The weather forecaster had warned us of a wet weekend and was characteristically wrong. This weekend was the hottest so far this year, though its competition has been wanting. My saturday morning dog walk was one of discoveries. I noticed a lot of wasps at the kids playhouse and on investigation found a wasp nest the size of a melon. Having set up a vespa exclusion zone I continued on the walk and decided to visit my apiary and check on the activity at my swarmed warré. The activity looked good and I feel good about the new queen's mating chances. Then I notice scout bee activity at the empty hives. The scouts were coming and going quite rapidly and I was easily able to track them a big ball of bees in a hawthorn bush.
I ran back home and grabbed my kit and my assistant beekeeper Kyle.
The first job was to trim back the surrounding bush which was quite twisty and overgrown. It was at this time that I made a boo boo. I managed to cut the branch that the swarm had clustered on. The bees unceremoniously took to the air. Having realised my incompetence the bees decided they needed to make things a little easier for me and re-clustered on a stack of two bait hives. Initially they looked as though they were heading into the bottom box but 30 min later they had reformed on the top box.
The first job was to trim back the surrounding bush which was quite twisty and overgrown. It was at this time that I made a boo boo. I managed to cut the branch that the swarm had clustered on. The bees unceremoniously took to the air. Having realised my incompetence the bees decided they needed to make things a little easier for me and re-clustered on a stack of two bait hives. Initially they looked as though they were heading into the bottom box but 30 min later they had reformed on the top box.
- Swarm clustered conveniently on a bait hive.
This time all I had to do was scoop them up in my hands and put them in the box. The bees didn't seem to mind at all, I'm not sure what it was like for them but for me it was very warm and tingley. I saw the queen and she was surprisingly small and completely black. I think this was a cast swarm from our poppy hive. The Queens from this hive we have decided to name after the flowers in bloom when they emerge. Having given a list of current flora to Kyle he decided the new Queen should be called "Dog rose". I am very proud :)
- Queen Dog rose
As for the wasps I am afraid they met their demise in the evening. A bee suit can be used for evil as well as good!
My attempt at a video blog.
My photos and images backup automatically to google+. Occasionally it presents me with an "autoawesome" image. This is what it did with the swarm bits, a bit more dramatic than my attempt:
No comments:
Post a Comment