Bee Happy!

See what I did with the title?

Well, it's been another fascinating week here at Fon du Bourg... not least of which was the arrival of a swarm of bees.

Here's what happened.

I was walking between the Farmhouse and our place on Tuesday when I noticed the sound of buzzing insects was louder than usual.  I looked down the garden to one of our trees and there was a football sized mass of bees on the tree itself with loads of them buzzing about.

It sounded very dramatic and looked even more so.  I know nothing about bees and bee behaviour (actually, I do now!) so I got in touch with Andrew Carr, who lives a few kilomtres away in a place called Tombeboeuf.  Andrew and his wife, Lucy, run a farm with sheep, pigs and a growing bee colony from which he makes honey.

Andrew drove up and gave me the story of what happens when bees swarm...

So, a hive might become over populated, develop more than one queen or even produce too much honey.  When it does, part of the bee population says, 'Right lads, we're off to find a place of our own'.  (Or words to that effect).  The workers gorge themselves on honey so their bellies are full and the exiting queen goes on a diet so she can fly and then her and her team leave to look for a new place to stay.

The swarm is the new hive looking for a place - they form a ball around the queen and then scouts go looking.

As a side note, although the buzzing sounds dramatic (and quite angry) you are less likely to be stung when bees are swarming because their bellies are full of honey - unless you do something silly, like stick your hand in the swarm!

Anyway, Andrew got suited up, brushed the bees into a bucket, located the queen and deposited them into a hive which he then left in our garden for a couple of days.

I have to say when I had a look at what was going on the bees looked pretty happy - there were comings and goings, bees on the flowers and a contented droning from inside the hive.

Of course, that may have been my imagination!

Andrew came back just after 9.00pm last night - so all the bees would have been in the hive.  He shut it up and took the bees away to join his colony.

And so the bees left us.  I actually felt a pang when they left - I was enjoying them bee-ing around... and now they've buzzed off.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist it.)