nature can be so cruel.
The queen's function is to lay eggs and once the queen is 'chosen' as a tiny speck in its little hexagon compartment, it is fed royal jelly until adulthood.
When you see a swarm of bees, they are seeking a new home. They are full of food, having emptied the hive of its stores.
The drones are male and their only function is to mate the queen - then they die. At the end of the season - August, the worker bees can be seen dragging the drones by their wings and throwing them out of the hive! They are no longer required, besides, the worker bees need to clean up the hive.
The queen will be full of eggs, which lasts 2-3 years, and the worker bees guard her. The queen gives out different 'scents' known as pheromones. Only bees understand what they mean!
Gracie took me to the office which has all the bee equipment and she showed me how a wooden bee hive is assembled, and how she makes the wooden trays, which slot in vertically into the large box. She starts the season with 4 hives, and can end up with 12 - which helps prevent the bees from swarming further afield. The key is to judge carefully when to split a hive. If they are left they will swarm away.
With regard to the workload, Gracie inspects the hives every 6 days for 1-2 hours. The making of the frames takes 1-2 hours. Honey is harvested in August - when the trays are taken out and the beeswax removed - then the honeycomb is placed in a big steel spinning container, where the combs are spun by hand. She told me that her husband will help with the spinning - being a long 3 hours! Cleaning the bee equipment is time consuming. The wax is saved to make candles, which Gracie also makes.
The other problem can be dealing with the parasitic mites called Varroa. August is when bees are treated for this.
Gracie can see I'm flabbergasted by all the intricacies of bees and bee keeping, and tells me breezily - that there is so much more to learn - and indeed - she hands me her course file, with more technical information.
I feel I have seen just a glimpse of this amazing process and I think bee keepers do this job as a labour of love - it seems to be a vocation. It certainly isn't the 'romance' of just plonking a pretty wooden hive in one's garden and just letting the bees get on with it. And the other amazing fact - one bee produces just 1 teaspoon of honey! That’s a lot of bees for a jar of honey.
1 bee is alive for about 4-6 weeks only. They die of exhaustion.
