The Urban Beekeeper

At a time when the UK bee population is in decline there’s no better way to make a difference than to start up your own hive. Steve Benbow’s enormous success with urban beekeeping show’s how easy it is to keep bees, whether you’re in the city or in the countryside, and you’ll never look back once you’ve tasted your very own sticky, golden honey, or lit a candle made from the beeswax from your hive.

Steve Benbow is a visionary beekeeper who started his first bee hive ten years ago on the roof of his tower block in Bermondsey and today runs 30 sites across the city. His bees live atop the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Fortnum & Mason and the National Portrait Gallery, and he supplies honey to the Savoy tearooms, Harvey Nichols, Harrods and delis across London. His bees forage in parks, cemeteries, along railway lines and in window boxes, and because of the diversity of the plants and trees in the city, produce far richer honey and greater yields than they would in rural areas.

The Urban Beekeeper is a fact-filled diary and practical guide to beekeeping that follows a year in the life of Steve and his bees and shows how keeping bees and making your own delicious honey is something anyone can do. It is a tempting glimpse into a sunlit lifestyle that starts with the first rays of the morning and ends with the warm glow of sunset, filled with oozing honeycomb, natural recipes for sensational honey-based dishes, and honey that tastes like sunshine.

A hugely affectionate but practical diary of a beekeeper’s year and the immense satisfaction of harvesting your own delicious honey. Read it and join the revolution.

Steve Benbow is at the heart of the urban beekeeping revolution. With zero experience he built his first hive on his tower-block rooftop ten years ago. Today, he runs hives across London’s greatest landmarks, including both Tate galleries, Fortnum & Mason, and The National Gallery, as well as hives in Shropshire and Salisbury. He supplies honey to Fortnum & Mason, Harvey Nichols, the Savoy tearooms and Harrods, chefs including Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing, and sells at local farmers markets and from his studio in Bermondsey. He also runs courses in beekeeping.

I love everything about bees. Their agile yet languorous flight, their barely audible hum (the snoozy backbeat to a baking summer’s day) and, of course, their sweet, multi-hued honey. It’s still a source of wonder to me that, within a short distance, its flavour can mutate from full-bodied chestnut to sweet lime to silky rose.

Some people might hardly notice these little creatures, but they are everything to me. I adore their varied personalities, admire their magnificent work ethic – an average hiveful flies to the moon and back each year – and am in awe of their humility. Without their pollination, human life would falter.

My passion for bees was fed by an earlier childhood devotion to insects. I believe it started in a coal bunker, pink, concrete and tucked into the back of my parents’ Shropshire semi. My secret lair was dark, dry and almost inaccessible to anyone bigger than a skinny little boy in tartan flares with a flash torch, and I was delighted to discover it was also a favourite haunt of the giant house spider.

Row upon row of Robinson’s jam jars – the glass magnifying the gangly monsters inside – were devoted to my collection. I punched crude breathing holes into their metal lids with nails. Each day the spiders were fingered and examined, but with near reverence – never harmed, always eventually released.

As my fanaticism for crawly critters grew, my family was encouraged to consume more cosmic-coloured jam, and soon a similar collection was housed on the radiator cover at Long Meadow Junior School. It included winged bees found dead in the school grounds, speared with pins onto bowing cardboard cereal packets. Alongside them sat my collection of cracked bird’s eggs wrapped in cotton wool.

This classroom was also the location for my first bee sting – and no beekeeper ever forgets that. Thinking back, I’m certain it was the summer of 1976, the year the country snoozed under a heavy, 20-tog duvet of heat. I was trying to rescue an increasingly distressed honeybee as it struggled to escape through the huge glass windows. The buzzing was a frantic siren call and I’d risen from my tiny chair to help.

All the windows were open, but the bee still failed to find its way out. As I cupped my hands around its frantic form, ushering it towards the sunshine and air – I’d not yet perfected the glass-and-paper routine – it delivered its coup de grâce.

I can truthfully say that the sting didn’t really trouble me. What I was most concerned about was the bee’s death as its abdomen was torn apart. I didn’t react to its injecting of venom into the palm of my hand – this seemed more fascinating than sadistic – and the pain passed quickly. What I didn’t then realise was that this was a good omen for a future career – as well as a new member for my cereal-packet pinboard club.

