Tutbury Swarm (Part 1)

Got a call from Dave Tuesday evening saying he had another contact regarding a swarm, this time in Tutbury. Tina, and her daughters Charlotte and Lydia, were very calm about having bees in their garden but they had settled right at the entrance to the chicken enclosure and couldn't really stay there. When we arrived we were both concerned about the appearance of the swarm as it didn't conform entirely to our expectations. There were plenty of calm bees, but they seemed to have formed several small groups and didn't appear to have made their minds up which one to join, with lots of bees in the air. We decided that they either lost or damaged their original queen, or that they were a secondary swarm that had several newly emerged queens; either way we placed a box over the majority and left them over night to cluster into the box - or not.

Tina took this brilliant picture of the swarm

The following evening I returned to collect them and found that they had indeed all decided to utilise the box - forming a football sized cluster. Without any major drama I parcelled them up into my old duvet cover and drove them about fifteen miles to Weston-on-Trent were Mike & Monique had a TBH waiting for them.

To be continued.........