Goodbye - and Good Luck - to Miriam!

Miriam's colony has been living in the blue nucleus for the last few weeks, and were doing well when I checked last weekend.  But with 2 full-sized hives, and 2 nucs to look after, I've really had my work cut out for me recently.  So, I decided I'd see if I could find another beekeeper who would be interested in adopting Miriam.

The nearest bees to mine are actually really close - just the other end of St Mark's Road, in the burial ground off Lyncombe Hill.  So I got in touch with Jessica, who keeps a hive there, to see if she was interested, or knew anyone who was.

It was good news - Sarah and Jack also look after a hive there and were interested in getting a new colony.  So, we arranged to meet at dusk on Sunday for them to collect the nuc, and move it to the other end of the street.

There was one important issue to consider though - the bees' excellent homing instinct.  Now, this is normally very much an advantage - whenever a worker bee goes out foraging, she really needs to return to the same hive.  And because bees have such a keen sense of direction and location, she always does.  Partly this is done through remembering geographical features over their foraging range - something which I find remarkable, since a bee's brain is only the size of a grain of rice.  But herein lies the problem:  Lyncombe Hill is well within the bees' foraging range, which means that they will recognise all the local features and, when it's time to head home, they'll come back to my apiary instead of their new home.

There are two ways round this.  The first way is to move the colony at least three miles away from the original location, which would put them outside of their foraging range.  Then, when they head out of the hive, they have to learn all the new geography, and they forget what they had previously remembered.  After a week, you move them to the new location.  Even though it's near the original apiary, they will by this time have forgotten their way around, and will have to re-learn it - but, with the new hive location as the point that they will return to after foraging.

That's all fine, but it's a bit of a palaver.  So, there's option two - bribery!  Basically, once the nuc is at the new location, you keep the bees confined inside for a day by turning the entrance block to the closed position.  And you feed them (I covered feeding in a previous article if you want to see how it's done).  Then, you open the entrance block up and keep feeding for a few more days - and hopefully the bees will stay around the nuc, taking advantage of the free food, rather than flying off back to where their old home used to be.

Obviously, we chose option two.

But, this meant putting a feeder bowl, and a spacer box (known as an eke) onto the nuc between the brood box and the roof.  I've done this before with the blue nuc - and it works fine in situ - but because the eke I have is actually a little small (it's sized for the brown nuc, which is slightly narrower) it's no good for transporting.  So, to get the bees ready for their move, I had to swap the whole colony with the bees in the brown nuc.  Luckily, local Hymenoptera fan Stew was on hand to help!

Once Miriam and her bees were all safely re-homed in the brown nuc, I put the eke on top, secured the feeder bowl in place (gaffer tape is one of a beekeeper's most useful tools!) put the roof on and secured the whole stack with a ratchet strap, ready for transportation.

I met Jack and Sarah at dusk as arranged, and it was such a short distance that they were happy to carry the hive down to the other end of St Mark's Road.  Sarah lifted the roof, topped up the feeder bowl with some syrup that she'd prepared, and then we left the bees to settle in to their new home.  It's a lovely little green space, with primroses in the springtime, and I think Miriam's bees will be very happy there.

Nothing much to report from the hives, except that the bees in number 2 were in a grotty mood again this week.  However, it's now July, and my thoughts are starting to turn towards honey.  There is already one box of ten frames (in hive number 2) that is fully capped with wax - which means that the honey is ready to extract.  Also, a box of frames in hive number 1 is getting close - around half the cells of comb are capped, and with fair weather this week I may have 20 frames of honey ready to extract by next weekend.  Time to order some more jars...

And finally - the bees' landlady, Gill, was in the garden this week with her camera and took some lovely shots of the hives, and the bees foraging on her lavender.  Enjoy!