Even at eight years old I’d known it was a honeybee. My maternal grandparents had been keeping bees on their Shropshire apple orchard ever since a government initiative to combat sugar shortages in the Second World War. Granddad’s honey was smooth, dark and sweet, and I loved it on a doorstep of white bloomer.

I’d like to claim that my beekeeping skills were lovingly passed down the generations, but there were no cosy fireside chats with this giant of a blacksmith about his mesmerising craft. In fact, the only wise words on the subject I can recall from him were, ‘You should always tell your bees your worries.’ It’s OK, Granddad, I still do.

My paternal grandmother, Grandma Kate, was a formidable midwife who lived on the other side of the county and was also a beekeeper. She was the one who really taught me about bees to start with and a fantastic huge photograph of her and her bees taken in the 1930s is one of my most treasured possessions. I guess she awoke the passion that was lurking dormant somewhere in my DNA.

Over the years my fascination with bees just grew and developed, until one day I woke up to found myself in the strange but wonderful occupation of a full-time beekeeper. This book tells of my adventures along the way, and particularly follows my progress over the year I decided to bring my bees back to London. What I like to call my ‘capital takeover’.

By making each chapter a month, I’ll show how the beekeeper’s year pans out – the dos and don’ts, the little secrets, the big mistakes, and the tremendous rewards. I hope my adventures will inspire you to find out more about these marvellous little creatures. Whether you’re in the deepest rural shires, heather-clad moors, windswept sea fronts or cluttered city streets (and I’ve done them all), the essential skills of beekeeping remain the same.

I guarantee that you will never do anything else in your life which connects you so closely to the changing seasons and the vagaries of nature. Or anything remotely so rewarding and life-enhancing.

IN DAYS GONE by, the start of the year would hardly have triggered mass outbreaks of enthusiasm, energy or motivation. As a commercial beekeeper, I would use the post-Christmas lull, not as an opportunity to implement my New Year’s resolutions and join a gym, but instead for the expansion of my waistline; and for recuperation from having worked flat out to a point of apocalyptic bee exhaustion.

Requests from delis and shops for beautifully packaged urns of lightly coloured glowing honeycombs would have begun to arrive at the start of November and continued all the way until late Christmas Eve. By knocking-off time my fingers would be raw from tying intricate bows, whilst my spirits suffered from perpetual festive blues.

Selling substantial quantities of honey stock pre-Christmas would mean my finances were often healthy at the start of January, allowing for a comforting level of reassurance that there would be money in the bank during the lean months to follow – until my dedicated and devoted bees emerged from their own slumber, hopefully in fine fettle for a new season’s production in the spring.

Loaded with tins of discounted Christmas biscuits, cakes and chocolates, it used to be that I would hole up for the month in my tiny Butler’s Cottage on the sprawling country estate just outside Shrewsbury – once home to Barbara Cartland. I would light large toasty fires and watch my toes glow red through the holes in the ends of my old woollen socks, whilst swotting up on bee-mastering techniques and intricate manipulations from my growing bee-book library, ready to be implemented when the weather warmed.

There was not actually hands-on bee work to be done just yet and, as I became fused to my ageing green velour Chesterfield, my nomadic lifestyle would get put on temporary hold. My two enormous grey cats, Dr Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket, would applaud my loafing tendencies.

The previous year would have been spent travelling from one town to the next in my bee truck, my tent and sleeping roll stored in the trunk over my cab, along with a small stove and a few tins of essentials, including loo roll. Washing in streams, drying clothes under hand dryers in service stations, eating roadkill and surviving from the land as much as possible, I’d often long for a comfy bed and a hot steamy bath.

Life is a bit different now that I’m operating on a bigger scale. This year, as soon as the holidays are over, the numerous restaurants and delis who I supply are keen to restock – the Christmas bonanza has stripped their shelves of supplies. This gives me an added incentive to extract the last of my honey and get a welcome boost to my finances. Extraction is rarely a January job. At this time of year, it’s far too cold to keep the honey runny naturally, so most sensible beekeepers will have done it months ago, on a warm day in late summer or early autumn. Or they will have done it little by little as it ripened over the season.

