I'm just back from the allotment where, in the moonlight, we rehoused the swarm I captured this afternoon. So, Hive 9 is now in place, next door to Hive 4. I hope they are all going to be happy with their new neighbours! The bees themselves were a bit frisky. Despite wearing smocks, I was stung once. David, alas, was stung 5 times. I will check the hive (from a modest distance) tomorrow morning when I open up the hen houses.
Last year, the extreme weather conditions caused the bees to go onto swarm overdrive. I was hoping to avoid swarms this year, especially now that the weather is drier and warmer. We are having fewer this time round but when an existing queen and a large number of the worker bees leave a colony to set up home elsewhere, there are fewer bees to gather nectar and make honey. A new virgin queen in the hive needs a few days to get mated and then needs to establish herself. Nevertheless, we've got another hive from today's exploits, even if we did see a second swarm head off into the distance.
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