- Thought we'd just have a look.
You see, almost all of it is capped.
My name is Adrian Dwyer,
and I live in Christchurch, in Dorset,
the south coast of England.
I'm a non-executive director of a software company,
and I used to have a medical imaging company
which I sold a couple of years ago.
Just to describe where we are today,
we are a few hundred yards
from the High Street of Christchurch in Dorset,
and we've just got a little garden here.
This was completely overgrown, this garden,
a few years ago,
and I've laid out some grass and some shrubs.
To get into beekeeping, I joined the local bee association,
and they have monthly meetings
where they have an expert come in and talk.
They also have weekly visits to an apiary that they keep,
and that's been really useful,
and I think that gave me a lot of confidence, if you like,
with my own hive.
I felt that was essential, really.
I've also had a mentor,
who's got several hives just up the road,
and that's been really useful as well.
So whenever I'm not quite sure about something,
I've got somebody to phone and ask,
ask for a second opinion,
or reassurance in what I'm doing is the right thing.
So this is at least three quarters capped on that side.
This is actually quite heavy.
This is, look at that, that's what what we want to see.
Earlier on today we did an extraction.
Two of the frames were completely full,
and the whole suit was really heavy,
so I know that I'm going to be
doing some more extraction later on,
but we extracted from two frames.
Okay, so this is why we're all here.
Extract some honey.
It's always exciting, this part, isn't it?
And I'm expecting when I've weighed it
to get between six, seven pounds per frame, I expect.
So a really easy process to extract the honey.
What I did before harvesting the frames,
I took out a frame to see exactly
how much of the frame had been capped.
And two of the frames were 90%, 95% capped.
The other frames,
you could see the capping starting to happen.
Some of the frames had 50% honey in,
some of them had 75% honey in,
but clearly they weren't ready for extraction.
What do my family think of the bees?
My mother has become very interested in beekeeping,
and in fact is one of the reasons
we decided to eave the hive in this walled garden,
because she loves watching the bees every single day.
It's one of the first things,
she looks out of the window to see what the bees are doing,
and she knows what the weather's going to be doing,
or what the weather's like.
- It's lovely, isn't it?
A tremendous interest.
I can check in the morning to see they're coming out,
providing they're all coming out, fine,
so I can give Adrian a report.
- But she's also then done a lot of research
on the internet,
and so every time I come to the hive,
there's always a question,
what about this or what about that?
So I'm having to do a bit of research,
just to stay one step ahead of my mother,
who's 89 years old. (laughing)
- Probably see Adrian more frequently,
because I think, oh has he come to see me, or the bees?
I think it's the bees. (laughing)
- I'm always amazed at the variety of colour of pollen
you can have.
Sort of off-white, through to orange,
that's as bright as a day-glow bib,
you know, one of those safety bibs.
It's extraordinary.
My favourite part of being a beekeeper
is I'm just learning so much about beekeeping,
and about the environment, and about the nature of bees.
There's so much to learn, it's incredible.
And I've found that really interesting.
My work is completely different.
It's involved in commerce and finance and whatever,
but to come into something like beekeeping
is completely different,
and you're learning every single day.
So I'm only just about starting to learn
what I don't know about bees.
So I've got many decades to come
of learning more about beekeeping.
I need a picture of you two, actually.
- [Woman] I know. (laughing)
- That's good.
(gentle music)