Tales from Swallow Farm

Be sure to watch this amazzzing video of bees marching into their new hive. I can't believed I kept the phone so steady, especially with bees crashing into the screen!

This is the longest I've ever been without posting on my blog. There's nothing going on, it's just a reflection of just how incredibly busy we have been on the smallholding.

With the help of some volunteers the veg plot has been transformed. The poultry and sheep have not caused too many concerns, though an overnight rat attack on the ducklings was unpleasant to deal with.

But really it has been all about the bees. 19 swarms in 19 days!

We started May with 6 hives, though one contained only the remnants of a queenless colony. The first swarm occurred on 8th May and came from hive number 5. At this stage a swarm was still quite a novelty for us as we would only expect to come across one or two in a year. In fact Sue had never actually seen the bees swarm before this year, as they had an uncanny habit of avoiding weekends and usually waiting until she was away on headteachers conference.

An early swarm... little did we know what was to come

Since then all hell has let loose. We have had swarms from our hives, swarms coming in from elsewhere and even our bees pouring out of the hive to investigate other swarms, only to return to their own hive.

The bees have been pretty grouchy too. Working in the veg garden after about 11am has been a risky business. So much so that the decision has been taken to move the apiary down into the orchard. Hopefully most of the swarming is now over. Our bees certainly seem a lot more settled and kamikaze bees diving straight into your hair has become less than a daily event.

The overall result is that we now have NINE busy hives, including a new apiary down in the orchard.
I have been busy building new frames, brood boxes, rooves etc but we still had to give away three swarms as we ran out of spare hives to home them.

Most amazing has been our adoption of the marching in method of rehoming a swarm. For those who aren't familiar with bee-keeping, here's a quick description of the whole swarming and collection process:

Photos appear completely haphazardly due to Blogger making it virtually impossible to drop them where you want!

Swarming is a natural process which occurs when a colony of bees reaches capacity in its current home. It is their way of spreading and colonising. Before the swarm event, the bees start turning normal brood cells into queen cells, which appear completely different to the others. From these cells will hatch virgin queens, one of whom is destined to stay in the hive and begin a whole new generation of bees. On the day of swarming, usually a warm, sultry day, the old queen and about half the hive leave. They have filled up on honey before their departure. You can hear them inside the hive before they go. They then swirl around outside the hive and spread out over the garden. Eventually they start to congregate in one area, where the queen has settled, and after about twenty minutes they will have clustered into a protective ball around the queen. This is usually not too far from the hive they left.

At this point they are quite peaceful. I have walked right past them without even noticing them.

Sometimes they will remain in this cluster for up to a couple of days - one of my swarms got drenched overnight but was still able to be collected the next evening. On other occasions they quickly depart and head over the fields, gone forever. For they have sent out scouts to find a new home. This is a good time to observe their waggle dancing, as bees return to the swarm and communicate with the others in this amazing way, spinning, turning and shaking their bums!

This year has been a phenomenal year for swarms. It is still early in the season but the bee-keeping companies are working from 6am and have long back orders on hive parts. Goodness knows what is going on.
I do not see how all these swarms can be finding homes in a landscape devoid of natural cavities which would be suitable.

So you have a swarm settle in you garden. Typically they will be in a hedge or hanging from a branch. There are two ways to collect them. Ideally you can just snip the branch and the whole lot drop into a box. If you get the queen, they will stay in there and any that took to the air will find her too.
It's not always this easy though. Sometimes you have to give the branch a quick and violent shake so that the swarm falls into your box. This usually results in slightly more disturbance. Occasionally the queen remains on the branch and the whole lot return to her!

Once you've got the swarm in a box - nothing fancy, just a strong cardboard box is sufficient, you need to transfer them into a hive, assuming you have a spare one ready, and persuade them to stay in the nice new home you have created for them.
We always rub lemon balm leaves all over the frames inside the hive. Lemon balm is also known as bee balm and seems to be irresistible to our little friends. Before we did this, we would usually find our swarms departed the next morning.

To transfer the bees from your cardboard box to the hive there are two methods. You can tip them in the top and shut the lid. This is obviously quite disturbing for them and results in clouds of angry bees. It does usually work though.

But the second method is the one we have adopted this year. You construct a ramp in front of the hive you want them to move into. For some reason it is better if it is white, or we lay light fabric over the top. You then tip the bees onto this ramp and hope. What follows is astonishing.

The bees start marching up the ramp into the hive of their own accord. Some stand outside the hive, anchor themselves to the ground and fan the pheromones from the queen toward the swarm so they know which way to go.

Within half an hour most of the procession of bees is inside the hive. By the evening all of the stragglers are in.
We have now done this five times. There were a couple of glitches. One time the queen obviously stayed lodged in the corner of the box so they all marched the wrong way! I just shook them out again and it worked at the second time of asking.
Another time everything went smoothly until, a couple of hours later, I found the whole swarm back where I had collected them and the hive completely empty. It is just possible I had missed the queen when I collected them, or for some reason they didn't like the hive I had provided. I just rubbed more lemon balm inside the hive and collected the swarm again. I cut the remaining twigs to make sure there was nothing, queen or pheromones, to attract them back again. Four days later they are still in the hive.

During all of this, I have only picked up three stings. Two harmless on the head, but one full-on sting on the hand which swelled instantly and by the next day had my whole hand and lower arm double its normal size. Uncomfortable but nothing to worry about. It was my own fault. I decided to wear thinner gloves than normal whilst collecting a swarm in order to be able to use my phone to record the event. Not a wise move!