The Rabbits Nose

They say a swarm in May is worth a load of hay........personally I have little use for such things as dried grass, unless of course it's of a type that can be rolled into a six inch spliff and happily smoked round the back of my potting shed.

There are few things in life that get my bum twitching at the speed of the proverbial 'Bunnies Nose' but Bee swarms are one.....in fact my arse could easily be described as being in overdrive as cruise control almost lost control. This is really a ridiculous reaction as Bees, I am reliably informed, are at their most soporific during swarming, having selfishly gorged themselves on the honey they've gathered and that I was planning to steal. The bastards.

They had clustered themselves onto one of my best pines, namely Pinus sylvestris "Doone Valley" forming a tight shank about the size of a leg of lamb down the main stem. It was then a question of picking up the pine and with a hard thump, knocking them off and into the waiting skep......or in this case an upturned 35 litre plant pot modified with gaffer tape. Fucking hell.

Unfortunately half way through proceedings my phone rang, it was Robert asking me how things were going, he was talking me through the process being something of an expert now having done the course and got the medal........and dealt with swarms. But this one was mine to deal with as he was running Eggleston while I "fannied about with a few bees" at Barningham.

Having got the main body of bees into the skep/pot with hopefully the queen, it was then a question of upturning the thing and leaving a narrow gap at the bottom for all the stragglers to rejoin the crowd, as in todays image. In theory it would then be a question of going back at night and tipping the skep/pot of bees into their new hive. No shit!

Best laid plans of mice and men.......

Two problems arose; Firstly I didn't have a new hive. Secondly half the little fuckers decided to cling to the outside of the skep/pot.....at this point and with the bees recovering from their honey/drug induced stupor it was necessary to shake them into a new box (called a nucleus box).....this induced a new even more vigorous bout of rabbits nose, these bees were now even more pissed off. I shook, tapped, rattled, and generally encouraged them into their new quarters, however a few hundred seemed to have got it into their tiny heads that I was a big fat bear about to snitch their honey and were full of hell, so a tactically hasty retreat was beaten.

24 hours later they seemed settled into their new temporary home, all was quiet till I approached the box whereupon three guard bees (I kid you not, they have guards) came straight for me right between the eyes......

Eventually Robert arrived to stuff up the entrance of the nucleus box with foam and take them away to the woods at Eggleston Hall Gardens where they will stay for a couple of weeks until their new permanent home at Plantsmans Corner is ready. We shall then be the proud custodians of two hives of bees........already the original hive has produced 24 jars of honey this spring and requests for the product far outweighs supply.

I would advise anyone reading this that beekeeping is an ancient craft and both enthralling and rewarding, I feel it also benefits the countryside and gives us a link with our traditional and much missed rural past........I just wish my arse would stop twitching when a few hundred bees occasionally show their displeasure.