Letters to a Beekeeper

Alys Fowler, Steve Benbow

• Publisher: Unbound
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781783521166
• eBook ISBN: 9781783521654
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This the story of how, over the course of a year, Alys, the Guardian gardening writer, learns how to keep bees; and Steve, the urban beekeeper, learns how to plant a pollinator-friendly garden.

Part beautifully designed coffee-table book, part manifesto, this collection of engaging letters, emails, texts, recipes, notes and glorious photos creates a record of the trials, tribulations, rewards and joys of working with, rather than against, nature. And along the way, you will pick up a wealth of advice, tips and ideas for growing food and keeping pollinators well fed.

Letters to a Beekeeper is for lazy gardeners, novice beekeepers and everyone in between. It is the best rule-breaking, wildlife-friendly, guerilla, urban gardening, insect-identifying, honey-tasting, wax-dripping, epistolary how-to book you could ever hope to own.

Letters & Postcards

Beginning
Pages 16–17

Editor’s Note: For authenticity, the transcriptions of the following letters and postcards appear here uncorrected.

Dear Alys.

29th October – 16 degrees C bright blue sky and the bees are dashing in with bright orange pollen still from the Ivy and seem oblivious to the Carnage around them, after the mighty storm which raged last night.

Nov 3rd

It would seem the parapit which surrounds the small young polishing hives on the roof protected them from the gails – along with the brick on each roof.

However I decided to go and check all the other hives around the Capital at Tate Mod/Brit and Fortnums to check that they were all upright and safe this morning.

There were huge branches down everywhere as I drove to each site and I was expecting the worst. At Lambeth Bridge at the back of the Palace there was a huge limb which hand been wrenched of giant Acacia – red chequered tape surrounded it like a crime scene.

I need not to have worried mind you all the hives were upright and intact. The bricks had done their job again, keeping the roofs on.

Please excuse the writing paper its 1.36am and I just thought I would drop you a note and rip open an envelope – Clearly very badly.

I hope your garden did not take the battering the South took. Clearly we have lost some valued nectar sources overnight here. So Garden at Tate must crack on soon. Running out of room.

Yours the beekeeper

Beginning
Pages 18–19

14th December

Dearest Ben,

I’ve spent all day waiting for the scaffolders to come and take down their poles etc, I’ve been pacing up and down the house like some caged animal. Every two seconds back to the garden and then to the front door (I missed them the last time). And there between stretches I saw her a great huge fat Bombus terrestris queen, so large that you’d hardly believe she could fly.

Buff-tail are supposed to be very fond of Arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree. It flowers from now into December, tiny white bells like bell heather, that if the weather is mild are often followed by the strawberry-like fruit.

The species name unedo means ‘eat only once’ as Pliny thought them tasteless.

In Spain the fruit are fermented into an alcoholic concoction that I always fantasize I’ll make one day. Still it’s very pleasing to find her dinning on my tree.

I chased her around the garden only to hear the scaffolders knocking and then had to leave her be.

I love those fat queens, how can something so heavy fly? She defies logic. I hope she comes back again soon.

Now that th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Beginning
• The Bees I Have Seen
• Getting Ready
• Planning
• Planting
• Feeding
• Flowering
• Winding Down
• Closing Up
• Letters & Postcards