Somehow in the rush I didn’t get around to extracting my lime honey last year, so on New Year’s Eve, traditional night of merriment for the rest of the population, I was stripped to the waist, working through the night. It meant I’d had to stand up a girlfriend, but what else is a bee man to do? Extract his honey and inadvertently extract himself from yet another relationship.

I’d made the place as warm as I could and a few days earlier stood my honey boxes under the hottest light bulbs I could find, in an attempt to soften the wax and loosen the thick lime honey behind it. Then with only a bottle of dark rum for company, I worked till 4.00 a.m. before collapsing in a sticky heap.

When I finally stirred the next morning, it was incredibly satisfying to see dozens of brand new bright orange builder’s buckets filled to the brim with glorious unfiltered honey from London’s finest lime trees. A truly joyous start to my year.

By two weeks into January, I’m already itching for the bee season to begin. This year there are enormous plans to be implemented. Very soon my bee truck will be chewing up the tarmac once again, but on a different kind of adventure, an urban mission. My bees will need to be in peak condition, as they will be heading south, and this is no holiday.

For the past five years I have managed bees commercially in the heart of Shropshire and West Wales, alongside a dear old friend, David Wainwright. We have had some amazing bee adventures together and shared some rather special moments of friendship in extreme circumstances. Some bee projects have been massive success stories, yielding barrels of honey and prosperity, with bees thriving in wonderful surroundings.

There have also been colossal disasters, with bees at times becoming sick and starving. It has been an emotional roller-coaster but I would not have changed this experience in any way. David is an unsung hero, a true bee-master of humbleness and wisdom, and without him I would not be in the position I am now. Although at times bee-keeping may sound romantic, more often than not it has been more like unarmed combat, trying to cope with bad weather and disease, despite our unquestionable devotion to and love of the bees.

This new venture of mine will signal a break in our partnership. It is a chance for me to implement my vision to make London self-sufficient in honey and see if it is possible to obtain honey from all thirty-three of its boroughs – it could be a crazed pipe dream or an inspirational mission. There have been many doubters, who years ago thought that even my original idea of keeping bees on city rooftops was wild.

For this will not be my first foray into urban beekeeping. It will, however, be the first on such a mammoth scale – by anyone, for that matter. Fifteen years ago I decided I wanted to bring a little bit of the countryside to our ex-council flat in Bermondsey, and I installed a beehive full of Gloucestershire bees behind the lift shaft on the then unused rooftop. The bees thrived and produced huge amounts of dark thick honey in their first year alone.

My bee knowledge back then was good but I still chose to attend a brief course at an adult education centre. Growing up in Shropshire, I had been taught beekeeping by friends and family, but had been apprehensive about keeping bees in such a central urban environment. I need not have worried. They flourished and did not, as I had feared, hassle inhabitants or commuters.

For one final time now, I visit David to talk about my plans to head to the capital. He lives in a secluded valley in West Wales, in the shack which he built for himself – the most heavenly place, even if it does have a midge-infested outside long-drop bog, requiring some stealth bottom positioning to avoid being eaten alive.

Surrounded by bees and soft fruit trees, it’s a smashing and idyllic haven for bee research and queen breeding and from which various projects are run in association with Bangor University. Its isolation is perfect for all the valley’s inhabitants from otters to pine martens, and after years of bee toil and graft, David lives in beautiful surroundings, with 1,000 litres of cider which we made together last autumn, and thousands and thousands of bees.

Each colony has its own locally produced British-bred queen, all named after Welsh princesses. David’s favourite is Anwyn 29 – a dark slender queen who has produced an alarming number of offspring – now in semi-retirement in a beautifully crafted bee shed that captures the tiny amount of sunlight the valley has to offer during the winter.

Our meeting does not go well. David and I have always managed the colonies together – he in West Wales and I in Shropshire – and I feel guilty about leaving him as managing bees in large numbers by oneself is seriously challenging.

David is a man of few words but his facial expressions say it all. He’s partly hurt and I’m sure nervous of the future for his own bee ventures alone.

