That we had to help catch our own swarm...
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| The Swarm decided on a somewhat unusual temporary home... |
The swarm was found on a traffic island right in the middle of a major junction and was in such a worrying position we even had our very own police escort. I don't think it was their usual call out...
It was 8pm and getting cold so the swarm was collected together for the night and there was a low chance of leaving any stragglers. Having sprayed them with a little sugar solution to encourage them to wake up a little, we collected the swarm into a frameless Nuc box and gently wrapped them in a sheet...
The Swarm was taken back to the school and gently tipped into the newly prepared Top Bar Hive. We tipped them at the end farthest from the entrance so that they were warmer and left them some fondant to get them started...
The top bar hive is different from a national or commercial hive in that it does not have frames but allows the bees to build their own combs in a more natural way. It also allows inspection of the hive with only a small amount of exposure to the colony. That said it does have it's limitations in that standard frames cannot fit into the hive and you can't just keep adding supers on top...
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| The Top Bar Hive... |
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