Interesting Bee Activity

Yesterday the bees decided to leave the hive and relocate on one of the trees in the back garden.Thinking that they were swarming, a process in which the queen takes a proportion of the hive away to find a new home after they have reared a possible new queen, we called in our bee keepers to come and try to catch the ones that were leaving.

The bees then surprised us all and started to head back into the hive. We kept an eye out for the queen but she hadn’t come back when most of the workers we already in the hive. She was then spotted trying to make her way back into the hive where she was attacked by a large number of her workers.

The workers surrounded her in a tight ball, ultimately killing her. This may seem a drastic thing to do but it is a completely natural process that has now paved the way for a new queen to emerge in the next few days from the queen cells that are clearly evident in the hive.

We would like to thank Alison and Allister our bee keepers who once again rushed down here at a moment’s notice and for their ongoing help to keep our bee hive thriving.