‘Bees make me feel at one with nature’
Helen Chivers finds beekeeping relaxing – and thinks we can all learn from the way they work together.
After a busy day at work, you’ll find me at the bottom of the garden, watching my beehives. I could be there for hours, absorbing the behaviour of the bees and, although it may seem unusual to some, they remove me from the bustle of everyday life.
As an intellectual property lawyer, a yoga teacher, working with a number of charities and being a mum to Tom, 21, and Sienna, 18, life is always busy. In 2004, I decided to stop commuting to London and work from home in the
countryside, in a little shed nestled in my garden. I was keen to get a vegetable patch and thought bees would be great for pollinating and fertilising the plants.
In 2012, I came across my diary from when I was a teenager; I had written that I wanted to keep bees. By complete coincidence, later that weekend, a man in a bee suit turned up on my doorstep!
He was delivering the parish magazine and told me about a beekeeping course he was attending the following week, run by the High Weald Beekeepers’ Association. I decided to go along.
Caring for the bees, I immediately felt a connection and was entranced by their world. I learned the mechanics of hive management and by the spring, I had my first beehive. Now I have four that I can spy from the window of my shed.
I spend as much time as I can with the bees; as soon as I pull on my bee suit, I switch off from the cares and responsibilities of the everyday world. I feel at one with nature, surrounded by the flowers, looking up at the sky; checking it’s not too windy or damp (bees don’t like being inspected in that weather). They take me away from the computer, Zoom meetings and phone calls to a calm, happy place.
With bees it’s a symbiotic relationship, because they take care of us and we take care of them. Each beehive has its own personality. I have one hive that is so gentle, I don’t need to wear gloves when I go into it. But I have another where the queen is feisty and the bees are inquisitive, flying up to me and landing on my bee suit to check what’s going on.
Having bees has been great at bringing our family closer together and, during lockdown, it helped give us something to focus on. My husband, David, and I will check the hives together and it’s lovely to have something different to talk about.
Sienna and I also collect honey. Luckily, we live in Winnie-the-pooh territory on the edge of Ashdown Forest, so there’s heather for the bees to forage on, which helps the honey taste extra delicious.
I also have chickens, which I refer to as ‘my girls’. They too provide emotional support. I especially love how sympathetic they are when I tell them how David’s been driving me crazy that day; they just ‘cluck cluck’ back in an understanding way.
Looking back, I’m so grateful that man knocked on my door that day in 2014. Bees are now a part of my life and I can’t imagine them not being there. Although they may not be able to give you love like other animals, they can give you a sense of purpose. I like the fact that they work collectively together and support one another, and I believe we can all learn so much from that.
Each beehive has its own personality