Wild Bees.

The above title is a misnomer, more correctly I should call them unmanaged bees. Given a specific stimulus the Honey Bee's instincts will cause it to behave in exactly the same way whether it is living in a bespoke hive or a hollow tree.  They behave, apart from minor characteristics achieved through cross breeding of the various sub-species, just as they did before man arrived on the scene.  Anyway what I started out to say was that we have three "wild" colonies that we have not yet succeeded in bringing under our management.  One colony, readers may remember, was ensconced in a hollow tree in Dartford, another, in Abbeywood, was in a cavity wall 35'above ground and the third in an Elizabethan manor house.  Lessons learnt so far this season, (recovery of wild colonies using the porter bee escape method),  include :- Seal the collection box very very carefully because the bees are masters at finding a way back into their main nest and this can easily cause major delays.  Design the box so that the Porter bee escapes can be maintained (propolis cleaned off the springs) as you want the bees to be "drained off" the original nest eventually leaving too few workers to keep it going.  Make sure that the householder/ manager of the property will pay for any equipment such as extending ladders etc. as the bill will usually exceed the value of the bees, for instance the ladder we're using in Abbey wood costs about £40 a day and we've used it twice so far with one more visit required.  Something else you must take into consideration is making good, we had to remove a section of a plaster and lath wall to expose the comb inhabited by a colony in the Elizabethan manor house. Fortunately Colin has that particular skill but I had to point out to him that if he made too good a job of it it wouldn't look as if it had been there for the last 600 years. By-the-by I should also warn readers not to get Colin "started" about the standard of the recent repairs made to the Manor house lead plumbing!
Tomorrow (Wednesday) am. we'll be erecting the shed donated to the Apiary by Steve Clack and making a swarm comfortable with frames of foundation, possibly some drawn comb if we have any spare, and some food in the form of fondant. We'll be collecting this swarm after dusk tonight (Tuesday). In the evening we'll be bringing the colony from the hollow tree back to the Apiary.  At about 8.00 pm Bill, Colin and I will begin the operation and shortly after dusk the "capture box" will be sealed, wrapped and brought back to the Apiary.
Barry