Hello
Good morning.
and welcome to a little secret corner of our garden.
Very secret.
Look at the heather up on the banking behind us,
it smells delicious.
[Shaun] It does.
I'm not surprised the bees love it and that's what this vlog's about,
it's a bit of an unscheduled one to be honest.
Very unscheduled.
It wasn't the one we had planned, but we were kind of forced into it.
Yes.
If you follow us on social media, you will have noticed a few days ago,
I posted about one of the colonies of bees in our hives swarming,
which took us by surprise to be honest
and we'll explain a bit more why in a little bit.
Yeah.
But we've got a lot of comments on social media,
asking, oh well what's caused it and did you do anything wrong and have you checked this
and did you do that.
And it's just easier to make a vlog about it than it is to try and answer everybody.
[Laughs]
In simple terms, it's very natural for the bees to swarm,
but not usually in the first season with us.
But it is a natural process and it's basically to ensure
survival of the species of the colony.
What happens is they can split into a group and then one group will move on
and form another colony
and it just means that if the hive is hit by, I don't know, disease or starvation
or maybe a fire like that fire we had earlier in the year.
[Shaun] Ohhh we don't want another one of them.
If part of the colonies split away, ensure survival of that colon,
that's why they do it.
In the days before all this happens,
some things go on,
Oh really?
So the Queen will start slimming down,
because she's got to fly away and find somewhere new,
so she slims down and stops laying eggs.
But she's got to make sure that there's enough brood
in the hive for after she's gone for new bees to come round.
Isn't she clever?
She is clever.
They also prepare queen cells
which is where a new queen will be born
and she'll take over when the old queen has flown away.
What? It was just an involuntary finger movement
Pointing at me!
I have quite a few of those.
[Laughs]
Meanwhile, the bees start packing themselves with honey,
because they're gonna need, well they're gonna need supplies when they've gone.
They're gonna need to eat and keep the strength up
[Shaun] No wonder we haven't got any.
[Colin] while they find somewhere new
and then once they're all ready,
they're off.
Gone!
[Shaun] Buzzing about. [Colin] Packed their bags and gone.
Within a few days though, all the new brood starts to come through
and then hopefully fingers crossed, when the new queen is born,
it starts that new colony
and they start working extra hard to get it back up to strength again.
Meanwhile the other colony that's, I nearly said [BEEEEEP!] off then.
[Shaun laughs] The other colony that's gone,
find somewhere new to live and they start again.
So what triggers a swarm?
Well when I was doing all my research and talking to other beekeepers,
generally as a rule of thumb,
if you imagine all the frames in your hive.
Now when the hive gets too full,
the bees will decide that they need to split and one set will swarm away.
Once about 70 to 80 percent of them have been drawn out, have got comb on them,
that's the time when you have to extend, you have to give them more room
and the way we do that is we put what we call 'super' boxes on top of the brood box.
Yes.
So the main box is the brood box and then we put the super on top,
which has got more frames in it and that's generally where the bees will store the honey.
For us.
For us, the additional stores of honey.
So out of my eleven frames,
only seven of them were drawn
and only about five or six of them were really in use,
which meant there were four frames out of the eleven that were completely empty.
The other thing is there's a clue, because,
the bees will start to create these queen cells which look quite different
and they're quite noticeable.
I always look for the queen cells, because I'm looking at everything that's going on
and I genuinely didn't see any queen cells,
that's not to mean that they're not there, it could be
that they're on a frame that's really thick with bees
and it's underneath the bees and I've missed it, because
I'm a complete noob
and I'm going to admit that, so,
'A', I wasn't expecting because, I wasn't expecting them to swarm because I didn't think it was overcrowded
and I couldn't see any queen cells,
but I wasn't expecting to see any queen cells, because it wasn't overcrowded
Yeah.
And...
and apparently it's quite unusual for yourcolony to swarm in its first season
and I've only had them a couple of months haven't I?
Yeah.
So as a complete noob, I just wasn't expecting it,
so maybe that's why I didn't pay as much attention as I should have.
So it all started a couple of days ago
and it was actually you that noticed it wasn't it
Yeah.
He came in and said, your bees are acting a bit funny, there's a load of bees.
Yeah, it weren't normal.
And I went out and I could see that there were a lot more than normal
kind of coming out and hanging around the front of the hive
and it was literally within minutes,
that they'd gone from coming out of the front to just this huge cloud
[Shaun] It was massive wasn't it?
[Colin] It was huge, I mean the cloud must have been
thirty or forty feet round wasn't it?
Easy.
and it looked like they were having a ball,
they were kind of buzzing away and the queen must have been in there somewhere.
Now they settled on a tree, which was only about 30 feet away from the hive,
Yeah, it wasn't far at all.
