So far there are 9 of us in the bee coop, with four hives on 2 locations on opposite sides of Leeds.  It's taken over a year to be ready for our colonies to arrive, but they are here now.  We spent last winter writting a constitution for the coop and building 4 top bar hives.  We've all been on bee keeping courses, bought our suits, some belonging to the coop and visited other local bee keepers to learn a bit more.  Initial funding for the project came from Leeds and Wakefield Cooperative Membership committee.  Working as a group makes the whole responsibility of beekeeping feel more managable.  We've found another common interest of wine making and tasting, keeping our meetings entertaining.

We are registered with www.beetight.com hive and Bee base (DEFRA), belong to the Bradford Beekeepers Association and through them the Yorkshire and British Beekeepers Associations.  We are also part of Leeds Permaculture Network.

Early next morning

The next morning Steve & Gil returned through the pouring rain and mud to feed our new arrivals with "ambrosia" that Bill had kindly left us.

We were accompanied by Rosie Foster, who had helped us apply for the Co-op funding.

We only had 2 beesuits with us, but Rosie bravely joined us anyway. You can see her bare finger in one of the photos!  But our bees remain very calm indeed.

We tried out several new feeding methods today. We took a couple of "feeding stations" from Steve's chickens, and filled them with some syrup. We placed lots of straw in the syrup to stop the bees from falling in.

We also filled some 'takeaway tubs' and placed one in each hive - hoping that would keep them happy till the weather improves.  They certainly were a bit active, but most of the colonies remain 'swarmed up' around their queens at the end of the hives.

The Bees Arrive in Pudsey !

At around 7pm on the 21st June - we had a call from Bill Cadmore (of Bradford BeeKeepers Assoc) saying he had arrived in Pudsey with both of our colonies.  It was turning out to be a rather chaotic and rushed introduction, after such a long period of waiting - but then I guess a lot of 'beginnings' are like that . . .

Liz was the first on the scene, and by the time Hannah & Gil arrived with most of the equipment and feed, Bill & Liz had already commandeered the farmer to drive them down to the hives in his landrover (thereby earning himself another complimentary jar of honey).

After a quick final inspection of the bees, Bill "knocked" them off their 'foundation boards' (containing all their food stores and young larva) and into the bottom of their new homes  -  which was still practically an "empty box".  Hannah & Gil had just managed to make up some sugar syrup feed - but after trying all day to get the plastic feeders to work, we had to resort to just using sealed up sandwich/freezer bags with puncture holes in.

and that was that. We closed up the hives apart from one entrance hole to let the flying bees get back to the colonies, and had to leave them to it.  A very anxious wait lay ahead . . .