Don't Tell Me I Can't…...Become A Beekeeper

After resisting her husband’s new hobby, Natasha Geary joined the hive…

- Frances Leate

As I felt the vibration coming from the swarm of bees buzzing loudly around the hive, I couldn't help but flinch. ‘They won’t hurt you, Mum,’ my eldest son, William, nine, reassured me as we crept closer.

‘I know,’ I reasoned, not wanting to look like a wimp in front of the kids. After months of my husband, Ian, then 47, pestering me, I’d finally let him put a hive in our back garden, and now I was doing the unthinkable – donning a huge protective suit to take on beekeeping duties myself.

Ian and I met 20 years ago, married in October 2005, before having William in 2006 and Ted in 2011. He was always encouraging me to get out of my comfort zone – moving to the country, writing a book. But when he first mentioned keeping bees, in December 2016, I thought it was a mid-life crisis. ‘Imagine the honey,’ he smiled, licking his lips. Of course, I said no – what mum wants a nest of stinging insects buzzing around the back garden?