Wheel bees.

I got a call from a friend in the village asking me to come and help get some bees out from under her car. She had gone out to change a front nearside wheel with a slow puncture to find a swarm had taken up temporary residence in the wheel arch. Would I please come and move them on.

So I grabbed my wrangling gear and an empty box and whizzed over. The bees had taken up residence in the back of the wheel. To be able to see and get to them I had to start the car so that I could turn the wheels out - the only way to disengage the wheel lock on this nearly new car.

Anyway, while checking to see just how I was going to be able to get them out, I noticed a flash of movement on some nearby gravel. There was the queen, marching about in the open, and unattended!! I had spotted a flash of yellow paint out of the corner of my eye that some beekeeper had painted her back with to make it easier for them to find the queen in their hive. So I gently allowed her to crawl onto my glove and gently set her on some comb in the transfer box, quickly closed the bars up, opened the front entrance by removing the cork, sat back and watched. The bees in the wheel arch began to stream steadily from the wheel to the box in a thin wriggly line. Over the next 4 hours all the bees crossed into the box and settled in for the night. At dusk I came back, put in the cork and brought all the bees home. Got to be the best and easiest capture yet!!

Tim.