My feelings are mixed too. This part of the world is where I was first introduced to the mesmerising craft of beekeeping and I will be leaving behind many memories. My grandparents on both sides of the county were my first inspiration – the giant photograph of Grandma Kate tending her bees will one day hang in my new studio. And there was another silver beekeeper who kept an actual bee village on her Lavender Farm near Bridgnorth. Each hive stood behind a hand-painted façade of a church, cottage, bank or school. When the bees swarmed they would hang from miniature streetlights and signposts. It was magical. We’d consume gallons of honey-sweetened black tea in her rustic kitchen, while discussing life in Hive Village. I had met my first bee guru.

But I know that London is the best possible choice for the health of bees in the future and for the quality of their honey – also perhaps for my own sanity as I worry about the changes happening across more and more of our countryside. I already keep some elaborate and ornate hives on top of Fortnum & Mason’s and am keen to expand across the capital. The famous department store came to me last year asking if I would install four hives. Since their arrival, successful bee tours have taken place and there are two live webcams through which you can follow the progress of the bees online.

During recent student demonstrations, protestors broke into the store and occupied a section of the rooftop. Friends, having seen it on the news, phoned me in a panic about the bees and I was able to go online and check that the beehives were still there … which they were, the bees apparently unaware of the ensuing commotion. These same friends have been pushing for a naked online streak but those days are behind me and the risks are too high – besides, I wouldn’t fancy the stings.

Out in the more concreted mono-floral parts of the countryside, bees face the constant threat of modern pesticides, particularly those used on oilseed rape, a crop that does far more damage to bees than most people realise. By comparison, 42 per cent of London is open space and a further 24 per cent is covered in private gardens. In addition there are railway sidings and green rooftops, so these figures could be even greater, and people are always planting up window boxes and replacing park bedding. With such varieties of pollen, the honey also tastes fantastic. Though the bees out in rural West Wales and Shropshire are not so threatened for the moment, I feel I owe it to future generations of bees to develop city colonies.

An amazing French photographer, who recently visited me for a new photographic book he is compiling on global beekeeping, told me of commercial bee farmers in Berlin, who move beehives into the city specifically for the lime harvest: the city has a huge number of mature lime trees as well as extensive woodland generally. The operation is all very covert, to avoid detection and possible panic, with hundreds of hives being moved into position for this specific crop. I had no idea this happened and it gives me confidence about my own operation. Apparently each hive moved into Berlin during the tree’s short flowering period produces on average 25 kilos of thick greenish honey. No wonder the lime is highly prized.

We could do with a few more mature trees in London, lime or otherwise. The increase in urban beekeeping over recent years has forced local bee associations to stir themselves. After an initial panic over the amount of available forage, I’m glad to see they now appear to be working together with local councils to ensure that there is a wider range of nectar-yielding plants in the city. The new wave of guerilla gardeners are also doing their bit. This can only be brilliant news, making London a greener place overall.

Having bees in London is good for the city: not only do urbanites get a chance to enjoy local produce, but it helps to pollinate every green space, from tiny gardens to public parks. So, not only for the well-being and prosperity of the bees, but also for Londoners themselves, I plan to break away from my Shropshire bee shed and put my plan into action.

As the month progresses, the first snowdrops appear, signalling that pollen is starting to be available for the bees to forage on. Small clumps of these divine flowers attract the bravest bees out of the hive, waiting their turn to land on the pollen source. When people ask me what they can plant in their gardens to help bees, I usually mention these January bulbs – they are an essential boost for early bee growth.

Apart from these intrepid few, the bees mostly remain inside their hive, grouped together; not exactly sleeping, but huddling in a catatonic state, shivering and vibrating in order to maintain a toasty temperature of 32 degrees. If there is a snowfall, the beekeeper should brush it away from the entrances – although an old boy did once tell me a pile-up of snow could actually keep bees snug in cold weather, providing there is sufficient ventilation reaching them.

Bees can fly in zero temperatures; the problem arises if a bee stops flying and therefore stops using its flight muscles while it’s away from the hive. It is unlikely to have the energy to start up again and if the temperature is below 8 degrees, the bee will almost certainly perish.

Snowdrops and later on crocuses will be providing bees with their first source of pollen. This they will bring back to the hive in special pollen sacs on their legs, to deliver a crucial supply of protein for building up the hive’s brood. Pollen is essential early in the season for the development and generation of new bees.

