A bee line

But if there's a family of insects I'm really scared of it's bees and wasps.

It's the fear of being stung and the nasty buzzing sound they make which normally send me into a sprint if ever a bee or wasp comes near. So why did I find myself driving out to Dudsbury, near Parley Cross, to try my hand at bee-keeping?

I'd heard that the Bournemouth and District Bee-keepers Association - like its counterparts around Britain - needs to recruit more members to help boost the bee population.

So, being a non-bee lover, I was curious to find out why anyone would want to be a bee-keeper, and what exactly is involved.

Of course, I should have realised writing about bee-keeping would necessitate having to come face to face with a hive full of the stinging, buzzing little critters.

I can't say I was looking forward to my morning at the Bournemouth association's apiary, but as I turned off Christchurch Road and made my way up the long drive, it was time to confront my fears.

Apiary manager Duncan Finch and assistant Ian Macaulay came to meet me, both dressed slightly alarmingly from head to foot in white protective suits - just like the kind scenes-of-crime officers wear on The Bill.

Dotted about on a small patch of hedged-in grass, next to a small storage hut, were six hives, and Ian was burning wood on the ground in a smoker - an essential piece of equipment which pumps out smoke "to pacify the bees".

Duncan had warned me that bees "do tend to go for your ankles - they like climbing up things", so I'd brought a pair of boots to wear.

I stepped into a protective white jump suit, complete with a veil and a pair of thick gloves, and soon every part of my body was covered, without any gaps where a bee could slip through.

The mesh of the veil was so fine that within a few seconds I almost forgot it was there - and when it came to opening up the hive it was an extremely bizarre and uncomfortable feeling, having bees swarming around my head, seemingly about to land on my face.

With bees buzzing around and landing all over my body, I had to keep telling myself that my suit and veil would protect me.

I'd never been stung before and I didn't intend for that to change.

Unfortunately, it wasn't our photographer Corin's lucky day - somehow a bee did manage to slip in between his suit and his veil to sting him on the neck. Ian was quick to administer a spray to relieve the sting, but witnessing the bee's attack on Corin made me quite keen for my bee-keeping session to end.

However, it was all fascinating stuff.

In each hive there are more than 50,000 bees. They constantly fly in with tiny yellow balls of pollen on their legs, which they deposit to be turned into honey before leaving again to collect more.

Using a hive tool, Duncan prised apart the frames inside the boxes that had been stuck together with propolis by the bees. As he lifted each frame out, bees covered practically every inch, all moving around in honeycomb filled with thick, sticky, golden liquid.

"When the honey is ready to be collected I take each frame out and give it a really hard shake, and most of the bees tip back into the hive," explains Duncan.

"Then I need another person to help by using a very soft brush to brush the last few bees off. I put the frames into an empty box that I keep covered, and then, when I've removed all the frames, I put the box in the back of the car.

"When I get home there might be about a dozen bees still on the frames but they just come out by themselves and fly off to find another hive."

Back at his home in Ashley Heath, Duncan showed me an electrically operated cylinder into which he slots the frames to spin them and extract the honey. He then puts the honey into jars, which are sold in nearby shops or given to friends and family.

You can buy Duncan's own honey - collected from five hives in his garden - from the Avon Heath Country Park, the butcher's shop in West Moors, and Chettle shop in Chettle.

He also makes mead and collects the beeswax that is melted down and formed into sheets, while some members of the association use it to make candles.

You can see what else Duncan and his fellow beekeepers produce at the group's annual Honey Show on August 23. The event at Ferndown Community Centre will see members entering their home-produced honey and other items to win prizes in several categories - and members of the public are invited to buy products and find out more about becoming a bee-keeper.

"Right across the country we need to get more people interested in keeping bees," says Duncan.

"When the varoea mite started to attack the bees about six years ago we lost 40 per cent of our colonies. We can contain the varoea problem now but only through bee-keeping, and there are nowhere near as many bees kept as there were 50 years ago.

"Bees, bumble bees and wasps do an awful lot of pollination and the population of bees and honey bees has dropped considerably, largely because we've taken out hedges and fields so their natural habitat has gone. If the bee population carries on declining, plants won't be pollinated."

Duncan has been following his hobby since the long, hot summer of 1976, when his eldest daughter - who was then in her early 20s - spotted some bee-keeping equipment for sale in a catalogue.

"She said wouldn't it be nice to have some hives at the bottom of the garden. At the time I was working with a chap who was a bee-keeper and he was the one who really helped me get started," recalls Duncan.

Today Duncan's bees are quite prolific honey producers - in the honey extraction period from about May to mid-August (the bee-keeping season runs from about March to October), each hive produces an average 50lbs.

"Last month I extracted some 80 kilos of honey in a week from my hives.

"The amount of honey we get has increased over the years, partly because we're in an urban area in Ashley Heath and people look after their gardens. Most of the plots are a third of an acre and of course there's plenty for the bees to work on," says Duncan.

"English honey is reckoned to be one of the best honeys you can get because of the variety of plants that the bees work to produce it. Eating local honey is also thought to be really good for hay fever sufferers, because it helps people develop a tolerance or immunity to the pollen in their area."

Duncan loves to eat his honey in the comb, which he slices up and puts on toast. Although the honey sells well, he doesn't make much money out of his hobby, but really bee-keeping is just that - a hobby.

"It's a hobby which pays for itself. I've got nine grandchildren who all like honey and a brother and sister who like it too, so I give most of it to my family and eat a lot myself," says Duncan.

"Once you start keeping bees and thinking about what they're feeding on, you find yourself becoming more interested in the kind of plants you have in the garden.

"When you see the bees going into the hive with pollen on their legs it's fascinating, because there are so many different colours, it's very difficult to tell which plants it comes from."

And even getting stung on a fairly regular basis hasn't put Duncan off.

"The number of times I've been stung is most probably into four figures by now, and it's mostly around the wrist.

"If you leave the sting inside you it will carry on pumping the poison into your skin and you'll get a swelling. But if you scratch the sting out straight away, apart from that initial pain, you won't get any more problems."

If you'd like to find out more, you can visit the Honey Show at Ferndown Community Centre on August 23 from 10am-4pm, or call Bournemouth and District Bee-keepers Association secretary Elizabeth Ware on 01202 516883. Colonies of bees can be made available to new members, along with advice on buying or making equipment.

DID YOU KNOW?

It takes 20,000 visits by bees to flowers to produce a pound of honey.

A full-sized colony in summer can contain more than 50,000 bees.

At her peak laying rate, a queen can lay up to 3,000 eggs per day, which is more than her body weight.

Some people find that eating local honey throughout the year reduces hay fever problems.

Bees are essential to the pollination of many of our crops - there aren't sufficient numbers of other insects to carry out this important task.

On average, four people die as a result of allergic reactions to bee or wasp stings in the UK each year.

Honey has been found in the tombs of pharaohs, although past its prime. However, honey does keep for a long time if kept in an airtight container.

Honey has anti-bacterial properties and in times past was used to treat burns and wounds.

Supermarket honey is invariably heat-treated and heavily filtered. This process kills off some of the natural enzymes, spoils the taste and removes valuable pollen.

Frosting - the appearance of areas of white crystals - is a natural feature of set honey and has no effect on its quality.

Honey is one of the easiest foods for the stomach to digest - it is absorbed almost directly into the bloodstream, giving an instant energy boost.