The Merry Month of May…
Leopards Bane and honey bees: artist Sarah Keen - Watercolour, Pen & Gouache.
Where bees are all out flying. Dear Reader, May is the most beautiful month in England. As I write the garden is filled with moon daisies, orchids, pinks and delicious roses. Above them Elderflowers nod above our heads, threaded through with the sound of birds. It seems as if all nature is heedless and happy. It will not worry this month about the climate emergency, war and rumours of war. It just gets on with the glorious state of being alive.
In our hive all was well. Bee numbers doubled - showing that there was a healthy queen laying healthy drone and worker bee cells. Danny & I added a super (which is essentially a box of frames that gives the bees more room to store honey) and relaxed slightly. It would be nice, we thought to catch a swarm and start a second colony. Well - dear reader - well!
We have been chasing swarms for the last three weeks. Cycling home one afternoon I met a fellow bee keeper suited up and looking like a spaceman. I skidded to a halt. He was on swarm watch. We set off in hot pursuit, he in his van and I pedalling only to find the owner at his gate looking defeated. Just left. In the far distance we saw what looked like a small flying football drift off away across open field land.
The next swarm alert arrived while we were hosting guests. Poor things! We packed them off on an activity and set out once more We carried our swarm box while wearing heavy bee suits on one of the hottest days this year. The farmer greeted us warmly. Been there 48 hrs, can’t miss em. Just 3 feet off the ground. So we went to the tree, across a wide field track - to find this time the swarm had moved up in the world. They now hung 30ft high in the welcoming boughs of a sycamore tree - far beyond our ability to knock them down.
We headed back home disconsolately. Yet cheered up over the coming week as we checked our hive and found a queen cell that we left, added another super and smelt the honey piling up. We knew the queen cell meant soon our bees would swarm . The new queen hatches and the old queen leaves taking half the hive with her to start again elsewhere. Two nights ago I heard the new queen piping and started to keep a look out emigrating bees. Nothing.
Yesterday I returned from a 18 mile bike ride to find Danny running out to greet me. The Bees! Didn’t you get my message? Our bees had decided to take up residence in the loft above our bedroom - which while I love them very much - is too close quarters.
So you can imagine my delight in putting on a bee suit and heading up to our very hot attic. I texted my friend to say that should I not phone her by six pm assume the worst. She would find our honey glazed roast bodies at the top of the house. ooh how exciting she trilled back. When we opened the loft hatch, bees cascaded down into our room and beat themselves against the windows. Yet for all this fury and frantic buzzing, this was a scouting party. There were many hundred bees but no swarm. The queen was not with this batch of bees. We persuaded them to return back to the hive and report that the attic was an undesirable residence.
This morning we called on the help of an experienced bee keeper and set out to inspect our hive once more. The hive was queenless but stocked with honey, pollen and larvae. Several large queen cells adorned the frames. We think the old queen has left, the new queen is out on a mating/orientation flight and on her return will probably destroy the remaining queen cells. A queen bee has to be ruthless. The new queen pipes in the hive and if a cell queen returns her call she will be destroyed. Indeed, we saw several wrecked cells in the frame however the spare cells are insurance policy against a pesky swallow eating the queen before she returns home.
We closed up the hive and will leave them for three weeks now. In the meantime if you see a swarm just stop a minute to enjoy one of the most incredible sights you will ever see in nature.
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