Swarm Catching

Some of the #elevensestime crowd may be curious to know what I was up to at 11:30 today. I had been called out to deal with a swarm. It was a lovely sunny morning and the house was an idylic thatched cottage tucked away in a very small village not far from Chipping Norton. The householder fetched a ladder which he informed me was once owned by a one legged window cleaner who used to operate locally. Fortified by this piece of information I approached the swarm! It was about 15 feet up a "Tree" . It turned out to be at the top of a very flexible Ash bough that had self-seeded and was flexible enough to bend the whole tree over so no need for heroics. After dropping the main cluster of bees into the skep we waited about 20 minutes for the rest to get the message and sure enough there was a flurry of activity and the rest of the bees that had been congregating on the surrounding foliage all followed each other into the skep. I wrapped the skep in the sheet and brought them back to the apiary where they have now been put in a new hive and hopefully will start working for their new "Boss"