At this time of year, it would be too cruel to deprive bees of their pollen – not to mention detrimental to overall hive welfare. But later in the spring, I’ll attach pollen traps to the fronts of the hives in order to gather it. For the past year, I’ve been selling pollen at farmer’s markets, where it goes down a storm with health-conscious ladies of a certain age, and sufferers of hay fever who believe it helps their symptoms.

Luckily, there are still a few months to go until I feel the telltale tickle of hay fever. The cold weather keeps pollen at bay, but it also makes inspecting hives a sensitive operation of stealth and care. It’s important not to disrupt the bees too much or cool down the hive. From the bees’ perspective, opening the roof must feel like someone swiping away a warm duvet on a cold winter’s morning, only to throw on a bucket of iced water.

For the uninitiated, this is the perfect time of year to ask yourself if keeping bees could be for you. Would it fit with your lifestyle? Do you have the space to keep bees, the time to concentrate on them? Start swotting up. You will quickly become engrossed by bee behaviour and marvel at their very existence. This could be a decision that will change your life.

Find out about bee courses. There are plenty of theory courses to enrol onto in January so you can grasp essential bee knowledge now. These are often run by local associations or keen amateurs – but choose wisely and speak to those who have already attended if you can. I got so excited when I first did mine that I was raring to go when the milder weather arrived in the spring, having spent weeks in the classroom of an adult education college in New Cross.

By the end of January, if you do decide to take up beekeeping, you’ll need to have touched base with breeders and got in the queue for new colonies (although you won’t be collecting these bees until early summer). It’s always good to look for reviews and other customers’ comments when searching for a new set of bees. In the past, I’ve collected swarms to restock my bee supplies, but as their provenance can often be unknown, I now prefer to order new colonies from reputable breeders. You may prefer to fetch them yourself, but remember that bees can be sent in the post too.

In January, the established beekeeper will need to clean up old equipment ready to be used again. One of the jobs that this involves is boiling up old frames in washing soda to sterilise them, before steam washing them with a power hose.

It is also a good time of year to start thinking about what equipment you will need for the year ahead, especially as manufacturers offer discounts in the quiet season. Beware of taking on too much while you are still learning the ropes. Assembling a flat-pack hive might sound like a simple mission, but if you live in a city flat with limited space, you’ll need to think about where you are going to do it and ideally recruit some help.

In my early years as a beekeeper, I built hives sometimes on my rooftop, other times in my council-rented garage and occasionally, if I was pushed for space, in my communal stairway, which was often frequented by crack users – taking what they had scored in the basement’s den.

Equipment can be bought ready assembled, although it is more costly. I buy some of mine from Italy where it’s cheaper and then I make smaller items myself, such as hive roofs, floors and mats to keep the bees cosy.

Beware of suppliers who inflate prices of ordinary items that are widely available from hardware stores. For example, a honey bucket can be bought more affordably when it’s just called a bucket. Deeming everything ‘bee this’ and ‘bee that’ strikes me as a wheeze to hoick up prices. I often get these things cheaply from a builder’s merchant, though this does mean I have to sterilise them with a light disinfectant first.

Having said that, sometimes the best tool is a specially designed one. For instance, do get a proper hive tool rather than using a screwdriver like the one used by a pioneering urban beekeeper who I met in Paris. Jean Paucton is an elderly character, who tends his bees on the roof of the Garnier Opera House. He leaps around the gargoyles like a youth and produces a light delicate honey that sells in the gift shop for a fortune. Though he manages with a screwdriver, you might find that a properly designed hive tool with a hook on the end and a straight flat edge will serve you better.

In many ways, choosing a hive is one of the biggest decisions that you might make at the start of the year, as you plan for the months ahead. I would recommend hives made from cedar wood, which is less susceptible to bug infiltration and rot, and needs little maintenance or wood treatment – its natural oils help preserve the wood. I have some cedar hives that are over sixty years old.

To make beekeeping more affordable and accessible, hives are now widely available in Douglas fir or other common softwoods, but these will definitely require some form of treatment and protection from the elements.

Many people decide to paint their hives dull colours, but I prefer bright shades, so they look more like Mediterranean hives. You can always spot my hives as they are the most vibrant ones, with not one single colour matching – and when I get bored painting in blocks I add polka dots, stripes and swirls. I like to think the bees also prefer these jolly colours, not just because they look like flowers, but because they can learn to recognise their own hives. Sadly, however, bright hives are more easily spotted and therefore are more likely to be targeted by vandals.

