Politician retires to spend more time with his bees

Tam Dalyell, British MP for over 40 years, grand old dissenter within the Labour Party, and well-known for the bees in his bonnet, is retiring to look after bees at his ancestral Scottish home.

In an interview for The Sunday Times, he explained that it wasn’t long before his fellow MPs became aware of his apiarian pursuits:

Shortly after his election he missed a vote because “my bees swarmed”. What? “Well, you can hardly ask other people to deal with swarms. The chief whip called me in and said: ‘I’ve been in this post for nine years and over German rearmament I thought I heard every possible excuse for missing a vote, but never f****** bees’.”