The Mannequin Colony : 35 I
am 61. I have only been beekeeping since spring 2014 and I was amazed to find a wild colony built in the torso of a mannequin. The bees had moved in after the mannequin fell from its original position, seated on top of a mound where it was ‘guarding’ a boatyard on the Thames – or, at least, looking threatening!
FINDING A SWARM IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE
The Mannequin Colony
Andy Bacon
The mannequin was now on the bramble-covered slope, exposed to th e elements and awkwardly placed for access.
I tried to contact
someone in my club, the Dartford Beekeepers, for advice but no one was around to help so I decided my course of action and got stuck in.
I did not have the
experience to be able to start dismantling what the bees had achieved and reassembling the comb into frames. So, as I hope you can see, I made a framework to support a couple of
my Warré hive boxes to surround the open end of the torso.
Over a few weeks I gradually did a little work each day and trained the bees to
use a proper entrance in the hive. Along came the gales and the construction I’d built blew over so I virtually had to start again!
Docile Bees
The colony is very docile and quiet and, while working around it over 10 or 12 days for hours at a time without any veil, only two bees got upset with me and
took their revenge: one stinging my arm, the other my forehead because it was tangled in my hair, I think.
Perhaps this proves that man and bees have a symbiotic relationship?
Or ‘Killers’?
Or maybe these are ‘killer’ bees that thought they had hit the (human) jackpot? ♠
Photos: Andy Bacon May 2015 Vol 97 No 5
www.bee-craft.com
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