Cirencester Scene Magazine - Supporting Local Businesses - Buy Locally!
Bee Swarms! Help! Some of the useful information I have gleaned so far from the Beekeepers, is why bees swarm, and what can be done to prevent it, and then - what on earth to do if you can’t? Well as they say, I can’t necessarily help you myself, but I know a man who can. Or in fact several people. One important thing that beekeepers can learn is how to collect a swarm of bees.
The honey bees are in fact minding their own business and following their own course of nature when they swarm. They are not out to terrorise people as often portrayed in horror films, but are moving house. For some reason or other, their increasing numbers have outgrown their current accommodation, so a new queen emerges and takes about a third of the hive’s population up into the skies on a jolly, to begin house hunting.
It’s easier said than done. The reason the bees are so willing to up-sticks is that a queen bee in flight is an unusual and compelling thing. She only goes out this one time, at the beginning of her life, and this is the time that she mates with a few lucky drones. (These lads then spend the rest of their short lives boasting incessantly to the others, the vast majority, about their success with the lay-dee, and then do
Beekeeping Taster Session
Sat 10 August 10-1pm Rural Skills Centre at Coates
A short talk on beekeeping and, weather permitting, a visit to the Apiary. £12.50
If you are thinking of becoming a beekeeper - come to our “taster” to find out about the wonderful world of bees.
We are a friendly group and welcome both “newbees” and the more experienced. For more details contact:
Liz on 07889 038987 or
liz@cirencesterbeekeepers.org.uk
Liz explaining the workings of a hive to Show visitors nothing else but lie back and eat the food stores)
Having mated, the queen is set up for life and spends the next three or four years laying eggs and being waited on hand and foot by the female worker bees.
But back to the swarm and the house hunt. The bees prefer to nest high up, usually in trees (so I understand), but often house eaves, barns, sheds etc prove the most convenient. Modern life and farming is not conducive to bees finding somewhere to live that the human population is happy to tolerate, and sadly Cain & Fuller don’t offer a service on their behalf. And, people tend to panic when they see what appears to be an angry swarmon the rampage.
So what to do? Go on the website for contact numbers, and call the Cirencester and District Beekeepers who will help you if they can. Remember they are all doing it voluntarily so won’t always be available right away. When they do, they will catch and re-home the swarm with a capable beekeeper who will look after them responsibly.
Come along to the Taster Session! Ad opposite. Jan SF
SWARM: Contact Keith if you see a swarm, 07564 026994
keithclampton@googlemail.com
The Bee Stall was buzzing at the Cotswold Show, honey and bee friendly plants for sale, and educational live hive on show.
Top Secret! Location of teaching hives.
‘Allo, ‘allo, ‘allo, what’s bee-n going on here then?
Cirencester Scene Magazine 01285 659673 / 07875 071555 -
info@cirencester-scene.co.uk 37
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