Looking out the window its hard to think that summer is here! Its already starting to rain and we are promised two more days then a brief respite before the next low pressure comes across the country.
But summer is here never the less and the last days of spring up to now has been a very busy period for Honey Bees and the fledgling period for Bumble Bees so the phone has been red hot!
The last one last night at the end of a quite Sunday afternoon was from the Landlord of the Ranleigh Arms about a swarm that was in his elderly neighbours garden. We got them just as a rain shower arrived , so by the time we had found them a new home we were pretty soggy. Needless to say just as we finished , the sun came out!!
This was swarm was number seven since the start of May. And we had lost count of the number of calls and advice we had given about the docile Bumble Bee.
There are various opinions of why Honey bees swarm, the one we subscribe to is that as the weather warms up the queens egg laying really gets into gear, its not long before the hive rapidly becomes congested. It’s the adult bees that decide its time to find a new home, so that don't feed the queen so much and chase here about to get her fit to fly, because she has not been put since here mating time shortly after she emerged. They also start the process of starting a a new queen by selecting up to a dozen healthy grubs to be fed more food and turned into queens
The Resident Queen obviously gets the message! ,And she will normally fly on the first sunny period after rain or a cold period. Usually first thing in the morning.
She takes most of the adult bees with her, leaving the the juveniles to look after the brood until the first of the new queens emerge , who will sting the others to death in their cocoons to ensure she is the one the throne.
Mean while the old queen has flown, usually not far and settled on a bush or fence ,
This is when we get the call!
Once settled in their temporary home, they send out scouts and will when they are ready depart for where ever the scouts decide is a desirable permanent home.
Obviously the good keeper will very often see what is going to happen and splits the hive taking the pressure off the over crowding and with the aid of one or more of the new queen cells form a new colony.
So at the time of going to press, we have found new homes with new keepers for three swarms, one we wanted to keep, but they absconded , but we did keep two other so we now have the grand total of six hives in two locations.
I will write again soon, kind regards to you all. Freddie
