I got home about 6pm to find an excited message about the bees and went to investigate to find them in shrub about four feet off the ground. I dashed home to improvise a swarm collecting kit. I chose my smartest cardboard box (thank you Emma Bridgewater) and a white sheet, loaded my bee things into a wheelbarrow and suited up (bee stings hurt).
Needless to say that the edifying sight of me in my bee suit waving a smoker around drew a crowd of interested onlookers so I had to pretend I knew what I was doing. Sarah gamely put on my spare jacket and helped me cut away the branches the bees were hanging from so I could put them in the cardboard box. I then inverted this over the white sheet and propped up a corner so the bees could get in and then gently smoked the bees remaining in the shrub. So far so good. The idea is that if the queen is in the cardboard box, the flying bees will be attracted to her and should all make their way in as dusk falls. I then dashed home to get a spare hive ready for its new occupants.
When I returned at 7.30 pm, the bees had obviously read the same text book as me and were all in the box. I wrapped the sheet over the top of the box and loaded into the wheelbarrow and took them home (followed by the interested audience). I then had to get them into the hive. This was achieved by tipping the box over the hive and shaking them in. The bees at the entrance to the hive then fanned pheremones to encourage stragglers to make their way inside. Some made their way back into the cardboard box probably attracted by the lingering scent of the queen. I shook these onto the white sheet which I had put over a board sloping up to the hive entrance and encouraged them up with the smoker.
Well fingers crossed the queen is in there. I will feed them sugar syrup tomorrow and hopefully they will stay.
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