Maybe 30 40 feet
and I noticed the this kind of ball of beast starting to grow
and the queen would have settled on there
and then all the bees kind of get a scent and they surround her and protector her,
but I had to try and get to the tree.
Now these, the bees were probably only about 15, 20 feet up in this tree weren't they?
It wasn't that high.
It wasn't that high, no.
But I just couldn't get to it for the bracken and it's a fir tree,
so the branches are like really weak.
Really bendy.
and there's no, I couldn't get to the kind of main trunk to secure the ladder to.
So that was a bind, trying to get the ladder through the bracken
and trying to get it in the tree somehow
to get close to them, because I wanted to try and catch the colony again,
so that they didn't go away.
Because what happens is, once they settle on the tree,
you get scout bees from that colony that have gone off in every direction
looking for a place to live.
You've got to be quick because they could be off within an hour or sooner
and then they've gone you've lost them forever unless you know where they've gone.
Now I've got no equipment for catching swarms of bees like this,
This for funny.
I was trying to get advice from a beekeeper who's been helping me out, cheers Kevin.
and errr,
I couldn't get in touch with him straight away,
so the first thing i thought of is, I've still got the nuc boxes that they came in,
which are like a small box that holds five frames
and I still had those, I kept them in the barn.
So I got the nuc box, took everything out of it so it was empty
and managed to get up the ladder.
Now I thought, well the first thing I've got to do is mist the bees with water,
because that makes them tighten up
Right, I didn't know that.
as a colony.
I wondered why you were doing that.
Yeah, so I got a mister that I used to use for my bonsai tree.
That he killed.
We don't need to know about that.
[Laughs]
And I misted the bees to try and get them to pack together, to tighten up together.
Once I'd done that,
got the nuc box
and I still couldn't quite reach, I was still about five, six feet away from the hanging colony
and I just couldn't get the ladder high enough.
So I got a big stick,
holding the box with one hand
and I just gave the branch this old mighty whack
and i would say about 70% of the bees just fell in the box.
Now of course they didn't like this, so they were buzzing around me
[Shaun] Oh they were angry.
They weren't very happy with me at that time
and even though my bee suit's about five millimetres thick, which is supposed to be sting proof,
as sting proof as you can get it anyway.
But because I'm kind of moving about, my cheek touched the veil and one of them stung my cheek.
The adrenaline was just rushing so much,
I didn't really pay much attention to it, I was aware that it had happened,
but I was just in this cloud of angry bees and i just wanted to get down with the box of bees
and get them away.
So I got a frame from the old hive
that had some food on it, some nectar and some honey
and put the one frame in there and a couple of new frames
and I thought i'll just leave them there for a little bit,
for an hour just to calm down and see what happens.
After we'd had a cup of tea and a few biscuits,
went back to see what was going on
and the bees were all over the new frames in the nuc box,
which was a good sign,
They hadn't flown off again.
But I noticed where they fell from the tree,
there was still a group there it was only about a third of the size of the original one,
but it was still there in this tight ball and I thought, well I wonder if the queen's still at the bottom of that
and of course I need the queen,
I can't have the colony without a queen, so I need the queen,
so I had a feeling she might still be up there.
So we had to go and get that one.
Now I couldn't take the nuc box up there again
because it had some frames in it, so I needed something else
And we didn't have anything, so we had to make something.
We had to improvise and I thought well what can I get
that I can put underneath them to catch the rest of them .
You recognise this?
[Laughs]
lawnmower box fastened to a rake with some cable ties.
Hopefully we're gonna go up the tree and scoop them up into the box
and then we can put them from this box back into the nuc box.
That's the plan anyway.
Went back to the tree,
secured the ladder as best I could
and started going up the tree
and of course it was a little bit heavy this, so the first time I fell off.
[Shaun] What happened there?
[Colin] I fell!
Which we'll forget about,
but went up again what fallen went up again
What?
Falling.
[Colin] Went up again,
positioned the box right underneath this,
it was only about this big, about fist size was the group of bees that was left
and then just banged it upwards
and the rest of the group fell straight into the grass box,
a few of them were angry and tried to get me.
Came back down the ladder,
tipped them into the nuc box,
put the lid over
and thought, done.
Now once a swarm has left a hive,
you can't put it back.
So I couldn't take the nuc box and put the bees back in the original hive,
so I needed a new hive.
Shaun ended up driving all the way to Inverness to the suppliers,
built the new hive, which was easier than the first time because I'm getting used to building it now
[Laughs]
and then transferred them over into the new hive,
put some more new frames in it, gave them some sugar gloop to feed on
and we've left them.
And they seem okay.
They do seem okay, I checked them again as I was putting them in
to see if i could see the queen and I couldn't.
