Bees,My latest addition

Wow... good luck - would love to emulate but B reacts very badly to bee stings.

fantastic blog, i would love to keep bees

Brill blog and photos

how did she manage to get them off the tree~and carry them?~ must admit to being fascinated and very interested!
I am trying to get my son in law to have some on their RSPCA site~ this year they had a buttercup meadow that was covered in millions of flowers!They have quite a lot of land away from the public areas but he says they are worried about possible liability.

Lovely blog...nice to see bees in a garden.

Arlene,They are collected into a carrying box by just scooping them up.
Normally a queen is in the middle of them,having been made to leave the previous hive .
If a second queen is born in the hive,she is made to leave and some of the bees usually go with her.Only one queen reigns in a hive.

The queen that is made to leave is in need of a new home and often stays in a tree or somewhere she feels safe .
A bee-keeper would normally have one of these spare boxes which is also the bottom layer of the hive.
They really are fascinating. They have several 'guards' on duty at night,to stop wasps from entering the hive to steal the honey. If a wasp is around the guards call the others to defend the hive.

Actually,a bee will only sting when feeling threatened. So far we have not felt worried at all ! I just carry on with my work in the garden and the bees have entered my greenhouse whilst I am in there and are interested only in any flowers,as many as four have been in there at one time. They ignore me.'
When Adele collected the bees ,it was a ball of them almost as big as a football. She could not see the queen at the time ,but knew one must have been in the middle somewhere.

Next spring she thinks another queen will be born and plans to separate it ,along with some of the worker bees,and place into another hive ,before the resident queen has a chance to throw her out.

We have a second hive ( not yet put together) ,and then I shall house the second nucleus in the second hive in my garden.

Although I have seen more bees than usual around my garden,I do not have them all around me,it is just that I am more aware these days.
They travel away from their hive up to a mile and more !! amazing !!
Another strange fact is that once placed in position,the hive must not be moved. It can be moved not more than a few inches. ( or it must be moved to over a mile from the previous site )Once moved,with the queen and her subjects inside ( entry blocked),providing it is over a mile ,it is accepted as home and they are content.

The queen will reign for around three years,and is then replaced by one of the queens that will have hatched from her own eggs. The eggs take 21 days to hatch ( same as a chicken egg )
Isn't this all wonderful ?