Oh, Bee-hive!

Feeling marginally unsettled because we couldn't hive our new bee colony last night, we were up early, deciding just to go for it today, regardless of whatever weather conditions might be presenting themselves from beyond the net curtains.

Luckily, (for hiving bees in a raging storm would be a very foolish act indeed) the weather was calmer than yesterday. At least, it was dry, if overcast, and warmer, if still a tad breezy.

'Let's go fot it!' I declared, wriggling into my bee suit.
'Already ahead of you,' said Andy, at the stove making 1:1 sugar syrup as a 'Welcome to the Manor' breakfast treat.

We gathered the required accoutrements - hive, smoker, bee brush, hive tool, fresh foundation and frames, contact feeder filled with syrup, old duvet cover to spread on the ground in case we dropped the Queen. I say 'we', but it was going to be me who did the re-hiving, as Andy's bee-suit still hasn't arrived, so he would be standing at a distance, shouting instructions and taking photos and getting ready to rush indoors and grab the Piriton and anti-histamine cream should I get stung.

Andy went out to light the smoker (another excuse to play with the blow-torch, methinks), whilst I donned wellies and gloves and set about arranging the duvet cover on the ground and the hive on the duvet cover.

'Ready?' I said.
'Ready,' said Andy.

So much to remember. There were already a few bees venturing into the skies, and one managed to donk me on the back of my head because I was standing in its flight path. But once I got going, and with Andy shouting encouragement from the sidelines, I managed to shift the five frames from the nuc into the hive, in the right order, spotting a queen cell in the process. And some larva. I squished the cell, as it was close to being capped, and we didn't want our colony absconding with a new Queen within a week of arriving. The bees were fine, needing very little smoke, which was just as well because there was very little smoke to be had, what with us needing a lot of practise with the smoker still, to get goodly amounts of smoke happening.

Job done! We sat in the greenhouse (a handy and safe vantage point) and watched for a while - a few bees popped out, a few bees popped in. We'd narrowed the hive entrance to half its size, in order to give the small colony a chance to defend itself against invaders, and then we went off to Bee Keeping Part 8.

And when we returned at lunchtime - my goodness, it was bee chaos! Organised chaos, of course, but there were masses of bees around the hive, coming and going, and many of them with laden pollen sacs shimmering yellow, orange and white from their hind legs. They were focused on the job of being bees, and I was enthralled. I'd spent hours last night fretting about how they would settle in, and they just got on and did it, as bees are wont to do!

So now we have to wait until next weekend before we do our first inspection to see how life is progressing in the hive. But so far, so good.