But,
Doesn't mean to say she's not there.
they were very thick on the frames
and i didn't want to be brushing them about because they were a bit agitated,
as they would because they tried swarming and I'd kind of been banging them out of trees and stuff.
So I'm leaving them for a few days now and see what's going on,
now what I'm looking for is bees coming in
with pollen, that's a good sign.
That means the feeding brood,
now for the feeding brood it means the queen's in there because she's laying eggs.
If I don't see that, when I do the inspection I'm going to be looking on the frames
for brood, well for eggs
Yeah.
and again, if I see eggs I know the queen's there because she's laying.
If I don't see any eggs
or anything, I don't see any sign of the queen then i'm gonna have to
get a queen I think.
So what have I learned?
Well,
I've learned to get a better set of ladders for a start,
[Shaun] They're on order.
[Colin] longer sturdier proper set of ladders.
I wouldn't have used the extendable ones if I'd had a choice,
it was like that or nothing, so I had to use them
and luckily I didn't hurt myself, luckily i didn't hurt myself.
I think the other thing, is when I'm doing inspections is to really look closer,
even if it means knocking or shaking the bees off a frame so i can see the frame
to make sure there's no queen cells hidden.
I think that's another thing I've learned.
To have a spare hive ready,
so I've actually ordered another one already
which I'm gonna have built and waiting in the barn if ever we need it.
We'll never have any money.
[Laughing] Tell me about it.
And the other thing I think is to,
is to be a little bit more expectant of the unexpected.
Yes.
I wouldn't say I was being complacent,
I just didn't expect this to happen as quickly as it did
and it is brilliant I'm actually loving the learning curve
because it forces you into learning how to cope and deal with what's going on.
And we know what to do next time.
I would never have seen myself going up a tree,
[Laughs]
knocking a a swarm of bees into a grass box of a lawn mower
and having them all around me stinging me.
Never in my life I could have imagined him doing it.
But you're kind of forced into that experience and you learn from it
and I actually< I really really love it
and thanks to everybody who's given advice
and little tips and things like that.
especially you Kev.
Especially Kev, because it's such a learning curve and i'm absolutely loving it
and every time something like this happens,
you kind of learn something else
and so you're ready for it the next time.
Although next time it'll probably be completely completely different.
Kev will be phoning you soon.
He probably will be, yeah.
So there you go,
we hope you've enjoyed this vlog and maybe learned something from it, I'm always learning i love it.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to the channel.
Yeaaaah!
Errrr What?
Yeaah!
[Laughs] Hit the thumbs up button
and if you hit the notification bell,
YouTube will let you know every time we release a new vlog.
You look like something, like a character out of Dick Emery when you do that.
Oooh you are awful but I like you
[Laughs]
If you want to help support the channel,
which I'll tell you something,
at the moment it's very much needed, because we're forking out left right and centre for beehives
We've got nothing left.
and ladders and sugar gloop and stuff.
Arrghh!
If you want to do that, there's a couple of ways you can support the channel,
you can become a YouTube member
or a member of Patreon,
they're both the same thing, it's just different platforms
and you get sorts of exclusive content and discount off our merch
and exclusive access to stuff and early access to the video some of you get as well.
Details are in the video description
and there's a link up above Shaun's head on screen for some of you if you want to do that.
If you want to support us in other ways, like a one-off thing,
you could donate by PayPal.
You could buy one of our calendars for 2023,
we've got a few of those left for pre-order, they're going out in September
and we've got our new range of merch look at sean's Bee T-Shirt.
Look at this, bee bee bee bee bee bee bee!
That's funny every time.
There's a link to our new merch store down in the video description.
Are we done?
Are we gonna have some honey on toast now?
we've got no honey, they took it all!
[Laughs]
See you next time, bye.
Ta-ra!
[Music playing]
Five, four, three, two, one.
This is a vlog that was unplanned, a little bit like myself I think,
I don't know, you'll have to ask my Mam.
Typical Foxes Afloat flac a flox flashen.
[Laughs]
Do you want a Flax Flashen?
That sounds like something German that's rude doesn't it?
[In a German accent] Pheawww! Fox Flashen!
[Laughing]
Make your eyes water!
[Gasps]
Beep beep beep beep beep beep!
I've got an acky clack!
Bee suits keep moving about and it make it look like somebody's walking across the garden.
And it me ya a yak Arggghhh!
Got things crawling on me.
Yeah!
Because I kind of Bleaaagghhh!
It's better in English.
[Music playing] [Bee buzzing around]
Go for some heather.
[Burps]
We have lots of flies buzzing!
I'm not surprised to bleeze and that that... bleeze!
I've got stuff crawling around me!
Arrgghhh!
YAYYYYYY! we'll keep that one
[Music playing]