Category: Swarms

  • House Hunters

    House Hunters

    The honeybees are out with their measuring tapes house hunting and measuring up bait boxes, hollow trees, whisky barrels and heaven knows where else. Bees approach to house hunting: All is quiet around the box/tree/hollow for a short while, then 5 bees arrive and do the same sussing out of their potential new home, then…

  • Act like you’re normal

    Act like you’re normal

    My work colleagues are probably asleep, oblivious, or in the midst of sweet dreams at 5.20am. That’s normal. At 5.20am I jump out bed, there’s no tiredness on me this morning as I put on a tracksuit and have a cup of coffee while I mentally go through the checklist. Bee suit, wellies, hive tool,…

  • Letting go

    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…

  • Lambasted

    Lambasted

    Never balk at forking out for good PPE. It does what it says. Personal Protection  My shiny new triple-layered bee suit paid for itself yesterday. You know how you leave the best until last? Well…I had left the worst until last procrastinating removal of the supers from a hive that is in an awkward location…

  • What do you put in a bait hive?

    What do you put in a bait hive?

    Handing over my last precious jars of honey of the season to an eager customer I stand inside the door of a pub for the first time since March 2020.  It had been shut to business due to Covid for 16 full months. I can hardly believe it’s been that long. Many a good foot-stomping,…

  • Bee-loud glade

    Bee-loud glade

    He: “We have visitors!” Me: Puzzled silence. “They’ve brought their luggage and moved in!” He continued quickly. Me: “Wow!” Penny dropping. “A swarm. Which box?” “They were very loud. It was like an airplane directly over my head.” He said excitedly ignoring my question. “I looked up and there was a massive amount of bees…

  • Bees are planning and conniving

    Bees are planning and conniving

    They’re smart you know. Temperatures are below average but the bees still know it’s spring and they are planning shenanigans. May is around the corner you see. Swarming season. Don’t think that your bees are not already taking little notes with the jotters and pens that they keep hidden somewhere in the vicinity of their…

  • Could I put a beehive in my back garden?

    Could I put a beehive in my back garden?

    This is a question I’m often asked. Well now… I live in suburbia and did put my first hive in my back garden, and they were a joy to watch. I would watch them every morning from my kitchen window flying out of and into the hive. At mid-day the young bees would circle the…

  • Swarm Catcher

    Swarm Catcher

    Ever the optimist I put out bait hives every year. “A bait hive is an empty hive that is set up to attract a swarm during the swarming season. For about a week before a colony swarms it sends out scout bees to find a new home.” http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/baithives.html. There are pros and cons to catching swarms;…