Last year some friends of our passed away. The honey bees that had lived in gable of our house, right outside our bedroom, finally succumbed to the mite (Varroa) that has destroyed most of the honey bees in Ireland over the last few years. They had survived the initial bad years, and we had thought that our remote situation might have protected them, but they became infected and over two years the hive gradually weakened until there were only a few bees left last Autumn and the wasps began seeking to re-develop their real estate.

At that point we called in our friend Robin, who, apart from being an excellent carpenter, also keeps bees (among many other diverse talents). We needed to repair the wooden gable and to remove the remnants of bee hive before the wasps got a foothold. The gable was repaired and the old hive yielded several combs of incredibly delicious honey.

They say it's an ill wind that blows no good and so it was. When we lamented the loss of our friendly bees to him, Robin proposed a new venture. He would bring us proper hives and new bees that would live at the Perfumery. He would take care of all the bee-keeping and we would buy the honey to re-sell at the Tearooms.

In late Spring Robin fenced an area of our land for the hives (to stop cattle knocking them over and to keep over-inquistive visitors from venturing too close!) and five new hives were installed. He also put in two established hives to 'keep the new bees company'.

Apart from a few visits to check how the new residents were getting on, the bees looked after themselves for the next few months. Robin showed up during the summer with huge baskets of absolutely super delicious organic strawberries. We bought 10 kilos to serve in the Tearooms and ended up eating most of them ourselves because they were so nice. The next 10 kilos we ate less of, but our customers enjoyed them. By the third or fourth delivery we were pretty much done with strawberries... It's a good job our tummies have eleven months to recover before the next crop. Hopefully we'll show a bit of self restraint next time!

At the end of August Robin announced that it was time to extract the honey. I was coerced into helping. It wasn't that hard to coerce me - I was fascinated, wanted to take pictures and anyway, Robin said the bees were very quiet. When we got up to the hives, we discovered that one of the hives was swarming, apparently very unusual for the time of the year.

As I understand it, when a hive gets too big, a new queen is born. She leaves the hive and settles in a tree or bush nearby. Her entourage then swarms around her and gradually settles into a thick mass around her in the tree. When everyone is assembled, the whole swarm takes flights and head off to find a new home. So there's a crucial thirty minutes while they're gathering around the queen when it is possible to capture the swarm and then re-locate them to a new hive. Very luckily, we had arrived on the scene just in time.

Capturing the swarm turned out to be surprisingly easy. Suitably suited, Robin positioned a big cardboard box beneath the clustered bees and then gave the hazel branch they were on a good smack and they all fell off en masse into the box, which is quickly closed and sealed. The box has a cross of branches inside and the swarm re-forms around this. A new hive is prepared and then at dusk Robin makes a runway of white paper or cloth from the box to the hive and opens the box a little. And the bees all walk up the runway into their new home. Simple.

As I photographed the swarm capture operation from a few metres away, having been assured that the bees were very passive when swarming, I suddenly found myself with several bees crawling through my (fortunately short) hair. Staying statue still I nervously told Robin what was happening and asked what to do. 'Well, what are the bees doing?' he asked casually. 'How would I know!' I retorted, a good deal less casually. Fortunately at that point the bees flew off and I scarpered to the van to get a bee hat with a veil, on Robin's advice. When I came back, he looked up at me and grinned. "Very good' he said, 'only you've got it on back the front...' I had been wondering why it was so hard to see.

Then it was on to the real business of the day, collecting honey.The hive has a layer at the bottom that keeps it off the ground and where the bees enter. Above that there is a deep layer called the brood chamber where the queen breeds new bees and where the first store of honey is laid down. The layer above that is called a 'super'. When the bees have filled the first layer, they start storing honey in the super. It is this layer that we remove to gather honey.

A piece of old sacking is set alight and then set smouldering inside a sort of smoke gun. (I'm sure there are proper bee keeping terms for these things, but I don't know them.) The roof of the hive is removed and a little smoke wafted beewards. It all looked a bit cursory to me; I'd been thinking that probably a *lot* of smoke was a good idea.

Inside the super there are ten thin rectangular frames hanging vertically. It is onto these that the bees construct the wax honeycombs, that are then filled with honey and capped with wax. These are removed, any remaining bees are brushed off with a 'bee brush', and the combs loaded into a spare super.

After the honey is extracted a tray of organic thyme oil is placed in the hive. This is to protect the bees from varroa, the deadly mite. I"m not sure how it works but apparently it does and that's good enough for me! it's nice to see that the problem can be treated without chemicals or antibiotics.

Then the hive is closed and that's it for the winter. The bees are left plenty of their own honey to see them through, so there's no need for us to feed them sugar or syrup. They will get a top up of thyme oil in two weeks time to complete their protection.

Robin headed off with a van full of honeycombs to extract the honey and put it in jars for us. His parting remarks were something like 'Well, it's good you've seen how a swarm is captured. You'll be able to do it yourself now if it happens again.' Hmmm.... Better make sure I have my bee hat on the right way around before I try that one.

Postscript: a week later Robin delivered 180 pots of pure Burren wildflower honey. You'll have to take my word for it; it's delicious. I should know, I've been eating it non-stop for a week!