Bee Hives and a Baby Shower

Today was a very busy day. Sharlene's dad called up a couple of nights ago asking if I could help him with a bee hive extraction at a property near Pleystowe. The hive was located in a wine barrel with the bees accessing through the bung hole. We thought that perhaps we would be able to split the hive into two hives and so we brought two boxes with us.

When we first arrived we took a quick look at the hive before going back to the truck to get suited up, but on the way I spotted a swarm of bees on the move up the hill of the property. We tracked the bees until they settled on a tree in the next-door neighbours' yard. Full of excitement of claiming a swarm we grabbed one of the boxes and set it up under the tree. We also fetched a ladder and pruning saw from our host with the hopes of capturing it. We never used them. It was going to be difficult climbing the ladder, holding a hive box and shaking the swarm into the box without falling or half the bees zipping away before they landed in the box. That situation didn't appeal, so instead we said a prayer asking God that if he didn't have any other plans for the swarm, to please let us have it. We left the box there on the ground with the bees seeming to be interested in it and went back to work on the wine barrel hive.

The extraction of that hive was slow work but we got a good amount of brood and honey comb out of it. The bees of this hive were very placid. The brood we cut to the size of the frames and used rubber bands to hold them in line. We filled up about 7 frames this way. We even resorted to bending into the barrel to scrape out the bees to put into the hive box.

Before we left, we checked to see if the swarm had taken the bait and gone into our box. They hadn't. Oh well, we thought. Next time, we'll not wait. We grabbed that second box and transferred some of the brood into that hive, adding bees and closing the lid.

After cleaning up the area, we were all set to go home, we'd taken off our suits and the lady had given us a cold drink of water, when I spied a swarm of bees on one of the small mango trees on her property about 100 metres away. Fantastic! Could this possibly be the same swarm as before? We didn't know, but we were excited to see that we didn't need to use a ladder or pruning saw to get the swarm this time.  After suiting up a third time, we retrieved the hive that we originally tried to bait the hive with and took it over to the tree. Lid open, a quick shake, swiftly replace lid, watch and wait to see if the queen comes out. Success!

That was my first experience of catching a swarm, and using the brood from a hive to create a new one. We left the box with the brood back at the property, hoping that the bees would accept the new home. The swarm, we took back home. We put a queen excluder on the front of the box to keep her in and opened up the gate. New hive complete.

That was only the morning.

In the afternoon, our family went home for a short rest before heading off to the beach. Unbeknownst to Sharlene, a friend of ours had organised a surprise baby shower for her. So after a short rest/sleep I bundled the boys into the car and woke up Shar to come to the beach. When we got there, I said to her that I recognised our friend and that we should go over and say hello. There were pink balloons attached to the trees and several other guests there at this time. Sharlene wasn't sure about walking in on someone else's party, but after some persuasion I got her close enough for all the guests to shouts out, "surprise!" Sharlene was completely baffled and enjoyed the surprise.  It was a mix of friends, family and work colleagues that joined us. I took the boys down to the beach for a swim and then after we came back and had a bite to eat, we went to the park for the rest of the time. By the end though, we were exhausted and ended up get some hot chips for dinner. The boys didn't complain, they got to eat hot chips and watch Octonauts (which is their new favourite show).

Well, that's what happened today. With our new baby due this week, I'm sure there will be something else to write about later on.