A HIVE OF ACTIVITY

Or what happens when bees swarm

 AS MANY of you already know the whole tribe has spent the last year as beekeepers-in-training and for the last few weeks we have been beekeepers-in-waiting.
 There's such a shortage of the amazing honeybee that they're like gold dust which has driven some beekeepers into a life a crime! Apiary raids, stolen beehives and a thriving black market has emerged as supply is continually outstripped by demand.

WARRE: this model is octagonal and far more

pleasing on the eye than the National

 So, as a would-be beekeeper I've been left somewhere near the bottom of the pile when it comes to sourcing occupants for my hives ... I have three types; a Warre, a National and a Smith. Priority has gone to veteran beekeepers who can call on old friends and contacts - we're still regarded very much as outsiders.
 Just imagine my joy when, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a beekeeper in Ayr who'd taken delivery of a swarm. "Do you want them?" he asked. He explained normally he would keep them for himself but since he was going on holiday first thing the following morning he didn't have time to manage a new colony.
 Without thinking I said yes and the next day drove four hours through a horizontal rainstorm to Ayr. I hardly encountered a single car on the way though the trip was punctuated by some of the most breath-taking scenery on the way. When I collected the 'swarm' box it was literally buzzing!
 In all the excitement I didn't even check to see if the queen bee was inside; stupid really because without the queen a colony simply can not function.
 As I made the return journey I was ecstatic as my dreams of becoming a full blown beekeeper were about to be realised. However the joy was short-lived or a wee bit premature, actually, when in a heart-stopping moment two bees emerged from the rear of the car. I wondered if I should stop or continue and opted for the latter. I opened all the windows and by the time I was near home I was wet and cold but at least no more bees had emerged from the box. Where the two bees had come from I'm not sure, but may be they were part of the swarm and had followed us into the car.
 I swung by a local supermarket in Hawick to buy some sugar to make some bee food and phoned ahead to hubby asking him to get everything prepared for our new guests. To my annoyance he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is seemed singularly unimpressed. Instead of whooping with excitement at my news he had a story of his own to tell and gushed that he and a plumber had spent all morning and half the afternoon trying to unblock a water pipe. He told me he'd found the corpse of a dead animal which he couldn't flush from the pipe and had replaced the whole pipe as our entire water supply had been poisoned by the rotting body. However, despite all the gory details I was equally unimpressed with his countryside tale and felt my business was far more exciting and pressing.

PLANNING and preparation already underway 

for next week's arrivals - in theory less panic! 

 By the time I arrived to the madness we call home I was at fever pitch ... a combination of excitement and blind panic induced by a four hour journey in which I had envisaged being engulfed in a swarm of killer bees.

 Perhaps I should've calmed down, had a nice cup of tea and exchanged pleasantries and scones with hubby who was equally as high as a kite. He emerged from the loft triumphant having fitted new pipes and cleaned out the water tank which apparently contained all sorts of things you would not want to hear about here. I dismissed his tale with the wave of the hand and went for our bee kits.

 We donned our gloves and suits and headed for the National hive with the box still very much buzzing. The holidaying beekeeper had thoughtfully put in three frames for the bees and so the plan was to open the box and drop the frames into the empty hive. Simple enough? No! In layman's turns I had put the hive boxes in the wrong order and when I opened the box I was confronted by 10,000 bees the majority of which flew into the air and around my head. I tried to fit the frames into the National hive but they would not go. Mercifully, because they were part of a swarm the bees were still in party mood, full of honey from their previous hive and quite placid despite the rigors of my driving and now the ensuing fiasco of trying to fit the frames into the wrong box.

NATIONAL HIVE with the empty swarm box and preparations

underway to the right for the Warre hive and another colony

 I shouted at he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is to put the hive layers in proper order but he shouted back because his hands were full with the top of the hive and extra food in the form of a sugar and water mix (hence the stopover at Hawick to pick up a couple of pounds of granulated sugar.) What followed was a vexed two minute shouting match between a Geordie and an Algerian literally surrounded by a swarm of 10,000 bees. We both have a short fuse and at this point neither party listened to the responses of the other.
 I then asked him to see if he could spot the queen - he retorted in Algerian so goodness knows what swear words were being thrown around and then I realised there was something else I'd forgotten - the smoker.
 It's the first thing every beekeeper does before he even goes to a hive. It's as automatic as putting on a seatbelt. Armed with the smoker the beekeeper wafts smoke in the general direction of the hive and/or bees to pacify them. I had forgotten this essential piece of equipment. Jaw dropping on realisation I daren't tell my other half this basic fact and contemplated running like mad for the house. He'd already asked why the material on his bee suit was much thinner than mine and said he thought a bee sting could easily penetrate the material.

BUSY BEES: At the hive entrance

 Fortunately I held my nerve and we somehow or another managed to get the bees into the hive despite our Laurel and Hardy approach. Even more miraculously neither of us were stung and today, three days on, the hive is showing all the outward signs of being very busy and full of activity. It seems the queen is inside and all her subjects are going about their business despite their precarious start as a new colony.

 A veteran beekeeper has told me to leave the hive alone now for a week and then go in and make sure the queen is intact and that there are no signs of the dreaded varroa mite or other signs of illness. I will report back in due course.  Although we've been blessed with amazing weather since the bees arrived I did put in an extra feed for them until they get settled. This was an upturned bowl containing a sugar and water mix but I have a nagging doubt we did not fit it correctly. All will no doubt be revealed when I venture into the hive for the first time next week.  I hope the bees are still in party mood by then but I will remember to take the smoker with me.

 In the meantime I'm now preparing my octagonal Warre hive for some new occupants arriving via courier early next week. I'm getting a colony of Buckfast bees from Shropshire and next month our third hive - the Scottish-made Smith - will be occupied courtesy of a colony from the West of Scotland.

We have also joined the Scottish Beekeepers Association and shall be taking our first bee masters course later this year. Hubby and I are so competitive that if we don't get equal scores life will be unbearable for one of us!