D'you ever get that funny feeling that you're being managed? You know the one - where events conspire to reveal that really - it's not you in charge, but someone (or something) else entirely.
And what about that odd gut feeling you get when you know something's happening behind your back? If you could just peer closer, behind the curtains, you'd see that you're being subverted somehow. And because your timing is just, just infinitismally off, the days and hours slip through your fingers and before you know it you've been most Royally Gazumped.
Well, yes. That's happened to me.
My bees swarmed.
Not only did they swarm; they achieved it in the most spectacular fashion. Let me tell you the story. If you're seated comfortably I'll begin ...
It has been unseasonably cold over the past month. April and May have been filled with rainy patches, cloud, gusty winds and shivering temperatures. In between, here and there a warm moment but in the main, it has been cold. So I have stayed away from the bees. I didn't want to worry them. I didn't want to expose them to the chill. And of course I knew they wouldn't swarm - because everybody told me so.
However I never realised how dangerous this particular time of year can be in beekeeping terms. It seems that now is the time for healthy colonies to expand at a massive rate. And quietly - covertly, sneakily - that is what my Itchy Knee colony has been doing, completely unbeknown to unsuspecting innocent little old me. Under all those hive layers they've simply boiled up from the brood box into the brood-and-a-half super and birthed babies at an alarmingly fast rate.
Now don't get me wrong, I've been worried, alright. On Tuesday evening after work I snuck down to the hive and lifted the roof carefully. A satisfying ZUMMMMMMMMMM response was heard and I thought "ah, ok, all is well. They're not planning to swarm." Ha bloody ha! That day - that VERY day - those little tarts were planning an exit; were ready to go; were in fact probably already on the way out. Did I notice? Did I deign to look right at my neighbours hut or apple tree? No, of course I didn't. Silly me, after all. Why would I?!
On Wednesday morning I sat blithely in my tiny attic room looking down with naive satisfaction at the garden, at the neighbour's tree, all over the place. Revelling in the early morning sunshine. Just like those sneaky little girl-bees. Already out on the town, they were.
But let me tell you, I was STILL worried. I had wondered - all week - if I shouldn't just sneak some time off work and come home to do a Hive Inspection in the heat of midday. But I didn't . Mea culpa.
Last night I came home after an earth-shattering day at work, in which we had to do a partial evacuation of 46 shops because of a bomb alert which closed the whole of Piccadilly in Mayfair. Earth-shattering I tell you. And because I've been feeling quite ill - just slightly off my game with a head cold - I just climbed into my pyjamas and headed for bed with a bowl of Curiously Cinnamon and an Artemis Fowl comic book. 15 minutes later the front door bell rang.
When I opened it and saw Anu and Vic standing there, my heart sank. "Oh no, the drains have gone again" I thought. They looked incredibly tentative and Anu said, "I have this little problem." Vic said, "come and look at what is in our tree." And then I knew. Oh dear god! Of all places to go, they chose my delightful; my favourite; my nicest of all my neighbours. The ones with a little child - a young daughter. Two weeks before, when I discovered that Guy had told them we keep bees, I was seriously upset. But without a doubt,it was the best thing that could've happened.
Because last night when they came to tell me they had a swarm of bees in their apple tree, they weren't angry. They were a little frightened, to be sure, but on the whole they were genuinely intrigued and fascinated. Vic had spent hours watching the bees crawl in their thousands across the top of their garden shed, mould into 4 separate and distinct "balls" of bees then gradually morph into a huge, tight column of bees hanging from a thin branch on their tree. His young daughter too seemed fearless and filled with the wonder and magic of it all.
At first I thought, "perhaps it's not my bees" and rushed down to look at my hive. But the hive told me nothing. And when I stood in my garden and looked over at the weird phenomenon hanging in the tree, I knew. Of course they were mine! Of all the thoughts rushing like hurricane waters breaking over the levees of New Orleans, the largest looming were "Oh dear! Oops! Oh no!" Except there were swear words. Lots of 'em. Big ones. Rude ones. I felt mortified. I'd let 'em slip by me; slip past me, get away to do the one thing I'd feared the most. Upset the neighbours. Except - through all the shenanigans of last night - it appears that they weren't too upset. I have been blessed with awesome neighbours. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
And lucky above all else that my bees had the sense to settle close by, so I could catch them, retrieve them, leash them, and bring them back to where they rightfully belong - in a new hive box at the bottom of the garden next to Itchy Knee.
Of course my first call was to Ron, my mentor, whose first worry was a ladder. "A ladder!?!?" I remember thinking. "That's the LEAST of our worries!" Ha! Thank God for Ron and his ladder. He made the whole retrieval process so simple and so quick, he had the bees down in a beer box in about 10 minutes flat. He had a fascinated audience that comprised:
My bees swarmed.
Not only did they swarm; they achieved it in the most spectacular fashion. Let me tell you the story. If you're seated comfortably I'll begin ...
It has been unseasonably cold over the past month. April and May have been filled with rainy patches, cloud, gusty winds and shivering temperatures. In between, here and there a warm moment but in the main, it has been cold. So I have stayed away from the bees. I didn't want to worry them. I didn't want to expose them to the chill. And of course I knew they wouldn't swarm - because everybody told me so.
However I never realised how dangerous this particular time of year can be in beekeeping terms. It seems that now is the time for healthy colonies to expand at a massive rate. And quietly - covertly, sneakily - that is what my Itchy Knee colony has been doing, completely unbeknown to unsuspecting innocent little old me. Under all those hive layers they've simply boiled up from the brood box into the brood-and-a-half super and birthed babies at an alarmingly fast rate.
