I caught a swarm in 2025 and it has made every decision since
August 08, 2026 | 10 min read
A running diary of the Williamson hives. Newest entries are added at the bottom!
I did not set out to keep bees. In May 2025 a swarm arrived in my garden and I caught it, which I am told was lucky!
What I have learned since is that I am not really the one making the decisions. The colony decides, and I find out afterwards. They decide when the hive gets split. They decide how much honey there is. Twice now they have decided there should be more of them, without asking me first.
It is a good counterbalance to the day job.
22 February 2026, finally a break in the rain
First proper look in the garden after a wet winter. They were out collecting, which after months of not knowing what was going on in there is a relief.
The colourful stuff on their back legs is pollen, and pollen means there are baby bees being fed. I never see the brood at this time of year. You read what is arriving at the front door and work backwards to what must be happening inside.
Best guess on where they had been: winter heather, crocuses, snowdrops.
Rhiannon Stokes commented that our honey was the best she had tasted, which was a nice thing to read in February when there was none left.
26 March 2026, action required
The population has exploded on the early spring nectar. Heather Smith has been giving me her suggestions on splitting them into two hives, which weather permitting I will attempt in the next week or two.
This is the part I had not understood before I started. Splitting is not something you do because you fancy more hives. If they run out of room they will make the decision themselves and half of them will leave.
A single hive in my area can produce up to 45kg of honey in a year. That is about 95 standard jars. I would be over the moon to get half of that this year.
Let us see what happens.
8 April 2026, homemade honeycomb
Split the hive yesterday, and this is the first cut comb of the year. Likely a mix of oilseed rape, blackthorn and fruit tree blossom. Very light, with a floral aftertaste.
Two things came out of the comments on this one that ended up mattering.
My brother Marcus suggested selling jars to raise money for charity, and then pointed out that the bees are not paying any rent. I said I would let him raise that with them. Three months later it is how the whole thing works.
Daniel Thomas asked what I made of Flow hives and back garden hives generally. My honest answer is that Flow have got the branding right, but like anything it is a lot more work than leaving a box in the garden and collecting honey from a tap. Since starting I have got far more out of watching them develop and understanding their behaviour than I have out of the honey. I can stand at the window for a good fifteen minutes watching them fly off to collect what they need.
I have a very small garden and two hives. Provided you look after them properly and make sure their flight path does not cross where people walk, they are completely harmless.
24 April 2026, yesterday’s drama
I had the dreaded phone call from my partner telling me there was a swarm.
Luckily it was not one of mine. It had come from somewhere else and landed in next door’s tree, so I had the whole neighbourhood out watching me brush a swarm of bees into a black tub and hope I had the queen in there.
I got her, and the rest followed her in. They are now in a new home in my garden and were all still there the following morning.
The neighbour whose garden it landed in was not thrilled with me at first. Once I explained that the alternative was the swarm moving into their roof, they were quite glad someone was dealing with it.
I have since had strict instructions that we are at maximum occupancy for bees in this garden.
A few people called me brave, which was a nice pinch-me superman moment for someone who was mostly just holding a tub.
2 May 2026, honey for data
Over the next few weeks I will be cutting fresh honeycomb, and I am giving some away to anyone who completes our survey.
The survey feeds a poster we are putting together for BABICM, looking at the impact of dedicated team support roles. Case Manager Assistants, Enhanced Team Leaders, Support Worker Managers. I am after case managers who have actually used those roles in a team they manage, rather than opinions on whether they sound useful.
It takes about five minutes. It turns out honeycomb is a better incentive than a prize draw.
20 May 2026, World Bee Day
I never need an excuse to talk about the bees, but today is a good one.
I am still fairly new to this and I am already that person who stands next to the hives for far too long, just watching. There is so much going on in there. A whole colony moving as one, no agenda and no unnecessary meetings, everyone getting on with their part.
The thing I have taken from them, besides the honey, is that the colony works because every bee just gets on with it. No waiting to be noticed. No fanfare. Just the work. I find that oddly motivating.
Two responses to that were better than the post.
Anum Hassan said the parallel between a beehive and a highly functional team was spot on, and that there is something motivating about watching a community operate with no ego and complete shared purpose.
