Game of Thrones

I’m tied down with a bee sting that went wrong! Therefore I thought I’d write a slighly different blog about one of my other hobbies, bee keeping.
Now you know the reason for the blog name!
I am a born again bee keeper.

I kept bees in my twenties and only just started again in 2019.
Its turned out to be a lot harder than it was then.
Why? Disease, climate change, loss of habitat and maybe I was very lucky the first time around.
I won’t go into the trials of the last few years and be too much of a bee bore, I’ll just tell you about this year!

When I checked my two hives in the spring, my stronger colony had died and the small colony had survived, nothing is ever certain with bees!
So the plan was to clean up the dead hive and collect a swarm. Honey bees divide their colonies in the spring and sometimes into the summer. Basically a new queen is produced. The old queen, her attendants (pretty much half the hive) and honey (in their minicule stomachs) goes off to find a new abode.
When they leave the old colony they land somewhere as a swarm and then some of the workers fly off to look for suitable real estate in which to make a new home. The remaining bees cluster around the queen, often hanging off a branch.
This is where the bee keeper comes in and collects the swarm to put in their hive.
Well thats the theory!

Its never quite that simple of course! This year my Bee Keeping Association set up the swarm line on WhatsApp and the calls started to come in. I opted to collect a swarm near a foot path on a common near where I live!
It wasn’t a lovely day, it was showery and slighly thundery too, not a good combination for bees, they dont like it! The directions meant I had to walk about a mile from my car which was parked at an angle on the verge.
Anyway I duly set off with a Sainsbury’s bag in one hand (with tools, smoker, secateurs, saw, suit and gloves, large sheet) and my collection box in the other.
The path was wet and slippery so it was a bit of a struggle but, I found it. They are hard to miss, the noise they make.

Anyway the the text book swarm now goes out the window! This swarm is on the ground at the bottom of a hedge and over vegetation.

What do I do here I wonder? I pick up some of the vegetation and the bees hang off it like string. I lay out my sheet as best I can and painstakingly I start to drop them in my box, when I have several thousand in my box they start to ‘march in’ albeit rather slowly and there are clusters all over the floor and in the hedge. I sit and wait. In theory if you have the queen in the box they will ‘march in’. After and hour or so it start to rain and they hunker down, all facing up, wings facing down and they go into a torpor! I cover them as best I can with the Sainsbury’s bag (note to self, add an umbrella to kit list).
When the rain stops the swarm is visibly agitated.
At this point a woman comes along the path I advise her to go back as I have wet and angry bees ( I almost want to say “and Im not afraid to use them!”) Anyway she stops to look and one angry bee flies directly at her and into her hair! Having this happen to me before, I now know squashing the bee is the best option for all but, she couldn’t exactly say where it was, she had such thick hair! Anyway with my by now grubby gloves in her hair I managed to release it but, by now it was really wild and began chasing her. I said from the comparative comfort of my suit “you can out run them” so off she ran!

I waited another hour wet and cold. The colony was only partially in the box and it was threatening to rain again. I couldn’t leave the box overnight, being on a footpath so I decided to scoop up what I could. Bees are warm when clustered together, I could feel the heat through my gloves. I got the brunt of them in my box and closed it up. I felt bad for the stragglers but what to do? It started to pore down again.
I packed my stuff and lifted the box, wow it was heavy! I had to carry it with both arms, slip sliding along the path, praying I didn’t fall or meet anyone, or worse a horse (bees and horses are a terrible combination) in a narrow part. Eventually I made it to my car and put them in the boot. Phew!
I carefully backed off the verge and clunk! Something came off my exhaust! There was no way I’d be calling breakdown out with a car carrying angry bees it would just have to limp home.
Finally I made it home and dropped the swarm into their new home.. Well when I say dropped, they were such a huge swarm they spilled over the side, Typical! I was exhausted and they were stressed. I put a board up to the entrance for them to climb and decided I would check again in the morning!
The next day after a cursory check, I left them alone to get established.

A week later! I had just come home from the theater one afternoon to see a swarm in front of my hives in the hedge.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine, a quick check on my hives confirmed this.
There is something thrilling about collecting bees, I must keep myself in check.
The pros…. they would be local, resistant to local diseases and viruses, the swarm was in a perfect position and large. The cons….Did I want another hive? Did I have enough hive boxes?
It was too good to miss, I cobbled together another hive.
This collection was text book. I cut the branch they were on and dropped them into my collection box. I left the box for an hour and when I came back they were all in it. I then walked across my potato patch and dropped them in the hive! Voilà simples!

Two weeks on…..
The first colony is queenless, either I didn’t collect her or she died. A hive will dwindle and die with no Queen. They had collected a great deal of nectar and honey though.
The second colony has lots of brood (baby bees and eggs).
So what to do? My resident and established colony has lots of brood too so I have given the Queenless hive a frame of this to see if they can rear a queen, if not I may have to go for another swarm and try to merge them. Ooh the thrill of it!!!

As for my bee sting that went wrong? Well thats another story……