Quinta das Abelhas

sophie has been suggesting i should write a blog for months… but i’m always so busy, either working hard or playing hard to relax…
anyway, a few weeks ago my mate harry, who has kept bees before and lost his over this very cold dry winter, came over and suggested we go look for a local beekeeeper who can sell us a nucleus [small box of bees with queen]. We’d ben to visit Joao [who had been helping with our well, and had told me come in february] several times, he was never in. Harry had heard that the agricultural shop in Midoes sold bees. so we went there. They said ’sorry, no, try Fernando down the road’.
Fernando couldn’t help… such a cold dry winter the bees arent breeding. He said he’d ask his friend, and we should come back tomorrow [amanha].
When we returned, no joy. But he said he’d heard a man called Jose in Andorinha has bees for sale. Bear in mind all this communication was in portuguese… talking about bees and nucleuses, and hives etc was not simple.
I mentioned to Heinz a Swiss friend who is building for us about Andorinha and bees, and he said ‘i’ll take you’. so we went, me Heinz and Sophie, taking our car for some repairs on the way. We found Jose quite easily, having asked his wife if she knew who he was! He said come back in a couple of weeks, it was too cold to put a 5 frame brood into a 10 frame box.
So we went back after 2 weeks, me and harry. Jose said we had to come back in the evening with a hive to swap for his hive full of bees and new queen.
We did so. But we’d taken an old hive of Harry’s and Jose was having none of it! He said it was ‘infected’. He said we should come back the next day with a ‘clean’ hive.
Next day, I reluctantly turned up with a brand new brood chamber. After a ‘copo’ of red wine each, we were taken to his Quinta, and had to wait for nightfall, when all the bees would be in. After an hour plus chatting with him about his land, chickens, geese, ducks…. he called me over. While he placed a wet newspaper into the doorway of the hive, i stood and watched, trying to ignore the bees landing on my head, climbing up my sleeves, down my collar….
then we placed the hive in Harry’s car… 40 euros and my new hive… seemed a fair deal really after about a month of searching for available bees.

So, we now have bees here. I go over everyday, at least once to see if they are ok. I fed then sugar syrup initially, as the flowers weren’t out, and it was very dry & cold. But now they are well happy, expanding into another full size box above their brood chamber. Its exciting to see them so busy, and already it is obvious that our fruit trees have more activity than before. And, I now have another area of knowledge to learn…

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