Mr Pod - Beekeeper Sheriff

Today we went off to learn a bit about our friends the bees. 

When I was a littl’ one I remember seeing old black and white photos of my great-grandpa in a bee hat, with a pipe, rolled up sleeves, in his big garden, in front of his beehive. I never met my great grandpa. But I would have loved to have, and to have learned all about bees from him.

Fast forward 25 years, I am still dreaming of bees. 

This is where is started: Mr Pod and I were imagining all the different things we could do in our perfect wood, one day, and we decided that honey bees are definitely “on the menu”.

Honey bees have had a lot of press lately. Mainly because, throughout the world, honey bees are disappearing. And nobody knows why or where. It’s as if the world has become a bit of a Bee Bermuda Triangle. The apiary world calls it “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD).  Just as with the Bermuda Triangle, there are many theories about the causes of CCD. Some blame the worldwide spread of the varroa mite, which lives on a bee’s back, weakening it and eventually wiping out an entire colony. Others blame changes in the climate, pesticides or pollution, and even mobile phones. 

Whatever the cause, there is no doubt that if bee colonies continue to disappear, and we fail to find out why, within 10 years there may not be any honey bees left in the world. 

So that’s just one reason to keep bees; to help save the bees. Of course there are plenty of other reasons: imagine watching a bee hive at work, and having your own source of honey. 

And if you go along to the London Association of Beekeeper’s Taste of Beekeeping course, like we did today, and ask one of the passionate apiarists there why it’s a good idea to keep honey bees, you will walk away wondering why you took so long to learn that there is nothing as exciting in the world as keeping bees.

We learned a lot today. We learned that a bee hive normally contains as many as 50,000 bees, we learned all about the bees’ waggle dance, we learned that bee suits are actually far more comfortable than they look, that bee keepers are lovely, bee-passionate eccentrics (who like a pint or two), that unlike their keepers bee really dislike alcohol (its all about the scent),  that is is not as scary as you would imagine to be surrounded by thousands of swarming bees, and most importantly, we learned that London is a perfect place to keep a hive of bees.  

In fact, we learned that London honey almost always wins the best honey in Britain taste test, that you can keep a bee hive just about anywhere (on the balcony, on the roof, in a shed). If you don’t believe me, have a look at the honey being sold by Fortum & Mason – £10 a jar of honey from bees in bee hives sitting on the roof of Fortum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly, no less.

So hurray, because we don’t have to wait to find our perfect wood before we can have perfect honey! In fact if we wanted to we could set up a bee hive in our little backyard as quickly as, well, tomorrow! 

We won’t though, because there is quite a bit to learn yet, still, imagine it, our own bees and our own honey. How fantabulous.

First one we saw was Peel Wood (£55,000 and 6 acres) which was in the Lake District, just up the road from Dodd Wood a commercial wood with walks and a tea shop I used to visit often as a kid. Pluses: It had a stream running through it; large mix of trees and plants; probably some deer and red squirrels amongst the fauna. Minus: Too far from here, for now at least; right on the main A591 road so a bit noisy; could do with a bit of thinning here and there (another wood, right next door had some clearings and was further from the road, but we didn’t get chance to look at it – also, more money)

The next one we saw a couple of days later was All Saints Wood in East Yorkshire (£49,000 and over 6 acres). Located off a tiny but neat road in a tiny but neat area of natural beauty it had a completely different feel. We actually ended up looking at the wrong wood, but it was just next door and much of this still stands. Plus: Quiet, remote, away from zombies; Mixed planting with clearings. Minus: No water; steep!

The third one we visited was Marlborough Wood near Lincoln (£49,000 over 6 acres) which was entirely different again. Very flat (well, it is Lincolnshire) and incredibly dense bramble undergrowth it opens onto a sedentary river (ok, really an ancient drainage ditch from the surrounding farmland) with fishing rights. Plus: fishing; almost not too far from here; remote enough, city nearby; Minus: big clearing job to do first; bit flat, even for me.

While the whole of London heads out of London for the bank holiday weekend (the last of the year, boo hoo), Mr Pod and I are cleverly biding our time and waiting for them all to come back before we head off ourselves, on our own little “special” holiday.

