Twenty-nine years ago, I was just completing my 3-year part time MBA at Warwick, and the qualification certainly helped to propel my career in IT with a global agricultural machinery manufacturer. I can still recall those twice weekly teaching sessions in Radcliffe House, and those difficult assignments!

After a long and interesting career, I finally retired 6 years ago and had the opportunity to take up a hobby that had always fascinated me, but I just never had the time to pursue; I became a beekeeper.

After attending a Beekeeping Introductory Training course locally, I was assigned amentor who just so happened to have bees in a small apiary on the University campus.

We had to move the apiary in 2019 to make way for the new Sports and Wellness Hub, but we were fortunate to be allocated an alternative site, which now houses around 12 colonies of honeybees.

The University is an ideal location for honeybees with a rich diversity of flora across the campus and in the surrounding countryside. With spring well and truly underway, the bees are currently veryactive;foraging and building up the colony for the main honey flow season in late summer.

I have other apiaries in theareaand I sell my Burton Green Honey to the local community. I also deal with swarms of honeybees and in pre-Covid times I gave talks on beekeeping to local schools and associations.

So

I feel that I have gone full circle at the University, with weekly visits to the campus once again – though this time some of these visits literally have a sting in the tail!