Letting go

It’s World Bee Day and the bees are celebrating by swarming indiscriminately. I’ve taken swarm control measures splitting hives and knocking queen cells and all I can really do now is hope for the best.

In the meantime, I’ve already bagged a number of swarms in my bait boxes e.g., image above. I had put out the bait boxes early just to get the boxes out of my shed as it is getting quite cluttered. Beekeeping paraphernalia is sprouting like mushrooms. It’s out of control!

In an attempt to rid myself of some more of my bee boxes I’ve decided to consolidate. I aim to stick to brood boxes and medium supers only and to part with my old, but precious, shallow supers.

I advertised them to give away for free. Now, before anyone gives out to me about using second hand-equipment, I’ll hear none of it. I got these second hand, scraped them clean, torched them, and the bees loved them.  

Many a full super of honey occupied some of these, 8-framed boxes. A pure a joy to extract.

Only one person showed up to take 3 shallow super boxes off me. I felt real pain as he lugged them away as happy as a child in a candy shop. As soon as I had said my teary goodbye (to the boxes) and closed my door, I was planning to buy shallow frames and shallow foundation for the remainder.  “No! No! No!” I shouted. “No going back. Stop!” I gave out to myself.

Let them go.

It’s hard.


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