Getting out of hand!

After finishing of my ramblings yesterday, I had just started to do the housework when I was called outside.

Come and look at this, was the shout!!
So the vacuuming had to wait once again whilst I went outside to see what was up.
Where are you?
Over here, I followed the voice and went into the field , look over there!
I looked but could not see anything, what am I looking at?
A swarm of bees,
You have got to be kidding me,I said
No honestly, I saw it it must of just landed in the hedge said hubby
If that is the case we had better get our bee suits on again and take a look

Do you know I might as well get dressed in my bee suit every morning, because I seem to constantly have to keep putting it on, it is getting out of hand!!

So when kitted up, we crossed the field,manoeuvring our way over a fence and under the barbed wire without getting our suits stuck or ripped, not an easy task. Once in the field, we walked up the hedges to find the swarm.We didn't have to go far before spotting it, as there was still several hundred bees flying around the hedge.

We decided to shake this one straight out of the hedge and into an empty Nuc box, not the text book way of doing things, but for ease we thought we would give it a go.

Most of the bees landed in the Nuc box but with several hundred still flying around our heads we decided to go for a cuppa, whilst the rest landed and hopefully followed her majesty inside.

Thirty minutes later, we went back to collect it to find some neighbours in their gardens enthralled at what they were watching, we explained what had happened and why we were looking like spacemen before leaving with the Nuc box back to our field.

That now makes 12!!

The Nuc was sited in a nice sunny position, now all we had to do was drop in the 6 frames without hopefully losing the swarm. Carefully we slipped the top off and then we slowly moved the crown board over to one side, far enough to drop in very carefully one frame then slide it over to drop in another and then another.

Feeling quite smug with ourselves we stood back and admired the new acquisition.

Hive Number 11 another swarm

Yes that's right Hive number 11 another swarm caught tonight in Conwy,

This time it was in a swarm box so very easy to collect and to handle. The box had been placed in a dark corner of a garden by a friend of ours Cyril. He phoned us up today to say that there was a lot of activity around it, so after dinner we set out to collect it, taking with us a gift of a jar of Melys Honey as a

 thank you.

Back home we were lucky to be able to hive it straight into a brand new hive that Mel had spent all last night putting together, just in case! Lucky for the bees he had, guess what he will be doing

 tomorrow night!!

All the bees were tucked up nicely in their new home before dark.

Queen Disaster

We checked over the hives today, after re queening 4 hives last week, we thought we would have had a positive response but like the book says it is very difficult to re queen native Bee's they don't like accepting just any queen.

3 out of 4 hives had got rid!! and at £30 each its not very funny. One colony accepted and has already started laying her eggs so that one will be fine.

Now the other 3, well 2 of them had drawn emergency queen cells so we have left them with them and will allow them to hatch, but what we will do is relocate the hive to Llanrwst to give them a better chance of mating and they will be close to the honey flow that is just starting to happen there.

The blackberry and balsam is just coming into flower and both hives have a strong colony of workers so should bring in the honey.

The 3rd hive is a disaster, they had no brood so are slowly dying out, a lot less bees in there compared to last week. We have taken them out of the hive and moved it into the field which is going to be our new apiary, (more sun, less shade, protected from the wind) we replaced the hive with a Nuc box and will try and save whats left with a queen and some brood out of one of the other hives.

The good news is that we have had 2 more swarms so we are now up to 10 hives (including the disaster) also the strong hives are definitely starting to find the nectar and pollen so we should get a bit of honey this year but as they say don't count your chickens...

Free Bees

Yes you guessed it, we have caught another swarm tonight, I still get absolutely fascinated by them. This one was in a hedge on a solitary branch. It was a prime swarm and quite large, you can see from the photos how big it was.

Once we were suited and booted, the branch was cut and then shaken into the box waiting below.

When the bees were safely gathered in the box they were taken to the hive.

 Off comes the lid

 The box is emptied onto the sheet

And we wait for the bees to walk up the board into their new home

Lots and lots of free bees!

A closer look

Here I am in my new suit, trying to spot the queen, unfortunately I didn't see her so we will wait for a few days and let them settle in their new hive and we will then try and find her when we check all is okay in a few days time.

Here they are making good progress of going into the hive, the queen must be inside now as they are really going in fast.

Extremely happy to have such a prime swarm, we may even get some honey out of this hive this year!! fingers crossed

A new beekeeper is made

I have been assisting with the bees now for many months and although reluctantly at first I will  confess, now I cant get enough of them.

It all happened quite by chance really, my hubby had wanted to keep bees for many years and decided to go on a beekeeping course to find out the pros and cons. Armed with this knowledge and having read every book he could get his hands on he bought his first hive.

 Gary a good friend of ours also started mentoring him and his confidence grew and grew. He also helped when there was a swarm caught last year and this can be seen on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyuBtNfTHGk

At the beginning of the year a half suit was bought for me so I could watch from a safe distance behind a wall, I didn't like the thought of all that buzzing around my head. Over the first few weeks I was encouraged to watch every time they made an inspection, then one weekend a neighbour knocked on our door and told me that there was a swarm of bees in the hedge near by.

 Hubby was out for the night, Gary couldn't be contacted, what to do!!

I knew that my hubby would be gutted if he missed catching a swarm, so I decided I would have a go. Luckily the neighbour also kept a hive in his garden so offered to assist me. I found the full suit, gloves and a box to put them in while I waited for him to come back suited and booted and hopefully know what to do next.

Two of my grown up sons thought it was hilarious, that I was going to attempt to catch a swarm, but I did.

I have to say it was one of the most thrilling things I have ever done, buzzing, what buzzing I was in awe of those little flying bees I didn't even notice the sound or even worry about the hundreds that where flying around my head.

The bees had collected on an old branch in a hedge that surrounds our field, it looked like a rugby ball. First job was to place the box directly beneath them, then with tree loppers the branch was cut and the majority of bees landed in the box. As there was still many bees flying around and another clump on the floor we waited half an hour for them to decide that the queen was in the box. Having realised were she was they all then decided to enter the box too. within 20 minutes they were all in. Box was sealed and taken to the apiary. If you watch the youtube footage you will see how a swarm then marches into a hive, fascinating!!

That day changed my outlook on bees and took away any fears I had, I cant wait to get in amongst them and find out what is happening each week.

I am happy to say I have assisted in catching another swarm very recently, this time it was 3 miles away on a housing estate, in a ladies garden and I took the lead on capturing this. Its funny now every time I go for a walk I am looking in trees hedges and in peoples gardens just in case there is a swarm of bees I can take home.