Yay…I’m officially a beekeeper

So, we did the deed this morning. Bright and early the husband and I drove over to John Home, a beekeeper in Southam, to pick up my nucleus. Although the weatherman had promised it would be rain free until 12pm it was drizzly and cold – not ideal weather for a bee housewarming. John said that if I wanted to get them in my Beehaus straight away, I needed to be speedy and give them a good puffing from the smoker.

So, I paid up, put the wooden box of bees on my lap, which consists of five frames, and we drove quickly to Sarah’s house. In ten minutes we were there and my mentor Nicky was there ready to help. She agreed that we needed to be quick as the rain was starting to fall. I had butterflies in my tummy – I really wanted my bees to be ok. We suited up and as quick as we could transferred the frames from the box into the Beehaus.

As per my Omlet instructions, I put the five frames of bees next to the divider board, then three foundation frames and lastly the dummy board ensuring they were all snugly fitted together. I popped the roof on and added my zipped polythene bag of sugar syrup I’d made the night before with a few tiny pinpricks in it. This is recommended, especially in weather like this when they can’t go out to forage.

So that was it. We stepped away from the hive and hoped all will be ok.

I heard from Sarah this afternoon and she said all was very quiet in the Beehaus with a couple of dead bees on the lid. I’m hoping that they had been the ones who didn’t make it into the hive from the wooden box as they couldn’t find the entrance.  I’m also hoping that they are quiet because the weather is rubbish and the syrup is keeping them going. I’ll pop round tomorrow evening with another bag of syrup. But I’m under strict instructions not to be tempted to open the brood box and disturb the bees. I need to leave them for at least a week so that they can get used to their new surroundings.

I’m so excited that my beekeeping journey has officially begun but I can’t stop thinking about them – I hope they will be(e) ok.

Nicky and I transferring the frames into the Beehaus