Winne the Pooh would have been very excited by goings on in our garden yesterday. We're having the outside of the house painted plus insane amounts of other work done (this is what you get for 10 years of virtually zero house maintenance) and I was having a quiet sit down between rounds of tea making and friendly conversation, when I heard a bee buzzing in my living room. The back door was open, so I wasn't surprised. That is, until I realised that it had now been joined by two more, and that in fact the air outside was now thick with honeybees. I shut the door and ran to the front to alert the painter, then went back to watch hundreds and thousands of bees form a swarm in our newly pruned hazel tree.
It's alive!
A wider shot to show the size of the swarm high in the tree. The playhouse has gone to another little girl this morning, and the tatty back fence is soon to be replaced...
I had just found a local beekeeper who wanted to come and catch the swarm and give them a new home when I realised the bees were flying off and the huge mass gradually reduced again until it had disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. It was one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen, and it turns out it's the third in our village in the last 10 days. Something to do with the sudden dry spell after weeks of rain.
I hope wherever they went they have found a lovely new home. I'm glad they came to visit, albeit briefly.
Crikey - I've never seen anything like that before. There's loads of them! Slightly disturbing to have them right there in your back garden, almost like you've slipped into the making of a 1970's disaster movie!
ReplyDeleteWe had some set up a hive in our garage a while back - it smelled like honey in there for ages after we had them cleared out.
ReplyDeleteI think that the fleeting visits might be fairly common, as no one would come out for the bees 'til they had set up shop for more than a day.
So exciting. We had a swarm at the end of the road last year and a couple of unassuming cyclists biked straight through them! Even with the car windows tight shut I could hear them...
ReplyDeleteI hope you get lots of local honey with all these busy bees in town.
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I hope they find a nice new home soon :-)
ReplyDeleteHow exciting! There are several bee hives on our allotments and the bee keeper let my daughter wear his spare suit and help him with the bees - she's braver then me!
ReplyDeleteoohhh my hubby would have loved that swarm to make another bee hive up, he is rather addicted :-) You have to check your hive every 10 days at least at this time of year to stop them swarming - something to do with the hive making another queen which then slits the hive and off they go :-)
ReplyDeleteHow extraordinary, sounds fantastic to see but yes probably quite a relief that they wanted to go and find another home somewhere else.
ReplyDeletewow, what an amazing experience.
ReplyDeleteFascinating aren't they? My friend had a swarm on the back wall of her house a few years back.
ReplyDeleteWe have had two swarms on campus in the last two weeks but we are lucky enough to have bee experts in the Biological Sciences Dept. They caught the first swarm and will use it for their research but the second swarm is a rare bumblebee and so everyone was very excited and it has been left to build a nest on the wall of one of our buildings.
ReplyDeleteWe had a swarm in the crab apple outside our back door. Unfortunately, I watched a LOT of 70's disaster movies back in the day and was therefore totally freaked out by it!
ReplyDeleteLuckily our neighbour is a beekeeper and caught them for one of his hives.
ooo, That is the best. Our bees swarmed a couple of weeks ago, luckily R was at home that day and ran out in his bee suit to capture them. Now we have an extra hive. Its brilliant. I wish I had been there to see it. You are a lucky ducky. - Annie
ReplyDeleteWowsers. A big lump of bees in a tree!
ReplyDeleteI was pleased to read this as the Bee population in this country has taken a bit of a battering over recent years.
ReplyDeleteHow exciting. I remember seeing a swarm like that in our village a few years ago. Fascinating to watch.
ReplyDeleteOh my - how amazing.
ReplyDeleteIt's like one of those things that you know could really spell danger, but you can't help looking at it.
Nina xxx
Oh we could have used them in our new hive! K x
ReplyDeleteI've experienced a swarm once and that was enough for me. It really is an amazing thing to experience if a little scary.
ReplyDeleteMr Moog's friend is a beekeeper and loves a good swarm!
xx
Oh er. I'd have been a bit scared. Lucky that they buzzed off again.
ReplyDeleteThat is magical beyond belief.
ReplyDelete(See you soon!)
OMG! I've never seen that before. Maybe they were liking the sap from your pruned tree? Amazing!
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to know that there are some bees about, mind you I'm not sure I'd want them in my sitting room. A sight and a half all the same!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! I've never seen anything like that. Our neighbors have hives (just embarking on year 3) and I've only once seen them out in a big group - but they didn't form that big mass. They were just flying angrily all over our back yard for an hour.
ReplyDeletewe had a swarm once when the boys were little, they were playing in the paddock and i heard this sort of droning noise (no pun intended!) and saw this black swarm coming right towards us - i yelled at the boys and we all shot indoors and the bees settled in our apple tree for about half an hour and then, to my relief, went on somewhere else! x
ReplyDeleteMissed this. I remember seeing in a swarm in my Aunt's Northamptonshire garden as a child. Not my best ever day, I was later stung by a wasp and then comforted with a milkshake made with orange squash and milk (!) that curdled and made me sick! I've never forgotten my amazement watching the bees though.
ReplyDeleteGolly! I bet you were relieved that their visit was only brief! Lxx
ReplyDeleteWow! How amazing! I'd be afraid they all stuck to the wet paint, lol!
ReplyDelete