Now don't get me wrong, I've been worried, alright. On Tuesday evening after work I snuck down to the hive and lifted the roof carefully. A satisfying ZUMMMMMMMMMM response was heard and I thought "ah, ok, all is well. They're not planning to swarm." Ha bloody ha! That day - that VERY day - those little tarts were planning an exit; were ready to go; were in fact probably already on the way out. Did I notice? Did I deign to look right at my neighbours hut or apple tree? No, of course I didn't. Silly me, after all. Why would I?!
On Wednesday morning I sat blithely in my tiny attic room looking down with naive satisfaction at the garden, at the neighbour's tree, all over the place. Revelling in the early morning sunshine. Just like those sneaky little girl-bees. Already out on the town, they were.
But let me tell you, I was STILL worried. I had wondered - all week - if I shouldn't just sneak some time off work and come home to do a Hive Inspection in the heat of midday. But I didn't . Mea culpa.
Last night I came home after an earth-shattering day at work, in which we had to do a partial evacuation of 46 shops because of a bomb alert which closed the whole of Piccadilly in Mayfair. Earth-shattering I tell you. And because I've been feeling quite ill - just slightly off my game with a head cold - I just climbed into my pyjamas and headed for bed with a bowl of Curiously Cinnamon and an Artemis Fowl comic book. 15 minutes later the front door bell rang.
When I opened it and saw Anu and Vic standing there, my heart sank. "Oh no, the drains have gone again" I thought. They looked incredibly tentative and Anu said, "I have this little problem." Vic said, "come and look at what is in our tree." And then I knew. Oh dear god! Of all places to go, they chose my delightful; my favourite; my nicest of all my neighbours. The ones with a little child - a young daughter. Two weeks before, when I discovered that Guy had told them we keep bees, I was seriously upset. But without a doubt,it was the best thing that could've happened.
Because last night when they came to tell me they had a swarm of bees in their apple tree, they weren't angry. They were a little frightened, to be sure, but on the whole they were genuinely intrigued and fascinated. Vic had spent hours watching the bees crawl in their thousands across the top of their garden shed, mould into 4 separate and distinct "balls" of bees then gradually morph into a huge, tight column of bees hanging from a thin branch on their tree. His young daughter too seemed fearless and filled with the wonder and magic of it all.
At first I thought, "perhaps it's not my bees" and rushed down to look at my hive. But the hive told me nothing. And when I stood in my garden and looked over at the weird phenomenon hanging in the tree, I knew. Of course they were mine! Of all the thoughts rushing like hurricane waters breaking over the levees of New Orleans, the largest looming were "Oh dear! Oops! Oh no!" Except there were swear words. Lots of 'em. Big ones. Rude ones. I felt mortified. I'd let 'em slip by me; slip past me, get away to do the one thing I'd feared the most. Upset the neighbours. Except - through all the shenanigans of last night - it appears that they weren't too upset. I have been blessed with awesome neighbours. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
And lucky above all else that my bees had the sense to settle close by, so I could catch them, retrieve them, leash them, and bring them back to where they rightfully belong - in a new hive box at the bottom of the garden next to Itchy Knee.
Of course my first call was to Ron, my mentor, whose first worry was a ladder. "A ladder!?!?" I remember thinking. "That's the LEAST of our worries!" Ha! Thank God for Ron and his ladder. He made the whole retrieval process so simple and so quick, he had the bees down in a beer box in about 10 minutes flat. He had a fascinated audience that comprised:
- 4 fascinated neighbours peering out from their kitchen window. My photos show them all smiling huge white teeth grins from ear to ear, absolutely fixated by the amazing things going on in their garden,
- 2 papparazi (my parter, Guy and my housemate, Iurdana, who is a professional photographer) yelling "Margo, Margo, over 'ere Margo; give's a wave for punters!"
- Quiet Kate, also grinning from ear to ear,
- and me. Boy, I bet I was the most entertaining Busy Bee of the lot. I flapped, and I flitted around, and I panicked, and I fretted. I remembering running round in circles thinking "right, we need a super. Ok, wait, frames first. Oh wait, hang on bee suits. No wait, what happened to my hive tool?! Oh dear, the smoker. Where's the matches? Calm down, Margo, think. Wait hang on ... aaaaaaaaaaargh!" I managed to spread the contents of my Bee Cupboard throughout the house in the space of 15 minutes in an absolute panic. It took me 2 hours to gather everything back into place again after things had quietened down.
It seems, dear readers, that I'm not very good at dealing with bee-stress :)
However, as you will see from the delightful picture gallery below, with the help of my good friend Ron and my beloved partner Guy (who built a roof for the new hive in 3,25 minutes flat in time for the bees' arrival in their new hive), this story has a Happy Ending.
It just goes to show that - with bees - You Never Can Tell, But You Can Always Expect A Surprise.
The second hive is called San-Shi, in the grand tradition of Japanese Counting and Margo Illogicalisms.
The swarm in the apple tree next door ....
See the swarm in the tree behind him?
This box is no longer for BEERS; it's for BEES
With a hop and a skip under the fence we go
Margo trips and nearly drops 10,000 confused bees
We are all beekeepers now
THUMP! Into the new hive they go ....
.... rummaging around down through the crownboard
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