I have bees!

Temperature: 25C
Weather: Dry and sunny

The bees are back! I picked them up on 19 May from a friend who had been looking after them. The drive home, which took about an hour, was pretty hairy as lots of bees kept on finding their way out. It was a bit like The Wages of Fear. I didn't want to crash cos I was brushing away a bee. To stay safe, I stopped lots of times to brush away the escapees. There are not many laybys along the A3 where you won't find my footprints.

Anyway, I got them back and put them in their new location. I've moved out of the association apiary into an allotment on the edge of a big wood and lots of farmland. There are only two other hives there so I'm hoping it proves to be a good location for honey. Less chance of accidentally falling victim to disease too.

The bees were in a pretty bad mood when I first set them down in their new home. They let me know by boiling out the front of the hive when I eased the block out a bit and stinging me three times (two ankle and one hip) just to make the point.

For a while I wondered if this was because the queen had not travelled with them. There was a chance that she was still in the old hive because we had to move them off Langstroths to Nationals. Although they were starting to draw the brood comb there wasn't a huge amount and there was always the chance that she had strayed on to the Langstroth comb just before we did the up-and-away. Effectively, what I've got is half a colony. We moved it mid-morning so almost none of the foraging bees will be in it.

But it looks like she is there as I went down to inspect them today (23 May) and they were very happy, Bees flying in the front and they had built a lot of brace comb in the space (an empty super) above the brood box. They were even filling it with honey. So, I fired up the smoker, got them off the brace comb and down into the brood chamber. I've given them some sugar syrup as I want them to draw out the comb below before they think about making any honeycomb in the super.

I'll have another look this coming Wednesday and see if I can spot any eggs or Her Maj herself. It's so good to have some bees back again.