To prevent hives from rotting, beekeepers used to paint them with creosote and other caustic substances. Fortunately this is no longer acceptable due to the harm these toxic chemicals can cause the bees, but do check your hive paint is bee friendly before applying it.

There are various hives available to buy in the UK – I have tried them all but I love the Modified Dadant, introduced to me by David. I find it works perfectly in urban areas, as it allows me to expand the brood nest in the spring with the use of a dummy board and close it down again in the winter. The frames are large and give the bees plenty of room, which helps reduce swarming.

The majority of my own hives are made of Douglas fir to keep the cost down and then painted with crazy colours, but for those with deeper pockets, you could look at cedar which will easily outlive you and will require little attention against weather and ageing. Each hive will then require a set of three to four supers. Also three to four honey boxes.

Each hive also needs a mesh floor to allow air to circulate around the bees and help with the fight against Varroa; during treatments, the mites will not be able to clamber back onto the frames and bees and will fall to the ground. These I make myself – from a pattern taught to me by David. He uses pressurised and treated timber, to prevent rotting, and a fine zinc mesh. The floors are made from a series of battens, positioned to allow the maximum amount of air around the bees when they are transported.

The roof is a simple zinc-covered affair and underneath is a hive mat or crown board. Once again I use David’s design – foam board from a builder’s merchant keeps the bees snug – but most use a simple board that also works as an escape, using small bits of plastic that are inserted to prevent bees from re-entering the honey store during cropping.

I talk extensively about these later on. My recommendation is a Miller feeder for rapid deployment of syrup in the spring and autumn, filled with wood wool to prevent the bees from drowning.

Choose one with strong leather bellows, and spend a little extra for a cage around the chamber to help prevent you burning yourself. I love to put the smoker between my knees when I work a hive so I have two hands free – or use the hook on the top to hang it from the hive wall – so the cage is an important feature.

The best thing for gently brushing bees off the combs during cropping is a goose wing but if you can’t get one then a commercial bee brush will do. Try getting a goose wing from your local gamekeeper. A wildlife centre in London did once manage to secure me a few when some troublesome Canadian Geese were hassling visitors and they were taken out one evening – I’m not sure what became of the meat but the wings were useful bee brushes.

Use this for running in a swarm or for wrapping up a collected swarm. I always have one to hand as it allows the bees an easy runway into the hive: position it so they can clearly see the entrance. It also makes spotting the queen easier and saves them having to cope with tufts of grass. A sheet around a cardboard box was the way I was taught to collect a swarm – it prevents leaks but still gives a bit of venting.

In time you will need these for making young colonies in the spring. It is important, not just for commercial beekeepers, to maintain hive numbers and keep your stocks young and fresh, and making nucs or rearing your own queens is a good way of maintaining numbers.

For noting down what you’ve done with each hive, what you need to do next time and what you need to bring with you.

For fixing gaps and holes on hives in transit or for even wrapping around your boots to prevent bees creeping in under your suit – its uses in beekeeping are endless.

January is also a month for planning, a chance to look back at the previous year’s exploits and assess what could have been done differently and what could be improved. A beekeeper can expect to spend time working out what he or she wants to achieve from the bees over the following season. My advice is to start a new record book for each hive – essential for individually monitoring each one and for learning from your interventions.

Last year, for instance, the honey flow stopped at the end of June in London and there was no autumn honeydew, which made me realise, in hindsight, that the bees could have had an outing to the heather or wood sage on the south coast. What this profession has taught me, if nothing else, is that no two seasons are the same; it’s hard to predict whether a pattern will be repeated the following year. My two nuggets of advice are that you should expect the unexpected and make hay while the sun shines. For wannabe bee farmers you should also get yourself a good osteopath and sign up to online dating.

It’s always best to do your planning when fortified with tea and lots of cake. This year I have been given a recipe by Bea Vo, owner of Bea’s of Bloomsbury and other fine tea rooms across the capital. Her commercial bakery is in Bermondsey, my old manor and an area where I hope to secure a railway arch studio for my expanding honey business.

This recipe for her twist on Struffoli, a ‘favourite fried doughnut treat’, works well with London honey.

