4 minute read
Waiting for the Bees
Simon Ferris
Simon Ferris.
In February I attended an event to build a top bar hive, at Bere Marsh Farm in Dorset. The farm is owned by the Countryside Restoration Trust and there were six of us, I think, that attended a workshop and assembled hives in a day, under the guidance of Jim Binning. He is based in Bridport and known as "Jim the Bee". You may know of him; he is a kind man and patiently helped us all assemble our hives. The timber had been sourced locally (western red cedar, rough sawn but all pre-cut to size). Our workshop was held the day after storm Eustice. At least the barn where the workshop took place was still standing. I set my hive up in the garden and also put out an old national brood box - on a new stand and with a new roof (seconds, from Maisemore Apiaries).
On 27th and 28th May I scythed some of the long grass in our garden. Within a day or so, scout bees appeared at both the top bar hive and the national brood box. I was encouraged and for some days the scout bees kept visiting ... but then disappeared as quickly as they came. I didn't expect to see them back again, thinking they had found a home elsewhere.
Then on Sunday 12th June at 2:30pm Juliet, me and my sister were outside the house, having a cup of tea after a lunch at our favourite pub. As we sat with our tea, interrupting that quiet afternoon came a strange sound, almost as if out of nowhere. I said it sounded like a swarm of bees, but couldn't at first see anything, but then ... half way up our garden above the apple trees was this cloud of activity (and noise) - absolutely amazing! We watched for a time - of course I hoped the bees' plan was to go straight into my lovely (as I saw it, at least) new top bar hive and I would then sit back, knowing I was now a fully-fledged natural beekeeper. It didn't quite happen that way though.
The swarm drifted a little, more over our neighbours’s garden, to a high multi-stemmed ash tree. Earlier in the year some of the boughs of that tree had been taken off by a tree surgeon, but at its base is the remains of an old stem, now about 10 ft high, in which, on the far side, is an opening to a cavity. Well, after about ten minutes of the swarm having arrived, it seems the queen was in there pretty quickly, as the bees didn't cluster as such - there were many flying around of course, but within a couple of hours I would say they had all taken up residence.
The swarm preferred a cavity in a mature tree in my neighbour's garden.
I watched and waited hoping they would choose my hive.
Fortunately, our neighbours are ok with bees (the next neighbour over has gardeners who used to keep bees) and they will be left undisturbed. I'm hoping that maybe next spring that wild colony will swarm and find that the top bar hive is then acceptable. It may be that the wood was a little too damp still (I noticed that when assembling, the screws would squeeze damp from the timber) so this dry summer will hopefully have helped season the hive sufficiently.
I cannot help wondering if a) there is any connection between scything grass and bees appearing and b) whether the scout bees would have found their nearby natural home anyway, or whether the bait hives attracted the scouts to the area initially and then the natural home was found and preferred.
I know of other conventional beekeepers in nearby villages and there may be a swarm available next year via them, if I keep my ear to the ground. I've also joined the Hampshire Natural Bees group - a very helpful and friendly lot.
