THERE are many things which you might think of when you hear the word “Kosovo”, but beekeeping is unlikely to be one of them. And yet, beekeeping has formed a huge part of ex-Malvern St James’ pupil Elizabeth Gowing’s life in the five years she has spent in Pristina, the country’s capital.

Not that she keeps the bees in Pristina – too much air pollution – and not that it is all she has done – most of her time seems to be taken up working with charities, including the Ideas Partnership, which she set up herself.

The bees have given 37-year-old Ms Gowing a way into Kosovan life, allowing her to escape into the countryside and access into the kitchens of the country’s women.

They are also the inspiration behind her debut novel, Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo, which was released this year.

The title, Ms Gowing explained, was inspired by her perception of Kosovo before she arrived in the country – a war-torn ruin – and, of course, the beekeeping. All she knew of the Balkans state before the move was of a country which had been torn apart in a short but brutal war.

She said: “I was deputy headteacher of a school in Hackney in 1999 [during the war] and we had quite a lot of refugees. Those were the only Kosovars I had met before I moved there. I didn’t even really know about their country.”

And she didn’t have much time to learn. Her partner Rob was offered a job as an adviser to Kosovo’s new Prime Minister Agim Çeku in 2006 and within 10 days, their house was packed up. In another 10 days, they were in a country which was completely alien to both of them.

They thought they would be there for six months, but the months stretched out and, along the way, Ms Gowing acquired the bees.

The bees – or rather, the hive – were a present from Rob on the first birthday she celebrated in Kosovo. Certainly a creative present, but no one suspected the impact it would have on Ms Gowing’s life. She said: “I don’t think I realised how much of a help beekeeping would be as a way of getting to know Kosovo.

“It was the first time I was not introduced as ‘Rob’s partner’ since arriving in the country.”

It allowed Ms Gowing to become a person in her own right and beekeepers, she quickly realised, were good people to know.

An apprenticeship with an unknown family led to friendship and other beekeepers: retired guerrilla fighters, victims of human trafficking, political activists, a women’s beekeeping group who teach her how to dance, and the Prime Minister himself. Ms Gowing said: “They’re very friendly people.

“If I ever move countries again, I would go straight to the beekeepers. They understand the land and are interested in food – two things I love.

“It’s a great way of making friends. It’s given me a feeling of belonging in Kosovo.”

The bees’ other by-product, honey, allowed her into a whole other area of Kosovan life: the kitchen, where women invited her in to learn recipes. She said: “You get to talk to people in a different way in their kitchens. It was a whole new area, I hadn’t realised.”

The recipes which were discussed during these times appear in the book, punctuating every few chapters. Ms Gowing will be hoping to entice people into Waterstones in the Shambles, Worcester, tomorrow with the products of one of those recipes – Kosovan honeyed pastries.

There, she also hopes, to meet the teachers she has remained in contact with from her old school.

Ms Gowing said: “The teachers have been really interested.

“They were saying some of the girls from the school might possibly come out in the summer to help with our charity.”

She doesn’t think the girls would feel too out of place in Kosovo: the hills, she points out, are not that disimiliar to those one would find in Malvern.

And tomorrow, it seems, will feel like something of a homecoming for Ms Gowing, who boarded in Malvern for seven years. She said: “It really is from Worcestershire to Kosovo and back again.”

􀁥 She will be signing her book at Waterstones from noon.