The Weather in Elgin, this morning, is +16C and blowing a hooley from the north-west with intermittent blustery showers too.
Graham went to our apiary to walk the dogs with a view to my meeting him there at 10.30 to remove the nucleus bees (from yesterday) into a brood box. Arriving on time there was no Graham to be seen so I donned my ‘outfit’ and walked towards the hives to note that G. was in the middle of a swarm and busily trying to make some sense out of it. The wind was not helping and many of the bees had taken cover on the south and east side of fence posts in front of their hive.
A nucleus box was ready and already had some of the bees in it but the rest were playing hide and seek around the said post.
When we had eventually put the majority of bees in the box and there was not too many left I happened to see ‘her majesty’ running around the post and I swear she had her thumb to her nose – looking straight at me!! We caught her and, somewhat unceremoniously stuffed her into the nucleus box after which we had the pleasure of watching bees doing a Noah’s Ark impression. Thank goodness. You will note that I haven’t used the word ‘cavalier’ today – getting to be a bit ‘old hat’!
For those who read the blog and can count we now have nine colonies. AND………..no more equipment. Help!
