A Garden Full of Bees

I had a phone call yesterday from the lady whose bees I look after; they'd swarmed. It was a dreary, drizzly, murky day so I hopped in the car with a box and a beesuit and went to collect them. The cluster of bees was beautifully situated on an overhanging branch, about head height, along a path :-) couldn't be better. So although bees are very rarely aggressive when they swarm as they've nothing to defend, Ann's are a feisty lot so I did put on my suit and after a sharp tap on the branch, into the box they went. I wrapped them in a sheet just in case as there were a few stragglers - a couple of whom decided to negotiate their way out of the folds of material and buzz ominously around the car as I was driving home.

There were a lot of bees as I put them in to a hive in my garden, but despite the rain they all flew around orientating themselves to their new home. A good job done.

Or so I thought. I noticed this morning that there were a lot of bees around the other 2 hives: not just at the entrance but also trying to get in to the vents and the floor and buzzing along the joins between the hive boxes looking for gaps. Little whatsits were trying to rob my hives!! So, back on with the beesuit and gloves, and armed with a roll of parcel tape and the tiniest, most useless pair of scissors we own, I set about reducing the size of the entrances to the hives so that the guard bees had a smaller gap to defend from their cheeky upstart new neighbours. Trying to unwrap parcel tape, cut parcel tape with Christmas cracker-quality scissors and stick parcel tape on to wood all whilst wearing rubber gloves and in slightly breezy conditions - well, I'm glad nobody was filming that particular exercise in cack-handedness. Or indeed recording; my language had deteriorated somewhat by this stage. And I couldn't seem to retain in my head that there was no point in trying to sever the tape with my teeth: I was wearing a veil. Anyway, the new bees seem to have calmed down now and left the others alone. The tape's still on the entrances which they don't really mind, although you can almost hear the tutting as the bees return, laden with pollen, and have to queue up at the doorway.

My new run arrived today (yes, another one!) as I thought the ducks needed more room, especially with the prospect of babies. It's really good and I feel much happier about them being in there. Rose helped me build it:

Isn't it great? It's the large freestanding lawn run from Flyte So Fancy - I have been so impressed with their other stuff and this is no exception. John and Jean and any future family will be safe and secure in there, and I can fit their big tub of water in too.

I must go and look for Mary the Adventurous Hen who has been gone for a couple of hours which she does frequently. Off she goes, all on her own in the more-than-chicken-high wheat crop behind the house. I did find myself having a fleeting, subconscious thought that I should text her......

Ahh

Saturday was hatching day for Blossom's/nextdoor's eggs, and sure enough, I peeked in to the broody coop and saw a fluffy black and a damp blonde chick. By the evening there were 5: 2 black, 2 blonde and one who's a mixture, and very large. We think he's a baby Gloria, who is also currently broody in nextdoor's coop and we think he's a he because of the black spot on his head; certain combinations have gender-specific markings.

It's a poor picture as the horrible weather convinced me that Bloss and the babies would be better off back in the rabbit hutch in the warm shed (rather than my home-made coop), which is cosy for a mother hen but gloomy for a photo op. I went along to Middle Farm and bought some Garvo Alfamix Chick Starter which looks really delicious, and as Blossom has been brought up on nice expensive mash, she'd looked in the dish of [organic] grey chick crumb and didn't seem bothered about encouraging the chicks. The feed shop owner said "you're spoiling them!" when I told him I was buying it for 5 new additions. He may have a point. The dried amphipods and herbal extracts did the trick though and she was soon bok-bokking and the little chicks were cheeping and pecking around in the shavings. Ahh :-)

Jean is also sitting patiently in her Dinky Duck House:

I'm not entirely sure when her eggs are due to hatch but hopefully the rain will have eased by then.

My bees swarmed yesterday, or indeed it could have been the day before as it was a tiny swarm in the beech hedge. I'm hoping it's not a cast swarm, where a second queen - a princess - leaves with a small group of foragers as it will mean I have lost the swarm with the original queen and her large entourage, which usually is in the region of half the adult bees. It's too wet and cold to open up the hive to see how many bees are left on the frames (it's like the Marie Celeste after the initial or 'prime' swarm leaves) but I did pop the cluster into my new skep and decant them in to a hive I had ready. They were very sluggish though and I squashed a lump of solidified honey into the frames under the crownboard as despite filling themselves to the brim from the stores in the hive before leaving, they will have used up their crop-full of honey as fuel to keep them warm in the hedge. They need to eat plenty of honey to make wax, as it's secreted from wax glands which is a high energy process, so hopefully they will be able to refuel so that the queen can get laying. If she's a princess, she will need to go on her mating flight first which takes the pressure off the comb-builder bees as she won't be ready to lay eggs until about 3 weeks after she's flown out and found herself a batch of suitable drones one afternoon up in the sunny sky...yes, she may be waiting a while! It was a bit warmer this afternoon and the bees were orientating themselves outside their new home, so I am really hoping for some good weather over the next few weeks so they can go and forage.

