Have you ever wanted to have honey from your own HIVE but were a little scared to get started? Too overwhelmed by what's needed but really believe that keeping bees is part of a healthy garden and can nurture these extraordinary insects, providing them a safe haven? It's possible to hire bee hives in some areas, where the beekeeper tends the HIVE, but you might earn a percentage of the honey for hosting - a kind of AirBee&Bee, excuse the pun.

I'd gone as far as to purchase Bee Keeping for Dummies, but simply didn't have the time or the courage to get started. Then, as luck would have it, a swarm of bees landed on our property the day before we met an old acquaintance at the market selling his own honey. Our kids used to go to school together, and we had had dinner around there a few times, but had lost touch. Sure, he said, I'll drop off a few boxes and get that swarm in there for you.

That was late 2017, and whilst we expected honey a bit sooner, by all accounts, it wasn't a good year (or two) for honey. Our bee man kept returning, mowing around the bees and checking and adding boxes, until we had two huge stacked hives. It was super exciting learning that bees get to know you - they kinda 3D scan you! They'll buzz on one side of you if they want to direct you away from the hive, and on the other if they want to get you towards it to fix an issue! I like to think that the bees know their humans, and know that we're not a danger. Everything I plant in the garden (well, nearly) is about food for the bees, and all my herbs are definitely good for that, along with the gum trees. I let everything go to flower and never pull it out unti the bees are done with it.

Apparently this year had been a good year for honey, but sadly our guy hasn't been too communicative with us. He's a bit eccentric as is the way with some, and took offence when we asked him what the chances were of getting honey this year. Perhaps our text was misinterpreted, because he was furious, saying we were being demanding and inconsiderate. Perhaps we were, but we don't know enough about bees to be sensitive in the way he wanted. We had spoken to a colleague at my husband work who had gotten litres and litres out of his hives for years - we were simply puzzled and wanted to know why our bees weren't giving us any. We didn't intend any offence, and it was quite upsetting to be attacked for our query. What would you have done, if you'd had bees on your property for four years without any results?

Eventually, he must have calmed down, as a few days later we got a text to say he'd checked the hives and had honey waiting at his place. Finally - our own delicious honey!

Sadly, the experience was a bit rattling, and we are worried he will come and take the bees we have planted for and interacted with all this time. Our other beekeeping friend assures us that it's easy, and all we have to do is get some boxes and transfer the bees over. Once we have done that, we will call the grumpy bee keeper to come and get his boxes back. The value is really in the swarm, and as they were our bees to begin with we feel it's within our right to do this.

In this way, we will actually be forced to learn about bees and do it ourselves. We will also get more honey this way too as we only get about 10 percent from this deal, which doesn't sit well with us since he only comes twice a year to check the hive and add a box, which he makes himself from scrap. I'm sure we can do the labour without any issue and become beekeepers ourselves.

I actually am quite in love with becoming a beekeeper as one of my distant relatives on the German side had one in the family crest, so I like to think it's in the blood, as silly as it sounds. But with my love of gardening, I know my garden would be nothing without bees, and believe beekeepers have a role to play in protecting these beautiful pollinators. Humans and bees have had a symbiotic relationship for thousands of years and some say it's a huge part of the development of agriculture. Now of course agriculture went down a pretty dark path and Big At and any kind of mass production and factory farming of animals is reprehensible, including bees, but I simply don't buy into the argument that bee keeping and honey consumption is wrong or cruel. Taking a small percentage of honey and leaving rest for the hive is a good and ethical practice. It helps develop a relationship with bees that makes beekeepers advocates for the protection of bees and to plant habitats for them to feed from. If you are still in doubt, but open minded enough to read further, try reading this article by urban vegan beekeeper in New York, who argues:

The distinction I draw is this: I did not start keeping bees because I plan on getting rich off honey sales or wax dividends. I started keeping bees because they fascinate me. Even more important from an ecological standpoint, the commercial use of bees as pollinators is causing bees to die off by the billions. Providing a home for bees where they will not be mistreated, shipped across country on the backs of giant trucks or given genetically modified crops to eat doesn’t sound exploitative to me.

It sounds like the right thing to do.

A hobby bee keeper simply takes honey differently, he argues, and bees produce more than they need each year. Even smoking them is no more harmful than asking them to smell smoke, eat some honey and calm down a little bit. Hey, I could do with some of that myself! Especially after having an argument with my beekeeper.