When the Guardian asked me to do a story on bees I imagined, as most people would, being swathed in protective clothing and surrounded by a buzzing mass of ferocious insects. What I hadn't expected was a lyrically lovely autumn afternoon on the roof of one of London's most exclusive shops.
Steve Benbow is a professional beekeeper who manages hives on top of several buildings in central London but it was the hand-built oak hives on top of Fortnum & Mason that he chose to give me my first exposure to urban beekeeping.
Fortnum have four hives on the roof of their Piccadilly shop each with a quirkily different design to the front panel: a Gothick, Classical, Chinese or Mughal portico which helps each bee identify their own colony.
It's now approaching the end of the season and the bees are beginning to settle into that part of their life cycle that protects the colony through the winter. Stores are built up and a small number of bees become 'soldiers', clustering around the queen. This living duvet will protect her from the worst the winter can throw at the hive until the first pollen bearing plants - the crocusses and snowdrops - appear early next year.
Throughout the year as the various pollens come into season the honey in the hive will subtly change in flavour, combining to form the complex polyfloral taste that makes London honey so uniquely delicious but now, as autumn closes in, it's ivy from the darkest corners of the city's parks and gardens that's the last remaining source of pollen. The thick pale honey it produces is unpalatable to us but will feed the bees throughout the winter.
It was a privilege to work for a short time with Steve and to see how calming and pleasurable the experience of managing a hive can be. Over the next year he will be working with the Omlet company, (manufacturers of the Eggloo) running courses for people who've bought their new Beehaus hive, designed specifically for first-time urban beekeepers, but there are also courses in handling the more traditional hives and many 'shared hive' schemes run by beekeeping associations all over the country. Courses are rarely well publicised and there can be waiting lists. They tend to begin around this time of the year so novices can learn enough over the winter to become properly involved in the new season. If you're keen to learn, spend a little time reading up on it and contact your nearest association soon - it's time to start getting involved for next year.
I swore a long time ago that I'd never use the words 'the best I've ever tasted' in reviewing any food but suffice it to say that London polyfloral honey is spectacularly gorgeous. Even at the seemingly luxury price of £10 for a 227g jar which Fortnum charge for theirs (don't bother, it's too late, they run out almost as fast as they can stock it) it's worth double. I don't often say things like this, but, just buy London honey if you see it anywhere in future.
To my mind the complexity of flavour means it would be wasted on something as coarse as hot buttered toast and deserves instead to be poured over very thin slices of Stichelton cheese or better still, spooned directly from the jar and ecstatically moaned over like caviar.