And so it was that last Christmas a lovely lady, Lorraine, bought a copy of Betsie Valentine And The Honeybees for her eight year old daughter Amelie. She told me her daughter was fascinated by the honeybees and asked if she could come over when the bee season got underway and visit my apiary. I, of course, said I would be delighted. I Thought little more of it, when into my inbox last week popped an email from this Lorraine reminding me of her purchase, her daughters continuing interest and now, having read BV, her interest was ever more increased and could she come over and visit my bees? Of course, absolutely she can was my instant response.

This is not such an easy thing to organise. I tend to look at my bees as and when I can. I always check them once a week, weather permitting, but it is weather and work dependent now-a-days, i.e., good weather forecast, early finish to my day, go and have a look at the bees. I explained this to Lorraine, but said the first weekend with a good forecast I would make an appointment with myself to visit the bees and let her know straight away! Well, last weekend was such a weekend, so I emailed Lorraine and told her to put Saturday 1st June - 12 o’clock - in the diary!

Lorraine, her husband Paul and Amelie duly arrived. Amelie was quite shy, well you would be wouldn’t you! I thought I would give her the whole bee hive inspection experience and sat her down and talked her through how I kept notes after each bee inspection and showed her the notes on what had to be done on the next inspection. I had been through all the hives the day before as they are quite buzzy and sorted them all out and decided that the blue hive, the split hive from my original one, was the least buzzy. Even though I had lifted the lid, I left the inspection for Amelie and explained to her we were looking for evidence of a queen, i.e., eggs and brood and if possible to find the Queen and possibly mark her. Off we went. In the car, on our way to the apiary, I said that if at any moment she felt it was all too much she simply had to say and her mother would be on standby in a bee suit and she could walk away and I would close up the hive and it would not be a problem at all. The only surprised one was Lorraine at being told she too would be in a suit, standing by, to the side of the hive, taking pictures of the event!

Amelie was a star. She never lost confidence for a moment. When I took the lid off the hive and she saw the bees her first reaction was “Oh, aren’t they lovely, they are so small.” She didn’t back away and the honeybees behaved themselves. I took the queen excluder off and she could now properly see all the house bees going about their business. As I always explain during my talks, the house bees are not bothered by your presence they are too busy getting on with all their various jobs. It is the flying bees and guard bees who pop up and behind the hive to see what you are up to. If you stay quiet and calm they soon lose interest and buzz off! It was a beautiful day, we went up at 12.30 so most of the flying bees were out foraging and far too busy to bother with us on their return, apart from a few. Amelie took to it like a natural and stayed perfectly calm and engrossed in what she was doingl when they came to have a look at us and she certainly wasn’t bothered at all about the few who settled on her suit , she simply carried on looking through the brood box with me. We had seen the eggs and brood and we continued our search for the Queen. We found her which was great but didn’t mark her as I had mislaid my Queen clip so couldn’t catch her!

We gently closed up the hive and came back to the house. We sat down together and wrote down what we had seen on my notes and put in what was required on my next week inspection notes… “Mark The Queen!” I then went back to my notes and said I had decided to call The Green Hive - ‘Amelie’s Hive” - and she was welcome to come over again and also help spin off the honey from that hive when the time came.

I got the feeling she really enjoyed the time she had spent and just before she left she gave me the lovely little paper weight bee she had made especially for me. It is on my desk as I tap away, smiling at me with its cheeky smile and rosy cheeks. I love it!.

Tuesday 4th June and I took off for Seaford. Seaford is where Tegan Sharrard lives. Tegan, of course being the illustrator of Betsie Valentine And The Honeybees. She was coming with me to a couple of talks at local schools. One of which her daughters go to.

My first talk was at The Seaford Rainbows on the Tuesday evening. When I arrived they asked me if I would stay on and give a talk to the Brownies as it was raining and their planned evening could not go ahead as they had planned something in the garden so a talk about the honeybees would be a bonus. Well I wasn’t going to say no! You know me by now.. The more children, adults I can talk to about the honeybees the better!

It went really well. I love this image of a couple of the girls who, after buying a copy of BV, sat down in the middle of the hall and started reading it, oblivious to the comings and goings of Rainbows leaving and Brownies arriving! Hopefully there will be a few more images to add to this blog sometime soon.

The following day was very exciting. Tegan was meeting me at the first school, Anecy Roman Catholic Primary School. She said she didn’t want to talk but was happy to go through and show the original pictures to the children after my talk. There were about four different years that came in and three girls from the Brownies the night before were all smiles when they saw me. I was absolutely thrilled… they knew most of the answers to my questions, although I told them I would let the other children try and answer first and then I would come to them for the answer. One of them even remembered the word ‘propolis.’ Propolis, by the way, is a robust natural product made by bees from plant resins. Bees use Propolis to protect and sterilise the beehive. It acts as the immune defence mechanism for the whole hive. They may not have remembered that but they remembered the name! At the end of the talk, it was play time and as I was packing up. A lovely lad came in and asked me to come outside and look at the bumble bees that were on the plants in their garden. We stood together, outside, chatting about the bumble bees for quite a while. It was lovely. A good result. After the talk we talked to the Headmaster who was so impressed by how the children were, his words, “buzzing” about the talk, he bought 5 books, one for each year of his school. Boom! It’s not just about the book sales it’s the continued learning about the honeybees while they are still… well… buzzing!

On to Seaford Primary School. I can just ditto the above paragraph. It went really very well. Hopefully we will get pictures soon from Seaford Primary School that I can use on this blog. The children, as always engaged with the talk and left the classroom very excited. It was the last lesson of the day so the school set me up outside with the books, so parents could buy a book from me directly and both Tegan and I could, of course, sign them. I now have a book signed by Tegan!

I stayed the night with my dear friend Judith and her lovely husband Eion and in the morning decided, on the way home, I would stop off and take a walk along the seafront. I love the sea. So I went to Seaford and took a stroll along the beach. I spotted a little café, Frankie’s Beach Café, on the seafront and bought myself a coffee. I was chatting to the two lovely ladies who ran it, Deborah and Beatrice, and told them I was on my way home but couldn’t resist half an hour on the beach. They asked why I was in Seaford and I explained I had been giving talks at the local schools about the honeybees. A lady behind me piped up and said “Are you the bee lady who was at Seaford Primary School yesterday. “I am” I said “T’was me t’is me!” “Oh,” she said, “my son came home ‘buzzing’ with excitement about the honeybees. He told me all about the fanning bees, the guard bees, the waggle dance bees and your book. He was so excited I went on line to see who you were and ordered a copy!” “Your book?” chorused Deborah and Beatrice. “Yes” said the lady behind me, now standing beside me. “It looks lovely, we can’t wait for it to arrive.” “Can I buy a copy for my grandson?” asked Deborah. I went to the car and got her a copy. “Can I buy a copy for me?” said Beatrice… I went back to the car! When I got back they said I should go to a lovely gift shop in Old Seaford High Street called Onneke and tell her a local artist had done the illustrations, she may be interested. I thanked them very much, took my now tepid coffee down on to the pebbles and sat for half an hour mulling everything over. Feeling very chuffed with how things are going I drove to the old high street, found the shop and sure enough Onneke bought 5 copies on the spot!. I drove home smiling all the way!

I arrived home at about 3.30, walked in to the kitchen and there was a letter there for me. I opened it up and there was a lovely homemade card and below is the message inside. I had to show you as this is exactly what it is all about. Educating and inspiring young children. I look forward to seeing her badge.

See you next week!