Bees in a pickle

Part 1 (Branston Swarm)
On Tuesday evening I got a call from Steve in Branston (hence the weak pun above) saying that he had a swarm of bees in his garden. I called over at about 19:30 to find the swarm clustered around the main stem of a small holly bush. Not being able to shake them into the waiting box I decided, after some deft topiary, to put the open bottomed box directly above them; as soon as it was in position they immediately started to move up into it. I said I would return to collect them the following evening.*

On the drive to Branston the following evening the weather had taken a turn for the worse, with light rain in Derby and what looked to have been a very heavy down pour in Branston. The rain may well have helped the situation as upon arrival I was delighted to find the swarm tightly balled up inside against the waxed bars that constituted the roof. Thankfully I had taken the precaution of securing the box within the branches of the holly as the now top heavy box was listing a far bit. The box then went straight into the trusty old duvet cover and into the back of the car - took about ten minutes in total. A quick call to Pete let him know we were on our way, and half an hour later the bees touch down in Belper.

Many thanks to Steve and his family for their support and patience in helping us 're-house' another colony of bees.

* as soon as I got back home I got another call regarding honey bees. Went over to a house in Chaddesden who, as it turned out, had a bumble bee nest in their loft. Going to retrieve next weekend -  see Bumble Bee Rescue IV 

Part 2 (Now Belper Bees)
Boyd arrived as promised latish-on yesterday evening bearing a duvet wrapped box full of bees. Hopefully the transfer would be straightforward - a "lift & shift" of a few bars directly from the transporter box to our TBH. We'd already had a discussion over the phone about the length of the bars and the inside measurement of the hive - should be no problems.

Well, guess what... there were no problems! The bars moved easily from the transport box to the hive with significant number of bees still attached.....

.... and they fitted pretty well into the TBH albeit a little thicker than those already in the hive.

We did wonder, though, whether the queen had been in the main body or whether she was still in the cardboard box. Looking inside it wasn't obvious, there didn't seem to be too many stranded but lifting one of the flaps revealed a second large cluster of bees.

Boyd decided to shake and shock the remainder into the hive. Most went in with only a few stragglers remaining.....

..... who slowly decided to follow the rest into their new home.

So let's hope they're still there and decide to stay!

(Edit Note: Pictures make it look like I did all the work but Pete was very 'hands-on')

Bee Lucky

Dave and myself have been inundated with calls since we both registered as swarm collectors. He now has all three of his TBHs filled, with another in one of his bait hives (destined for Shane's Island). I have a swarm to collect tonight from Branston (hopefully going to Pete in Belper) and another bumble bee nest to remove from a loft space in Chaddesden. Just to keep us on our toes, this Saturday we are intending to remove an established colony from a large chimney pot being used as a garden ornament. This will be very involved, cutting-out and fixing a lot of comb to bars, and will take a few hours hard work; if all goes well they will be moved into my new TBH.

And it's only Tuesday!

If you are wanting bees for a TBH get in touch. If you haven't got aTBH hive get making one.

Wandering Tutbury Bees

Hi all

We have been kept on our toes as they don't seem to like the desres we built!

As you can see they prefer the box to our hive - but stayed there then all flew off (via our neighbors summer house) then came back with box gone !

They now prefer the bush at the side of the hive , any way on closer inspection we found the queen was dead. We put her into the hive and guess what - they all went into the hive , now please bear in mid we are absolute novices here but the garden is a lot calmer and our neighbors are talking to us again!

For the next installment of our rollercoater time with bees keep watching the site

Mike and Monique

Unwanted visitors

I went to see my ailing colony on Saturday and found this critter crawling on the comb. Any ideas what it is?

Tutbury Bees (Part 2)

Boyd arrived with a box of bees for our hive and transfered them in using the shock technique !

A few were left in the box and so we left them in it under the hive overight. The next day we had had a transfer from the hive to a bush beside the hive and a swarm had built up . Again, Boyd came round and we put the box above the swarm . Boyd explained how to transfer them into the hive, and Monique was able to borrow a bee suit so that Mike could transfer them into the hive the next day.

Mike thought that was very brave of Monique to get the suit so made sure she was close enough to get a photo or two !

The Bees have now settled down and are purposefully flying over to the field beside us to make the most of what is left of the oil seed rape flowers , - we are finding them on the clover in our grass and on flowers around the garden . We have noticed that they are now comming back with pollen so hopefully this is a good sign .

We really have to say a huge thankyou to Boyd for his patenince , telephone support and enthusiasm.

Mike and Monique

Bumble Rescue III

On Friday evening I was supposed to move another swarm from Dave's bait hive in Moira to Pete's TBH in Belper, but the bees had other plans. They re-swarmed from the bait hive into one of Dave's nearby TBHs and, as they had made the decision unaided, we decided to leave them there. Pete was obviously disappointed but philosophical about the chain of events and is still first on the list for the next swarm. 

The evening was not entirely without bee activity as I'd received a call earlier in the day, from Steve and Valerie in Aston-on-Trent, regarding a small colony of bees that had taken up residence in a bird box. Their young dog had taken to eating any bees that came into his range and was stung in the mouth so thought it advisable to move them elsewhere. They were unsure whether they were honey or bumble bees, but from their description and the bird box location, I was almost certain that they were the latter. Being only ten minutes drive away I left the collection until till fairly late in order get as many of them as possible. The box itself was fixed about ten feet up on the trunk of a large tree but was easily accessed via the waiting ladder. In the fading light we waited for as many stragglers as possible to return and discussed the varied activities of the now confirmed bumble bees. Not being an expert of bumble bees I could only confirm that they were not Common Carders and the colony seemed to consist of several different types and sizes of bumble bee; ranging from large banded ones to small almost honey bee types. There was a lot of jockeying to go in and out of the box with several large ones seeming to hover around the entrance unsure whether to go in or not. I wondered if this was some sort of bumble bee boarding house where any stray/single bees could stop for the night. I suspect though that this is just me overlaying our experiences onto theirs and that they are all the same type just doing what bumble bees do before tucking-up for the night. Anyway, deciding we had all the bees we were going to get, I plugged the hole with sponge and twisted the box off its single fixing screw and tied it inside the waiting pillowcase.
  

After farewells it was a quick trip back home and a simple one screw fix on to another fence post in my garden. Throughout the bees were very calm and never once seemed over excited even when I was very close to the box entrance. I don't know if my small bee enclosure is reaching it maximum bee density, with three bumble bee boxes and two TBHs in fairly close proximity, but I'll keep a close eye on things and report back if hostilities should break out.



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.........