Bureaucracy for Bees
Farming is a tricky business: what with the weather, bureaucracy, access to markets, the weather, bureaucracy, the weather, bureaucracy and the need to actually find some time in the day to Do Farming, life can sometimes feel like rather a struggle for us poor farmers.
These challenges have proved particularly, erm, challenging, for our new venture for 2023: our bees!
Our journey towards taking delivery of our two colonies began way back in the summer of 2017, when Scott was gifted a bee keeping course for his birthday, and was instantly hooked.
Shiny new hives being prepared!
Five years later, and our New Year's Resolution for 2023 was to add bees to our little farm. Not just any old bees, but happy bees (or api bees, if you prefer), who would be looked after in the same way that we like to look after our land, and our other animals: that is to say that we were determined to ensure the highest welfare standards for our six legged friends, that they would live happy (api) lives foraging our gorgeous wild flower meadows, that they would suffer minimal intrusions into their natural behaviours, and that unlike many bee colonies, they not be harmed during the honey making or winterising processes.
With that in mind, we started an online beekeeping course (a refresher for Scott, but new territory for me), and selected an innovative, new design of hive that would ensure the high welfare standards that we aspired to.
Hives purchased, one Friday morning in early February, off I jolly well went to the offices of my Farmers' Union, and attempted to apply for the new EU Countryside Stewardship Scheme which would allow me to give over our meadows to wild flowers, or bee forage. I also needed to apply for a licence to keep bees on the farm. Of course, the paperwork for the scheme was not yet in place, so I went back the following Friday, and the Friday after that.
These visits were followed, in early March, by an unannounced, evening visit from my Rep, his friend the geometra, and a random bureaucrat to inspect our premises, and the proposed location of the hives. Of course it was pitch dark at 8pm on a rainy Thursday evening, so the hive site was rubber stamped, but the kitchen and premises inspections did take place. After much discussion and heated debate, it was agreed that as long as we agreed to use the downstairs bathroom for a splogliatore, (and if you speak Italian, no, this is not a typo), we were good to go, once the paperwork had been completed.
Thankfully, prior to me making a TOTAL fool of myself the following Friday in the Union Offices, a kind friend politely explained that what we needed was, in fact, a spogliatoio rather than a "male stripper" ...
Armed with the knowledge that I needed to agree to designate my downstairs bathroom as a changing room, off I jolly well went (again) to the Union Office the following Friday, sat on my yellow chair, waited a couple of hours, then attempted to complete the requisite paperwork. I planned to declare that we had seeded two hectares of meadow with wild flower seeds, that we had a suitable room to change into our beekeeping outfits, that we would look after our two bee hives in an appropriate manner, and make honey in a hygienic kitchen.
But the Internet was down so ...
The following week there was a power cut so ...
The week after that was a software failure so ...
And so it continued.
My weekly pilgrimages to the Union Offices continued throughout April and May until it was time for us to pack our bags and return to the UK for a month so ...
June was lost so ...
During the first week in July, our long suffering Bee Lady let us know that our "nuc colonies" were growing at such a rate that they definitely, absolutely, without any more delays, MUST be re-sited to their new positions that weekend. She was polite but firm. Time had run out so ...
Thursday morning, off I jolly well went to the Union Offices to ... discover that my Rep was working from another office because the Internet was down so ...
Off I jolly well drove to the local Headquarters of the Italian Health Service, to get my blooming Bee Licence. Thankfully, as I blazed into the reception area, the helpful Guard-With-A-Gun (standard issue in buildings where bureaucracy takes place) was able to point me in the direction of the Bee Licencing Department (or Beereaucracy Department, if you prefer), where The Beereaucrat was patiently waiting for me. She did not need to see my Evidence of Wild Flowers. She was not interested in my "Changing Room / Stripper cubicle. She didn't care at all about my welfare intentions for my api-bees. And she truly wasn't bothered at all about the state (hygienic or otherwise) of my kitchen.
No.
She just wanted to see a copy of the Title Deeds of my land, provided by the Tax Office within the last 30 days.
Which of course, I didn't have.
Luckily this was still Thursday, so by Friday morning I had acquired this new document, and within an hour of arriving in the Beereacracy Department for only the second time, I had the documentation that I required so ...
Sunday evening off we jolly well drove to layby about an hour south of the farm, where we rendezvoused with the Bee Lady, and headed off to collect our bees.
But that is another story!