Queen cups, bees, Tunisia, lawn mowers and popeye! :)

Not the best looking Popeye!

A strange mix I hear you say? Well they are a bit interlinked, I'm off for a week in the sun in Tunisia next weekend, never a good time to leave your bees in the height of summer, what summer I hear you say? Well it has been a lovely day today so had a few aims in the garden, cut grass, check bees and top up tan, am concerned my legs might be construed as a aviation hazard and may well be seen from outer space!

I digress, back to the bees, needed to check that they would be ok while I was away, last time I looked I couldn't find the queen, no joy this time either, and wow upon wow some queen cups too, that means the colony is beginning to think about swarming, well possibly and if that happens while I am away bang goes any chance of a honey crop this year!:-(, hey ho not much I can do about other than leave an empty hive out and hope that if they do swarm they go in there. The check done had to leave them alone for a couple of hours, valuable tanning time wasted! :-)

This is the right way up

But did manage to catch a few rays before grass cutting time, these new bees really don't like my lawn mower, had to take drastic action and wear my bee suit, saw a few neighbours looking, gathered quite a crowd really! They must think I am mad, that wasn't a question, so don't answer it :-). You can see how hacked off they looked in first photo which also has me making a good impersonation of Popeye, how photo genic!!! I'm glad I didn't go with auto spell check on that word! :-)

Mission accomplished, grass cut, bees checked and the faintest of tan lines, I think I am going to suffer in Tunisia, pool here I come:-)

Bumblebee relocation

Had a message on Facebook over jubilee weekend from an ex colleague, Chris, whose parents had some bees causing a worry just outside their back door in a bird box, could I help. Thought they would be Bumblebees, but a bee's a bee and don't like to see any of them destroyed, not that I think Chris's parents would do that.

Nice and peaceful, just before I really hacked them off

I arranged to remove them late last Thursday evening, so they would mostly be tucked up in the bird box, got there a bit early and after a nice cuppa set to, initially I approached the bird box and started to remove the ivy around it without my bee suit on, big mistake, they may look cuddly, but they can be pretty angry buggers when disturbed, perhaps I should have bunged up the box entrance first!! So a small delay while they calmed down and went back indoors and then suited up I bunged up the entrance and too down the box.

Anybody following me home must have wondered what I was doing driving so slowly especially over all those sleeping policemen! :-), well would they trust a very old bird box full of bees in the boot wouldn't fall apart? Anyway once home I had decided would temporarily fix them on outside of my garden fence, my intention being to ask my uncle if he wouldn't mind having them in his garden, well it's more a woodland.

Their temporary home

These bees eat wood, can you see damage to entrance?

He was ok with the idea so I arranged to drop them over earlyish on Sunday morning, the best laid plans of mice and men and bees! I had a late night on the wine, did remember to block up entrance before bed, overslept a bit and when I went to move them they had managed to create a new entrance at the back by eating out of the box! Thank god that didn't happen in my car! I couldn't move them now, too many bees would be out flying, even the Queen Bumblebee forages, she's like a flying mouse:-)

So what type of Bumblebee are they, can you work it out from this photo and link?

http://bumblebeeconservation.org/