I went over to the farm on Friday and split the large colony into two, and with luck I've done it in time to deter them from swarming, as I'm not on hand there to collect them as easily. The bees were really calm, and I decided not to use a smoker as I find it stressful keeping it alight, and I don't know if it works as a calming agent anyway. I try to be really gentle and measured when I work the bees as they release an alarm pheromone when they sting or get crushed which is understandable but deeply unhelpful from a beekeeper's perspective. I found an unsealed queen cell on a frame and popped that in the hive opposite with some more frames of brood and a box of honey on top. I'll go and check they are flying next time it's warm.

It was my parent's joint birthday party yesterday which was great fun, and I was the lucky recipient of the contents of my aunt's shed which she brought over with her. It's like a gardening treasure trove - lovely terracotta pots and a proper besom broom among other things. I had put some lemon pips in to compost back in the autumn and forgotten about them; lo and behold, they germinated. I've potted them up into the terracotta pots and they look charming with their glossy leaves so I should have some nice citrus houseplants!

Hot

Well it's been the hottest day of the year apparently and so of course I celebrated the hottest part of the hottest day in my beesuit. I had checked my bees yesterday as they swarmed while I was out so I took measures to prevent them swarming again...honestly I think they muster up a swarm just to embarrass me; there's probably lots of tittering in the hive as I check through and they all make sure they conceal a tiny queen cell so I miss it.

Anyway, as you may have gathered, my bees don't swarm like this:



Courtesy of beemaster.com

Oh no, mine prefer more of a challenge:

That's it - spread yourselves around...

Soooooo I put a sheet under the table and then gave the top a whack and popped them into a travel box:

so it wasn't that bad really.

I had a tutorial in Croyden yesterday and came home feeling I should achieve something so started tidying my bedroom, which brought on my housework allergy, meaning I ended up feeling rather poorly with a migraine so I couldn't go out :-( and instead of going for dinner or the cinema or something nice, Charles came round and kindly tidied up my kitchen for me while I felt grotty and rather sorry for myself on the sofa sipping chamomile tea. He's feeling tired and wiped out today so perhaps he's allergic too...

I have almost finished my assignment though as I can't seem to rouse myself to do anything terribly energetic so have spent the morning in bed surrounded by textbooks and bits of paper. It's a glorious day outside but quite hot so I'll wait til later before going into the garden. First thing this morning it was very misty but had the promise of a hot day (or was it because the Met Office have been banging on about it):

Gratuitous pic of cute bunbun

"Blueberries and Cream" lavender

I am feeling rather inspired by plants having watched the BBC4 programme Botany: A Blooming History which was extremely interesting, despite about 8 interruptions while iPlayer buffered, froze and inexplicably conked out. I'm studying genetics too so it all ties in.

Hard work

As the forecast was good for today, when I woke up I thought I must check my bees who have been sorely neglected since I started working at a bee farm - cobbler's child is poorly shod etc. Once I'd walked the dog and put the bunny back (she'd finished excavating the tunnel under the run...!) I started the round of circular and difficult phone calls about outstanding marital debt which put me in a marvellously stressed frame of mind to start rounding up the hens before leaving for Latin, exacerbated by Amber and Rosie who seem determined to qualify for Olympic gold medals in Pointless Bickering.

The hens were in the field and in gathering them in, I heard an ominous buzzing from the hedge at the same time as T said "Ooh there's a swarm". Arghghghhgh dammit! I galloped in, donned beesuit, grabbed small hive and plonked bees in. Took off beesuit, shouted copiously at the children and roared off to Eastbourne.

Got back to find bees back in hedge. Plonked bees in small hive again and stuck it under the hedge.

Stay!!

Went for cup of tea with Laura, came back and there were still loads of bees flying around and I discovered another swarm in the hedge outside the back door:

Handy

Meanwhile I had checked the other hives to work out who had swarmed and decided to unite two other hives so there were bees absolutely everywhere:

Seriously, bees everywhere

Especially when the bees in the hedge by the back door mobilised and decided to go back to the hive in the absence of anywhere better:

Waste of time that was

They probably won't be allowed back in by the bees in the hive and when I checked at dusk there were quite a few hunkered down under the floor of the hive. They'll probably swarm again tomorrow but I've nowhere to put them so they'll have to take their chances in the outside world.  Luckily Charles took the swarm under the hedge after a much-needed drink at the pub.

I am absolutely exhausted! :-)