Why bees earn their place in a country garden

If you keep a smallholding, you already grow things that depend on insects: apples, pears, plums, courgettes, runner beans, raspberries, strawberries. A couple of hives at the bottom of the orchard can make a visible difference to fruit set, and there is something quietly absorbing about watching foragers come in loaded with pale pollen on a May morning.

It pays to be honest about the bargain, though. You are not really keeping bees — you are keeping an eye on them. They will swarm when it suits them, sting you when you deserve it, and in a poor year eat every drop of the honey you hoped to harvest. Start because you want the bees, not because you want the honey, and you will enjoy it far more.

Choosing a hive and siting it properly

The National hive is the most common design in Britain, with good reason: parts are easy to find, it suits our climate, and any experienced beekeeper within twenty miles can help you work it. Langstroth and top bar hives are perfectly workable too, but pick one type and stick to it so that frames and boxes stay interchangeable.

Buy or build two hives, even if you only fill one this year. A single colony is a fragile thing; two lets you compare, and gives you somewhere to put a swarm or a split without panic.

Siting matters more than beginners expect. Aim for:

• Morning sun and afternoon shade — early warmth gets foragers out, while shade stops the hive cooking in a July heatwave.
• A windbreak a metre or two away — a hedge, a fence, or a bank of shrubs. Bees struggle to land in a stiff south-westerly.
• A level stand 40–50cm high on sleepers or paving slabs, so the hive stays dry and you are not bending double for every inspection.
• An entrance facing south-east, away from footpaths, gates, the washing line and anywhere children play. Bees fly in a straight line out and up, so a fence or hedge forces them above head height.
• Water within 50 metres — a shallow tray with stones and cork floats, refreshed weekly. This keeps them out of your water butts and the neighbours' ponds.

What's on the menu: forage through the seasons

Before you buy anything, walk your parish once a month for a year and note what is flowering. Bees need a continuous supply, not one glorious fortnight.

In early spring they work willow, blackthorn, dandelion and the first fruit blossom. Oilseed rape, if there is any nearby, gives a huge but short-lived surge. Then comes the June gap, when spring flowers are over and summer ones have not yet started — the lean period that catches out new colonies. From late June, bramble, lime, clover, willowherb and lavender carry them through, and ivy in September and October is the last substantial crop of the year, producing dark, strongly flavoured stores that see the colony through winter.

If your garden is short on forage, plant for it: buddleia, sedum, hardy geraniums, comfrey, borage and a wildflower strip along a hedge all help, and they will feed your bumblebees and solitary bees as well.

Bringing home your first colony

A nucleus — a small colony of five or six frames with a laying queen — is the sensible starting point. Bought in late May or June from a local breeder, it will build up quickly enough to see out the winter. A swarm is cheaper and fascinating to collect, but you cannot be sure of its temperament or health, so it is better as a second colony than a first.

Ask about the queen's history, check the frames for signs of disease, and register your apiary on the national bee health register so you are told about local disease outbreaks. Join your local beekeeping association, too. A ten-week winter course will teach you more than any book, and the members will answer the three-in-the-morning questions that books never cover.

The seasonal round of checks

From April to July, inspect every seven days. Outside that window, fortnightly is plenty, and in winter you leave them alone entirely.

• Spring: check the queen is laying, that stores are adequate, and add a super before they need it, not after.
• Late April to June: swarm season. Look for charged queen cells on every inspection and act on them the same day.
• Summer: manage supers, harvest only the surplus, and leave a full box of stores for winter.
• Autumn: treat for varroa, feed thick syrup if stores are light, fit a mouse guard and reduce the entrance.
• Winter: heft the hive from behind once a month to judge its weight, clear any dead bees from the entrance, and keep the lid strapped down.

Kit, cost and a bit of common sense

Budget for a hive, a second hive, a smoker, a hive tool, a decent suit and gloves, a feeder, and extraction kit you can borrow at first. A nucleus will cost a few hundred pounds. Insurance through a beekeeping association is cheap and worth having.

Do talk to your neighbours before the bees arrive, and site hives so flight paths do not cross a boundary at knee height. Two to four hives is a sensible ceiling for a country garden; more than that and you are competing with your own colonies for forage.

Start small, learn the rhythm of the seasons, and let the first year be about watching rather than harvesting. The honey comes later, and it tastes all the better for the wait.