Fog
There comes a time in every year when, according to the instructions of our betters, and on pain of chastisement, ostracism, death or humiliation, we have to account for our actions, or the lack of them.
As it is with the Revenue, so it is with the London Beekeepers, and I was looking forward to drawing up the accounts of the apiary, which I confidently hoped would show a respectable surplus on the apiary activites and, more importantly, give me at least a hint that the worrisome trudge through this mortal vale of misery would at least have kindled a spark of warmth in the heart of the LBKA Treasurer, which, while not exactly making life worthwhile, would temporarily blunt its remorseless futility.
For up till now, and in reality as well as on paper, the apiary has been something of a loss. This is unsurprising. For most beekeepers, beekeeping is a hobby and, like origami or bog-snorkelling, neither actually nor intentionally profitable. This is why the tax inspectors don’t allow anglers, for example, to offset the cost of maggots against tax.
However, against expectations, we have had two productive seasons in a row, and we’ve been able to sell a respectable amount of honey. Not, perhaps, the tons of honey that the people who write the books confidently predict, but enough to impress anyone who hasn’t got to put the stuff in jars, and that’s the main thing. Competence is always an illusion, of course, but there’s still some pride to be had from maintaining it.
So, after today’s largely foggy and mostly pointless apiary session (no mentees turned up, and the only task achieved was the insertion of a clearer board for, I hope, better reasons than fellow beekeepers will suspect), I pedalled home with the intention of finding solace and fulfillment in the preparation of the accounts. It is very easy to become intoxicated with optimism and, I’m afraid, I fell victim to that curse. Not, perhaps, as badly as the panglossian figment that’s our current Mayor, or the rattlingly chirpy Lord of Locog, but enough to put me off my guard.
To cut a long, and astonishingly tedious, story short, the upshot is that I seem to have thought rather much about all the money we’d had rushing in, and not enough about all the money we’ve had rushing out. The upshot is that we are, at the time of writing, short of Micawberish happiness by around a ton. There is some uncertainty about this, given that some of the relevant receipts have been printed with vanishing ink and others have gone missing in action. But it’s not an uncertainty I’m planning to allow the Treasurer.
However, even if it all works out as bad as I think it will, we do have a secret weapon of sorts. In a secret location known only to a trusted few, are around three-dozen half-pound jars of honey, crystallising nicely, ready for labelling and taking to the Friends of Brockwell Park Winter Fair on December 11th at Brockwell Hall, where we’ll be selling the last few jars of this year’s honey. If my calculations are correct, then that will break us even, whatever the Treasurer thinks.