Struffoli

For the doughnut pieces:

500g plain flour

zest of one orange

zest of one lemon

a pinch of paprika

½ tsp salt

7 eggs – 6 whole, plus 1 extra yolk

1 tbsp dark rum

1 litre vegetable oil, for frying

For the sauce:

500g London honey

juice of half an orange

a good shot of dark rum

icing sugar, for dusting

Mix the flour, orange and lemon zest, paprika and salt. To do it the old traditional way, dump the flour on the counter and create a small well. Fill with eggs and 1 tablespoon rum. Incorporate with hands until you get a nice smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and place in refrigerator for one hour.

Separate the dough into quarters and roll each into a long rope about 1 inch thick. Cut into small ½-inch pieces like gnocchi.

Heat the oil in pan until it reaches 190°C/350°F/gas 4. Drop balls in a few at a time until they turn nicely golden and puffy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

In a wide pot, add the honey, orange juice and a shot of rum, and heat over a medium heat until it’s quite warm and the honey thin. Add the doughnut pieces to the honey mixture, and stir until well coated. Remove from the heat and let the sauce cool in the pan, stirring constantly to keep the honey coating even.

Pour onto a nice plate (it’ll harden as it cools so you can shape it nicely.) Dust icing sugar on top.

Oxalic acid hive treatment for Varroa

The final task that I tackle before the end of the month involves treating hives with oxalic acid to reduce the risk of losing colonies to Varroa, a much-feared parasitic mite that attacks honeybees. It must be done during this dormant month, before the queen starts to lay properly, as the treatment could otherwise kill bee larvae. Oxalic acid changes the PH level within the hive, either killing the mites that cling to the backs of adult bees or causing them to loosen their grip and drop through the mesh floor of the hive. Oxalic acid will only kill mites on the bees and not those on sealed larva, so this is another reason to treat when there is no, or minimal, brood.

To see how bad an infestation you are dealing with, you can put a sticky board under the mesh floor which catches the mites’ corpses. A sticky board is simply a white sheet of card or plastic covered in a mixture of olive oil and Vaseline which prevents mites from clambering back onto the bees. It also stops the wind from blowing them away before you have counted what we call ‘the drop’.

Regular monitoring of your bees for these mites has to be one of the most important things you must do as a beekeeper as they will kill your colony off if they remain untreated or ignored. This is a grim fact but it’s important you realise this early. It is worth noting that your mite numbers will be greater in the autumn when the season starts to draw to a close. It is also the time when you remove the honey boxes and bees spread across several boxes will be condensed into one for the winter.

Every hive needs to be zapped really quickly with a precise dose of diluted acid from a vet’s syringe. To do this, crown boards – the ones below the roof that keep the bees snug – are carefully cranked up and a squirt is given to every frame of bees – approx 5 ml per frame. This should involve minimal disturbance of the hive, since it’s still winter hibernating season. The weather needs to be cold enough so your bees are in a tight cluster, but not freezing. The treatment is implemented at this time partly because when the bees are tightly clustered, they can all be treated together – it’s unlikely that many will be out flying.

This treatment used to be considered maverick but now it has widely become essential and it is seen as the most effective method of battling Varroa – so long as you proceed carefully when applying the acid. In the past, intense chemical insecticides were more commonly used; but Varroa mites have mostly become resistant to them, thanks to their overuse both in treatment and in the fields, largely those planted up with my foe, oilseed rape.

How are my bees?

In the second week of January I open up the hives on the roof of Fortnum’s and at first I am alarmed. There is no sign of life and I think all the bees have died. Slowly, however, they stumble out from where they were holed up at the bottoms of the frames – sorry, Bees, this is truly a rude awakening.

When I come to hefting my other beehives – to check they’re not too light which would indicate that the bees are starving – I’m alarmed to see large numbers of dead bees in front of some hives, which suggests I’ve been badly hit by Varroa this season. I need to remove the corpses from the entrance blocks to ensure that any flying bees can still get out of the hive on warmer days to find water and early pollen. I take time to do this carefully so as not to disturb the cluster of catatonic bees.

Disturbing though this discovery is, the fate of the bees is no longer in my hands. All I can do is hope that they will pull through. I’ve done what I can to ensure their well-being – they are largely on their own now. There will be casualties before the warm weather arrives, that much I know for sure. My only hope is that these are not huge and that it is nothing major that will slow their development during the spring.

