I think I'm going for the World Record in thread necromancy here.
I'm about to recommence my beekeeping activities, rather by accident.
The Green Party locally has many of its meetings at the premises of Trustlinks, a local charity. They have a lovely site a few minutes' walk down the road from me, opposite Roots Hall. I was shown round by a friend a couple of months ago and she said they used to have beehives there, but the beekeeper was too old and gave up all his hives. I mentioned that I had a lot of hives in my garage and if they wanted them, the could have them.
One thing led to another and I agreed to be involved in the acquisition of some bees and to help with their care. It turns out that there's a beekeeper in Shoebury, Sian, who keeps bees on another Trustlinks site. I had a natter to her a month or so ago and she's got two colonies she wants to get rid of. As luck would have it, her bees are on 14*12 frames, which was what I used. On the strength of all that, I've bought a new bee suit, smoker and hive tool, and hopefully will be involved in the not too distant future. No doubt I will be stung again soon.
The good thing about having this charity involved is that I won't have to get rid of loads of honey, and will (hopefully) be able to train new beekeepers into taking over in due course.