Drama! Excitement! Incompetence!
Sure enough, the bees swarmed today - bugger! Around 40,000 of them took off at about 3pm, sending neighbours, dogs and pregnant wife into paroxysms, fits and panics. I arrived home to find them, with help from the outstanding Mr Peter Bowbrick, swarming up a neighbour's fence (the bees, that is, not Peter).
After much cussing, we (mainly Peter) managed to persuade the little buzzers into a cardboard box, and took them off to Morden Hall Apiary.
Moral? Incompetence.
From my hive inspection on Monday, two days ago, I had managed to overlook queen cells (which there must be). I had correctly guessed that the bees were about to swarm, and yet I had not managed to prevent it...
Oh well. Capturing a swarm was great learning, as was throwing them into a new hive. You gotta start somewhere.
1 comment:
Are not swarms magical happenings ?
I had had my first hive for a month last Oct, she swarmed and hello neighbours, here we are, up the grapefruit tree - check out my very new blog if you like.. An interesting experience but it did get another hive to love and cherish ..
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