Liz Haunch, who keeps bees herself, gently took apart my line about no unnecessary meetings by pointing out that the waggle dance is arguably exactly that. A little presentation with instructions on the day’s agenda. She is right, and I have not been able to unsee it since. She also wrote honestly about her own queen having stopped laying, and knowing what she was supposed to do about it, and not wanting to.
Emma Trevett asked the practical questions, so for anyone wondering: three hives at the moment, having consolidated a couple because one strong hive beats two weak ones, and I go through them every seven days for a few hours. It is a weekend hobby.
If you have ever thought about keeping bees, do it. Worst case you end up standing in your garden talking to insects. Best case, the same thing, but with honey.
1 June 2026, samples for BABICM
Bottling until late for the conference tomorrow. This is a domestic kitchen, a bucket with a tap on it, and several hundred empty jars.
By the time I got to the venue I had already promised most of it away in the comments.
26 June 2026, working long shifts
A lot of people have been asking how the hot weather is affecting them. They seem to be loving it. Warm mornings and evenings, and some of them are staying outside the hive overnight rather than coming in.
They have been working 7.30am until 9pm. Sounds familiar.
Right now they are on bramble and lime. It is looking like a big harvest if July stays warm, and there is nothing I can do to make that happen either way.
13 July 2026, harvesting from a tiny garden
I roped in some free labour, in the form of my dad, who got stung on the head for his trouble. It did not swell, so he got the full experience without the consequences.
We rented a honey extractor for £5 a day and got through it on the Saturday.
Roughly 50kg. 176 jars and eight frames of raw comb.
The colour is very light, which means it is mostly lime, or linden. In March I said I would be delighted with half of 95 jars. I have 176 and the second harvest is a few weeks away.
Labels are still somewhere in the postal system.
A portion of the sales is going to Ski4All Wales and the rest is going back into the bees.
Two questions came up enough times in the comments to answer here. David Winter and a few others were surprised at doing this in such a tight space, and I was too. I assumed you needed a field. Shloime Wyler asked about neighbours and bees getting into the house, and the honest answer is that it depends heavily on what you keep. Mine are Buckfast, which have been bred for productivity and for being calm. With the right fencing to push their flight path up and out rather than through the garden, nobody notices they are there.
21 July 2026, I am genuinely shocked
Second harvest in, so here is where we have got to.
In May last year I caught one small swarm. Just over a year later that has become four hives, 88kg of runny honey, and another 15kg of cut comb.
387 jars, all of which I need to hand fill.
Either I am a good bee dad or I have got very lucky. If only I could get them to refocus their efforts onto our CQC application.
Two things I have set up.
The bees now have their own pot, funded from honey sales, so they can pay for their continued takeover of my garden.
And I have negotiated with the queen that 25% of all honey sales go to charity. Not one I have picked. Whoever buys the honey chooses where their share goes.
Heather Smith commented that I had not explained how tiring any of this is, or how much effort goes into getting it as far as the jar, and she is right. There is propolis stained into our floor and we are still finding sticky patches. I had to bring in my dad and Toby Burge to get it all done.
Claudette Joint asked how to get started. There is now a small beekeeping group chat for people in the personal injury world, which I did not expect to be a sentence I would ever write.
30 July 2026, orders going out
Parcels are on their way. If you have ordered, it should be with you in a day or two, assuming Royal Mail is telling the truth.
25% of everything is going to the charities each of you chose. I will list them here once the orders have landed and the donations have gone through.
Not a bad outcome for an insect.
5 August 2026, the bees had their first visitor
Daniel Thomas got suited up and came to meet the girls, the workers behind the Williamson honey.
We did the weekly inspection together, which is the same three checks every time whether or not anything looks wrong. Overcrowding, food levels, disease. All fine.
We were also lucky enough to find a queen while he was here. If you look closely at the frame you might spot her.
Back in April, getting a queen into a tub was the entire job and everything else followed her. Finding one on a quiet Tuesday inspection is a much calmer version of the same moment, and it still stops me every time.
Lucy Collings Pettit is now threatening a honey cake for the Chroma team, which she expects to feature in the autumn edition of their office cake portfolio. I am looking forward to seeing it.
Marcus pointed out that this seems to be contagious and that more beekeepers are being created. With the losses over last winter, that is not a bad thing at all.
More to follow. The bees will decide when.
