I've been keeping now for about 5 years, and it's been a....variable experience. There is nothing like opening up a hive in the spring time and getting a face full of the smell of honey, propolis, pollen and wax.
Then again, being stung, developing cellulitis and having to drop everything and go to the out of hours GP service for high strength antibiotics that give me stomach cramps is less fun.
Less fun also is going away for the weekend and coming back to find an unexpected swarm in a neighbours garden. That's happened a few times. Last year I controlled two extremely swarmy colonies by inspecting twice a week and being more willing to destroy queen cells than have unplanned swarms. I ended up with a queenless colony that way, but they were easily combined with another colony.
Nevertheless, it's been stressful at times, enough that I almost always feel a little anxious before any kind of intervention. So I've decided to take a break for a season or two. Maybe hang around the association apiary a bit, do some studying, build my confidence back up.
With that in mind, I'd arranged to rehome my one remaining colony. It was still upsetting to find the colony had failed over the winter though. Plenty of food, but few bees and no brood - looks like the queen had failed. Maybe I damaged her applying oxalic in mid winter, or maybe she hadn't mated well. She emerged during patchy weather - well, last summer was pretty much all patchy to be honest.
Not the way I'd hoped to end this phase of my beekeeping life, feeling sad and incompetent.
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