We had lots of excitement in the garden yesterday. Alex was carrying the polytunnel supplies up the hill when he heard loud buzzing. He looked up and saw thousands of bees leave the hive and swarm above the trees. He yelled, "Daria, come quickly, we have a swarm!" I walked over and started to videotape them. Then I noticed they were moving toward us. I said, "Alex we have to get out of here."
We walked away but Alex's fascination kept taking him back. He called an experienced beekeeper friend who suggested putting a spare hive high up nearby so that maybe they decided to call it home. So Alex climbed up and put the heavy spare box on top of the steel frame we have in the garden. By then, the bees had formed a tight ball around the queen, high up in a tree -- pretty close to the same spot our previous bees had swarmed several years ago.
Another beekeeper suggested banging metal pots together directly underneath the swarm to bring them down. That did nothing. Scouts were appearing everywhere searching for their new home. I ran upstairs and closed the bedroom balcony door so they wouldn't choose our bedroom as theirs. About an hour later, they were gone. Someone will find a new bee colony on their property, lucky folks. I hope they found a nice hollow tree to live in naturally.
Meanwhile, the remaining colony is buzzing happily along in the old quarters. We've done our job in repopulating the native honeybee in Mayo.
All this while the vineyard was happily leafing and the orchard was happily blooming. What a lovely sunny and warm exciting April day. I'm scheduled for vaccination tomorrow, so things really are looking up.
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| Cooking apple |
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| Ancient cooking apple |
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| Donkeys are back |
