Collected a swarm.It had landed on a church boundary wall.
Four foot off the ground.
Textbook capture.
Returning later for the mopup.
Big contrast to Thursday when an acquaintance pleaded me to do a cutout.
I grudgingly obliged but as it hapened things could have been slightly worse.
The (now adult) kids old wendy house had slipped its moorings and tumbled off its hillside perch ten foot down the bank onto the lawn.
It was an 8 ft sqare hut with a 5"deep floor void completely stuffed with comb.
The old boy had taken it upon himself to rake off as much comb with a garden hoe as he could (???)before giving up and taking the ladyships advice and calling someone who knew what they were doing.
But he called me instead.
It wasnt that bad really,they obviosly were reasonably pissy by then but I think I got Q in the first boxful and two more and it was full.I tipped out a few more helpings onto the sheet,and left them while I went to get another nuc.
By sunset I had 99percent of them plus two additional bin bags of broodcomb and one of honeycomb.And a hole in my veil which two bees had made good use of
He called on Friday to say they were back
It turned out there was around another boxful in the residual timbers of the original site.,now closely guarded by the remaining flying bees.
Three hours,a spray bottle full of sugary water,two more stings and they were eventally bagged.
Ive been to see them today-fairly lively,probably a split and requeen.We'll see.
Both these people insisted on paying me- I asked for them to donate to the hospice instead - everybody wins!
As I said after my previous cutout- never, ever again....
Four foot off the ground.
Textbook capture.
Returning later for the mopup.
Big contrast to Thursday when an acquaintance pleaded me to do a cutout.
I grudgingly obliged but as it hapened things could have been slightly worse.
The (now adult) kids old wendy house had slipped its moorings and tumbled off its hillside perch ten foot down the bank onto the lawn.
It was an 8 ft sqare hut with a 5"deep floor void completely stuffed with comb.
The old boy had taken it upon himself to rake off as much comb with a garden hoe as he could (???)before giving up and taking the ladyships advice and calling someone who knew what they were doing.
But he called me instead.
It wasnt that bad really,they obviosly were reasonably pissy by then but I think I got Q in the first boxful and two more and it was full.I tipped out a few more helpings onto the sheet,and left them while I went to get another nuc.
By sunset I had 99percent of them plus two additional bin bags of broodcomb and one of honeycomb.And a hole in my veil which two bees had made good use of
He called on Friday to say they were back
It turned out there was around another boxful in the residual timbers of the original site.,now closely guarded by the remaining flying bees.
Three hours,a spray bottle full of sugary water,two more stings and they were eventally bagged.
Ive been to see them today-fairly lively,probably a split and requeen.We'll see.
Both these people insisted on paying me- I asked for them to donate to the hospice instead - everybody wins!
As I said after my previous cutout- never, ever again....
