High Jinks in Lhanbryde

For the second time in almost as many weeks it has been necessary to drive – ‘lickety spit’ – to Donna and Ronnie Clark’s home in Lhanbryde.

Why? Her bees are swarming!!

Donna, who is the Treasurer of Moray Beekeepers Association has to go to work to keep her bees in the manner to which they are accustomed and Ronnie, who works off-shore, keeps an eye on ‘the girls’ when he is at home. Ronnie being a novice beekeeper – but keen – is not quite confident – yet! – to deal with swarms and so Graham and Viv Hill are his first port of call when he needs another pairs of hands.

The clever thing about all this is that Donna’s bees always manage to swarm to within a few feet of the hive and so the three of us, armed with ‘loppers’ and a skep, collect them up and – hey presto – Donna now has three colonies. Lucky girl.

With so many folk losing colonies this past winter or two she has the great fortune to be queen-right in all three!

4 comments

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    • ajtony on 18 May, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    I feel like I am missing out this season as my bees aren’t in the least looking like swarming yet – and I enjoy chasing swarms. honest!

    With all these new virgin Queens around we need plenty of drones and some good weather so they can mate successfully and commence laying.

    Don’t want to panic Donna or anyone else but her 3 colonies are not yet ‘queenright’ but hopefully will be in a couple of weeks.

    Bee good you ‘swarm chasers’, ha, ha!

    • on 17 May, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    Well at least they don’t settle 30ft up a tree! What co-operative swarms you’re having Donna!

    • Donna Clark on 16 May, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Ha ha, Viv! These extremely prolific little darlings seem to like hiding the queen cells very deeply within mishapen burr comb. But Ron and I have finally accepted that we have to be ruthless and have now lopped the burr comb off! Graham should hopefully now be able to watch his snooker in peace…

    Many thanks to Graham, Viv and Tony for their patience 🙂

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