The Bees, the Bees.

The Bees, the Bees...

My life had become utterly consumed by a job I loved, but by a company ethos I could not sympathise with. It was late Autumn in 2013 and I was sitting in my attic room, rented in a house in Stoneleigh, SW London, thinking about change:

My work hours were being taken through the roof, growing from a job advert-advertised 50 hours per week ('...you may opt back into the EU working hours directive...' – who's going to do that on their first day in the probation period of a new job???) to an average 70-80 hours and topping off around 90 hours from time to time. The stresses of managing poorly qualified and disinterested staff in a hard-nosed, profit-driven environment were constant. There were regular calls from disgruntled customers to sort out and frequent difficult alterations to a very tightly booked team schedule, due to staff absences - which further irritated the clientele. The mind was constantly juggling the logistical demands of multiple team requirements on multiple sites, even when not 'at work'. But I enjoyed the buzz and the challenges and I enjoyed making things right for people.

I had been worrying about my son, 180 miles away at home in Exeter, Devon (my daughter was off doing her travelling, somewhere in Africa at the time). He seemed to be a bit directionless and I found that a distance had grown between us, which I ached to mend. I needed an exit strategy.

My mother's 'boyfriend' (84 years old) was managing around 200 beehives around Cornwall. He was such a chilled and knowledgeable chap whose pearls of wisdom appeared unexpectedly. I was wondering how many hives you'd need to make sufficient income to make retirement comfortable, and with my horticultural background I felt sure I could come up with an early retirement plan. I decided to investigate the bee solution and promptly booked myself onto the local Epsom Beekeepers Association beginners course.

The first evening of the Winter introduction took place in the Epsom apiary hut. There were around a dozen of us there, including a chap I'd known when working at the Royal Borough of Kingston local authority a couple of years earlier. It was an eclectic group and, apart from an interest in beekeeping, there was little in common between us. The evenings were therefore very bee-focussed. At one moment the chap who was leading the evening mentioned something he'd noticed 'while sitting in his apiary, watching the bees' – my whole being seemed to lurch with the sudden understanding that this was an occupation that didn't require constant hassle and running around and actually required moments of quiet observation. I so needed this! The winter course fuelled my interest and I realised that there was so much more to know and understand than we'd cover in a few evenings of study.

In early March we had our first morning in the Association's apiary for our first hands-on hive inspection. As we paired up with Association members to open our first hive I was filled with trepidation; I'd never quite got past the fear that had been instilled by an aggressive colony belonging to my in-laws some years earlier. That sound as they attacked relentlessly while we took honey off was seemingly hardwired into my fight-or-flight response and, as my guide lifted off the lid of the hive in front of us, I felt the hairs lift on the back of my neck. In moments we were surrounded by bees, lifting out of the opened hive. I forced myself to stand and watch as my guide lifted out the first frame. He was talking through what he was looking for and explaining what we were seeing. My attention was drawn in and there came a moment when I realised that, although we were surrounded by a melee of bees, they weren't really paying us any attention and they certainly weren't attacking us. The morning flew by and as we were taking off our gear back in the apiary hut I felt an exhilaration rising through my chest. I drove back to my digs on a high. And that was it; I was hooked.

Nine years later, back home in Exeter, I have two apiaries with – currently – nine colonies of bees. They keep me busy and fascinated. Their management requires constant thought and investigation and an afternoon in the apiary is a transport to another world that is utterly divorced from any of the trials of everyday life. And strangely, the abstract romance of the occupation has stayed with me. I love being at the vineyard where my first apiary is and at the grounds of the ruined stately home where my second apiary is. Sunny afternoons in these idyllic settings constantly lift my weeks. I utterly love my bees.