Watch out for stingers

A common problem for beekeepers at this time of year is discovering that some of their bees, attracted by body heat, have landed somewhere on their person, lodged themselves in an unusual spot, and then failed to summon the energy to take off again. Chances are this will only be noticed when the beekeeper has reached the warm sanctuary of a vehicle or centrally heated house, where the bees will suddenly re-energise – usually with a vengeance. That’s why you need to take great care when removing smocks and veils.

My advice to first-timers is to work in a buddy system if possible. Before returning indoors, give each other a twirl to check for waifs and strays – and help prevent an early encounter with a stinger. David and I arrived in a Chinese takeaway last year after an early-season bee day and spent the next ten minutes, having already ordered our supper, catching from our overalls the bees which were warmed by the lights. Apologies to the owners of the China Garden takeaway, Machynlleth – it must have been alarming.

On the move

In order to offer comb honey to customers around the year, I store my prized combs in cold storage, where each box is wrapped in cardboard to help minimise condensation. Reassured that these combs are in tip-top condition, towards the end of the month I get them wrapped and despatched to David’s factory in West Wales, where they will be cut into chunks and then packaged for delis. This logistical exercise is something I want to change this year, and so begins the search for a suitable studio and office space in south-east London.

Up till now I have thought nothing of sending my London honey off to David’s factory for processing. Each box is carefully wrapped in a black bin bag and interlocked with the next. The complete pallet weighs 500 kilos and I wrap it with industrial shrink-wrap to make it one big unit.

Throughout the year, hundreds of honey boxes have been transported around the country from the various crops our bees have produced. Only one courier company has ever complained and that was because a few bees were still attached to the honey boxes.

This time, my worst fears come true. The pallet of London honey arrives at David’s factory in Aberystwyth completely smashed. He phones to break the news with his most calming voice – he knows that this will be a devastating blow to me and my business. David can show great compassion at such times along with a straightforwardness I applaud.

The driver managed to mangle this precious load in the final few metres of its journey by slamming his brakes on at the last minute. It turns out the load fell off the truck crashing to the deck, as it hadn’t been adequately strapped down. I receive photos via email from Matt, a good friend there – he’s almost in tears. For my honey to be wrecked at this late stage is not only a personal disaster, it’s a great disservice to the bees that have laboured over this precious crop. I have let them down by entrusting it to some idiot, who has no idea of the impact of his actions.

Although some of the honey can be salvaged by pressing the combs, the combs themselves are ruined, along with this year’s plan to sell it for a good profit. The load was insured, but not for nearly enough – barely a fifth of the overall price it would have made me.

Over the following days, I reach an all-time low. I was relying on those funds to purchase much-needed equipment for expansion and to bolster my big move down south. It’s hard to keep up my spirits, even though there is good news in other areas. My beginners’ beekeeping courses, for example, are packed out with keen new amateurs wanting to learn the ropes. I notice a renaissance in Londoners signing up to this hobby as part of a New Year new look, and there’s an increase in volunteers keen to help bash any possible new sites into shape across the city. New super-sites are an issue but I have one hope – an old bee-master in the north of London, who has contacted me out of the blue.

It’s great news for my urban mission, but sadly nothing can take my mind off the fact that my business has taken a hammering – all thanks to the incompetence of one moronic van driver. It’s not a good start to the year but the month closes with David offering to give me some offspring from his Welsh queens when the weather warms – an amazing gesture that means my bee stock will be fresh and young when the season starts. I just need to find some boxes to house them in. Not even wild horses could stop me now – I’m on the move.

What potential new beekeepers should be doing:

• Think about whether you could you keep honeybees. Is this craft something that could be workable with your lifestyle, space and time?

• If so, enrol on a local theoretical bee course in January – they become booked up quickly at the start of the year.

More extensive beekeeping tips:

• Consider any new equipment you might need for the year and set about buying and making up items to save money and to be ready for the season.

• Clean up and sterilise existing equipment for reuse.

• Check your hives for levels of Varroa and treat with oxalic acid.

• Plan your strategy for the year: make a list of how you might wish to manage your bees, i.e. expansion of your stock or new locations.