Here is a little vid about the swarm I collected on Thursday, as well as looking at some beautiful red pollen going in to one of my other hives. Lots of drones too! This is a public-access Patreon post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52139312 I tend to leave my swarms for at least 3 weeks before checking them, depending on whether they are a prime or cast, and the … Continue reading Swarm update
I was called out to a swarm (thanks Georgia!) at Arlington Reservoir yesterday evening: handy as I needed a swarm for the vacant Thermosolar hive about 500 yards away as the bee flies – in fact I did think there was a possibility that they could be a swarm from the occupied Thermosolar. The other possibility was that they were from a colony living in … Continue reading New colony in the Thermosolar Hive
I was called out to a swarm at Pevensey Bay, which is right on the beach here in East Sussex. It was in someone’s garden, and they had no idea where it had come from, and didn’t know of any beekeepers locally. I do know of one nearby, but hers had not swarmed. The bees were low down on a shrub, suspended from a single … Continue reading Black Bees
One can never tell how many swarms there are going to be for any given season, and I was surprised to see so many people on the Association’s list…swarms are deemed the sign of “failure” and bad management, yet here are tens of people wanting them to repopulate their apiaries after losing colonies over winter. Perhaps we should appreciate this swarming impulse and wholly natural … Continue reading Swaaaarms
It was a beautiful warm day on Wednesday, and I noticed an awful lot of bees flying around in my carport where I store all my hive equipment. I am checking the apiary twice a day for swarms at the moment and on my sweep back round, I saw this: I presume it came from the hive nearest, which houses the Oak Tree bees that … Continue reading First swarm!
Now that the bee commitments are starting to quieten down for the winter, I went to visit Paul to discuss plans for next year with the Market Wood bees, and any other swarms we capture from the feral colonies in and around Winchelsea. I have one of the swarms here at my apiary as we didn’t have a permanent home for it when it issued, … Continue reading Winchelsea Visit
I received a phone call yesterday for someone who appeared to have a swarm in their conservatory: hundreds of bees, all crawling up the windows. They’d arrived that afternoon and the gentleman had rung pest control who said they’d be along in the morning to gas them (!) but thankfully the homeowners decided against that option and asked me to come and fetch the bees. … Continue reading Honeybees? No, ivy bees
I collected a number of swarms this year, and probably a third of them have gone on to be viable colonies. I am pretty ruthless with swarms in that I leave them to their own devices: if they don’t get going or the queen doesn’t mate well, I don’t throw a lot at them to make it work. The reason for this is that I’ve … Continue reading Summer Swarms
I visited Knockhatch about 6 weeks ago, and the swarm we caught in the bait box from the Oak Tree colony were building up gradually in their hive, and bringing in lots of pollen. We went to check them again, and being hot, mid-morning, and during the school summer holidays, we thought it prudent to just have a quick look at the inspection board for … Continue reading New bees at Knockhatch
I started working with the National Trust bees at Winchelsea when my friend and colleague Paul asked me to help remove some bees from a wall in a National trust cottage at Crutches Farm. We couldn’t get them out so decided to leave them until they had built up again and were a bit more populous; there are always casualties with colony removal. Having plonked … Continue reading National Trust Bees on the Move
