Bee Swarm

Bees swarmed last weekend! We were all on our way to the allotment so we left them to it. However when we got back they weren't in the apple tree. They always go into the apple tree first, but this lot haven't read that instruction book.

F found them - they were on the ground in the holly garden. Now that should have made it easy to collect them up. No balancing on the top of a ladder with a cardbord box in one hand and a paint brush in the other, but being on the ground only seemed to be more problematic. Mr B couldn't (or wouldn't) scoop them up.

He put a new home beside them, and a ramp, and some honey to make it interesting; then they both sat down with a glass of wine to watch.........

.......and nothing happened.

Some time later the hive was still there, the ramp was still there, and the bees were still there; a nice little mountain of bees. Eventually Mr B put my cardboard banana box over them and the bee hive on top.

The silly bees didn't go up through the hole in the banana box into the hive. They just clung to the inside of the banana box. So in the end Mr B had to go out after dark and tip them into the hive.

They've gone away now. A man put them in his car and took them to his place. It's like adoption; we got a message later to say that they have settled in nicely and are behaving well. I hope they like their new place, and that they have a kind supervisor there too.