Everyone should have two or three hives of bees.
My bees cover one thousand square miles of land that I do not own in their foraging flights, flying from flower to flower for which I pay no rent, stealing nectar but pollinating plants in return.
I have a huge belief in the importance of bees, not just for their honey, which is a healing and delicious food, but the necessity of bee colonies that are vital to the health of the planet.
It's wonderful to me that bees have this simple, age-old thing going on.
No beehive. Beehives - we sort of put them - well, we revive them sometimes.
For a long, long time, nearly 40 years, I never had any bees. I can't think why.
Strictly speaking, one never 'keeps' bees - one comes to terms with their wild nature.
I don't mind bees and think we are all the better for having them around. I like the taste of honey.
I actually grew up in a house in which bees lived in one of the walls, and they lived there 18 years, in fact, so it wasn't a fleeting thing.
My elder son and his wife keep bees, and my younger son has bees, too.
