What an extraordinary spring we are having this year. Lockdown has kept us at home, with only brief journeys out to check on the bees. The beautiful weather has meant that many flowers are early this year – our colonies have built up quickly and are busy piling in the pollen and nectar. The smell of spring nectar when we open the hives is intoxicating.

School from home has now settled down into some kind of routine for us – it turns out that my son is very enthusiastic about helping with the bees. He surprised me with his knowledge – it’s good to know that he does pay attention to some of the bee things that we discuss!

We are fortunate to live very close to Hampstead Heath – most days we venture out there for a walk. We’ve loved exploring areas that we’d somehow overlooked in the past. It has also been wonderful to see the trees coming into bloom week by week. This magnificent Horse Chestnut is currently plastered in flowers, all buzzing nicely with bees.

We try to have something in flower in our garden at all times of the year that will provide some pollen and nectar to any passing insects. January and February are often perceived as the gloomiest months of the year, but our garden still has a few offerings.

This lovely viburnum has been flowering for a couple of months now – It seems to like being in our shady North facing front garden – the scent is divine, I sometimes get wafts of it as we come and go from the house.

Also in our front garden, is this rosemary – which again has been flowering on and off for a month or so. It’s so handy to be able to pick a sprig when I need a bit for cooking.

I’m a big fan of hellebore and we have quite a few different colours of them – this is the first to flower this year.

These little charmers are just about to open too – so pretty, I just love them.

And just in time for Burns Night, we have some heather flowering!

This year the BBKA (British Beekeepers Association) have to decided to have a special Asian Hornet week from 10th to 16th September.

Beekeepers are concerned about the spread of Asian Hornets because a large part of their diet is honey bees. Apparently each hornet can eat 200 honey bees every day – it is easy to see how a honey bee colony could be decimated very quickly by a nest of these hornets.

Asian Hornets originated from Southeast Asia, but has been steadily spreading. They were first accidentally introduced into France in 2004 and have now spread over the whole country. Significant numbers of honey bee colonies have been lost.

This year several nests have been discovered on Jersey.

Last week an Asian Hornet was spotted by a beekeeper in Fowey in Cornwall. The National Bee Unit was able to track the hornet to its nest, which was then destroyed. Today there is news that there have been two more sightings in Hull and Liskeard.

The BBKA are asking all beekeepers to take some time over this week to watch their hives. The Asian Hornets will hover outside the hive and grab bees as they head home.

It is important for us to be able to correctly identify the Asian Hornet correctly and not to confuse it with the European Hornet and other large insects.

If you think that you spot one, please report it to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk ideally with a photograph. Don’t try and catch one as they have a sting!

There is also a useful app which has pictures to help with ID – it’s called “Asian Hornet Watch”

This is a very serious threat to our honey bees and native insects – please do keep an eye out and report any sightings promptly.

This summer seems to have flashed past! We are now settling back into our school and work routines as the beekeeping season is winding down.
We’ve had some terrific honey this year so far, ranging from very pale yellow to rich deep almost red with vibrant flavours to match.

I’ve noticed that the ivy is about to start flowering, which signals to me that I need to hurry and remove any honey that we’d like from the hives for the year. Each colony will need about 40lbs of honey stores to get them through the cold wet months when they can’t fly so frequently. Ivy provides a good deal of those stores for our hives and also feeds a huge variety of other insects. If you have ivy growing in your garden, I implore you not to trim it until after it has finished flowering.

Finally, I’d like to share a delicious and super easy recipe with you. It’s fig season – what could be more delicious than a warm fig drizzled with honey?

• Take a fig for each person and cut a deep X into the top
• Put a dab of butter into each of the X’s
• Grill the figs on a baking sheet until all the butter has melted and the figs are warmed through
• Drizzle a generous teaspoon of honey over each fig
• Sprinkle a few chopped nuts over the top – we used hazlenuts
• We served ours straight away with a dollop of natural yoghurt

As a beekeeping family we receive lots of lovely bee themed cards and gifts from our kind friends and relatives. Last Christmas my children were given a game called Hive  and we have all become a little addicted to it! It’s too good not to share here.

It’s a two player strategy game and each round only lasts for a few minutes, so it’s perfect for filling an odd bit of time between other things.

Each player has a number of tactile hexagonal tiles which have various  creatures, such as grasshoppers or ladybirds on them. Like the different chess pieces, each insect can only move in a prescribed way. The idea of the game is to completely surround your opponent’s Queen Bee tile. The rules are simple but the tactics can be fiendish!

Our set is the pocket version, which comes with a handy bag. The playing area that you need isn’t any bigger than an A4 bit of paper, so it’d be perfect for taking on trips.