New Nuc

The chaps at the lottie have been keen for me to run a hive for the greater good of the area. I consider my colonies too strong to be house near people. Not because they are aggressive just because folk get worried when they see hundreds of bees whizzing round the hive. I most cases these are just the new foragers learning the location.

I decided to do the right thing and ordered a nuc [nucleus] from a supplier I had used before. I supposed to pick them up from Rugby on Saturday morning. I text him to say I had paid and to make sure plans had not changed. He text back "thanks for the cash and by the way I am in Coalville do you want to collect the nuc"?. Coalville is only seven miles from my house. So at 10.30 pm I am in the car on my way to Coalville. I have not seen Paul for a while so we have a chat in the street for twenty minutes. His missus sticks her head out the door of the house to enquire after him which is a cue to put the nuc in my car, shake hands and go home.

I took the bees straight to the lottie and placed the nuc on top the hive I had positioned a few days earlier. I loosely wrapped some newspaper round them so they would not get a chill overnight. Then the tricky bit....pulling the foam stopper out of the door way. It was pitch black at the lottie, it being 11.30pm, but luckily quite cool. I eased out the plug and the bees where free. They came out quite readily but because the air temperature was low they could not fly.

They had a look round and seemed a bit frisky. I supposed you would be if you had a trapped in a box for 24 hours with loads of others on a hot day. The nuc has big mesh covered holes in the side and top which helps cool the nuc but the bees cannot escape. The nuc has stores but no access to water or space for flying, which bees are programmed to do. I watched them for five minutes and having decided they were happy enough I left for the night.

I was back at the lottie the next morning intending to transfer the bees from the nuc to their new home. A tree was shielding the morning sun from the hive which was good in one way but not in another. The good bit was that nuc was not over heating. The downside was that it was a bit cool for handling the bees and that has consequences. I had to move the nuc to dismantle the hive down the brood box and then take out the frames. It was not long before the first of the guard bees where examining the intruder .i.e. me. Getting the first frame out of the nuc is always tricky. The bees glue the frame with Propolis and the nuc is just a plastic box. It is a certanty that the nuc and all its bees will get jostled and bees don't like that. More bees in the air. I gave the frames a quick inspection as I moved them across to the brood chamber of the new hive. I found the queen, marked with a fetching red spot. It is important not drop her off the frame as you transfer her. A Queen on the ground makes for a very unhappy hive and beekeeper. No such worries for me but there were a lot of bees flying. They flew because there hive was upset, because of the upset the had had for the past few days and because it was not that warm. Cool bees don't fly too well and are not in the best of  moods. I got stung several times for my troubles. I filled out he remaining brood chambers with foundation; put on the queen excluder, placed on a super full frame of foundation then the crown board then a feeder full of syrup just show I did not hold the strings against them, then the empty super to house the feeder and then the roof. After that it is was a quick tidy up which only meant making sure the nuc box was empty of bees and picking up the spare brood frames. I made an orderly retreat to my bench at top of the lottie.

I must have made an odd spectacle as I sat on the bench in the full sun in my bee suit. From afar folks would not have seen the bees whizzing round me. In the hour it took house the bees the sun had peeked round the tree warming everything up. The bees where scenting with their Nasonove glands so meant the bees where being drawn into the new hive. Everything began to settle down. Since I had been stung a few times the bees were not that keen to leave me alone. I have learnt to sit still and be calm so as not to give off my human flight pheromones. Over about ten minutes the bees start to settle down to the extent they were landing on me and licking up the splashes of syrup from my gloves. I was happy enough that they settle in but would have liked to have stayed longer however I had to be in Manchester later the same day.