Admittedly our timing has more to do with the fact that Mr Pod’s sister is getting married next week, but it still makes us look cleverer than the millions of Londoners who are on the move this weekend – it’s always such a chaotic exit.

We, on the other hand, are using our bank holiday weekend to prepare for our own delayed bank holiday, codename: Roadtrip 2008.

If all things work out as planned we will not only be attending a wedding in the Lake District (arguably one of the most beautiful parts of the UK), but we will also be stopping to have a look at some beautiful woods on our way up North. So we are in the process of planning our Woods stops along the way. 

We are also still trying to build up some kind of a Woods knowledge base (in case we run into a Woods person and we look like a couple of lost tourists rather than Wood admirers). So what have we learned so far?

We’ve learned that once upon a time the whole of the UK was covered with woods. Nothing but woods. And if you stopped the sheep from grazing now, and got rid of all the people, the Woods would slowly re-establish themselves and would return the UK to it’s mystical grand old self. 

We’ve learned that there is a whole Woods language which, to be honest, makes very little sense to a Woods novice. Take a word like coppice. We know it’s important, and we know it alludes to chopping down trees on a periodic basis, and that it’s good for a Wood to be coppiced, but we really still haven’t got a clue.

We’ve learned that sawing wood is hard work. We know this because we had to saw a small plank of pine in half with a blunt cheap hand saw the other day. It took about 10 minutes and seemed like at least an hour, and it had us huffing and puffing like as if we’d just run the 400m relay. How unfit are we? Scary.

We’ve learned that there are lots of people out there who have owned Woods for decades and who talk a language and have a sensibility that bears no resemblance to our own. It’s as if they are members of some secret Wood community. 

And the more we read the more we want to be allowed to join!

Imagine: Your own bit of Wood, where you go and pitch a tent, and fall asleep, snug in your sleeping bag, to the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind, to the smell of grass and trees and bluebells, and to the sight of the star spangled sky overhead. Magic. 

Oh and we want bees too! But we will come to that later.

The Squirrel: Why won’t you write anything?
Mr Pod:  The cartoon sums up everything you’ve written, in three words.

The three other members of the household, Uncle Kuba (head cat), Poppy the Princess (Kuba’s sister) and the Taxi Driver (Poppy’s daughter, Uncle Kuba’s shadow and well and truly the baby) continue to maintain a minimalist silence about the Grand Idea. Although, they have noticed the number of Woods related books which have arrived from Amazon in the last couple of weeks. They know that something’s up, and they are watching. Carefully.

The Grand Idea

Unfortunately, the idea is not an entirely original one. In fact it came from a Ryanair in-flight magazine. Which is a bit sad. Still, if you have nothing else and an hour long flight ahead of you, even a Ryanair magazine can prove entertaining.

So there I was, a year ago, flicking through the in-flight magazine, dreaming about all the other Ryanair destinations I wanted to see, when I stumbled on a bit of a random article about owning your own wood. Of all things!

Needless to say, the idea of having my own piece of wood definitely sparked up my mood. Then I showed the article to Mr Pod, who, in his inimitable way, rained on my parade. And that was that. Or so we thought.

One year later, Mr Pod and I stumbled on the Grand Idea again. And this time Mr Pod, having been through a near death experience, was ready to listen. As a result, for once we actually found ourselves agreeing that it was time to get out of London and into the countryside.

Of course that’s more easily said than done. The first problem is that we are still, ever so slightly, hooked on London. Yes it’s the most expensive city to live in, and it’s dirty, and you never know when some hoodie will lunge at you with a knife, and the new Mayor is a Tory madman (I actually voted for him, but I am forbidden from admitting that in front of Mr Pod’s friends).

But London is like a piece of spat out chewing gum – even though the pull gets weaker with time, it takes a long time to get rid of altogether. It’s also about work, and friends, and the cats are settled here, and we are settled here and, let’s be honest, it’s still one of the coolest cities in the World. Oh yep. let’s not forget that we don’t have any money to even think about a mortgage for a house. Not in London, not ever, and not even away from London. Not even in the North!

So, that’s why the idea of having our own little piece of wood suddenly looks so appealing. Our little own piece of land, out in the countryside. Our own little getaway. A slice of paradise.

Yipeeeeeeee! Sounds great doesn’t it?