More of bees

As mentioned in the previous post, I checked my top-bar hive a while ago and cleaned out some large chunks of comb containing honey but with a large proportion of nectar, so I decided, as the nectar was likely to ferment anyway, to use it instead of sugar in my latest ginger beer brew.  Not sure if it's honey ginger beer or ginger mead, but who cares?  It's cranking strongly.

Yesterday I was feeding the chooks when I found myself in the middle of a massive swarm of bees.  I followed them to the neighbour's place  (Ben and Anna) and found they has settled on a dead stringy bark.  I figured they would settle in the hollow of the tree, but they decamped to another tree nearby and formed a cluster 4-5 metres off the ground, on a steep slope among some scrubby saplings.

I put a garbage bin under them and then whacked the branch with a long stick.  Kerplop!  

Missed the bin.  

Gathered up as many as possible by hand, put them in the bin and then dumped them into the hive, scrambling up and down the slope with a bin of bees three times.

Then I used the same stick and duct-taped a plastic flower pot to it, put it up under the remaining cluster in the tree and shook as many bees as possible into it, and dumped them into the hive.  This was repeated 5 or 6 times, with the pot getting stuck in tree branches each time.

Somehow I managed to get lucky and get the queen in the process because the rest of the cluster moved down to the hive over the next couple of hours.

Went back just before sunset, gathered up the hive and brought it back home.  Woo hoo!  One strong colony ready to make honey.  I checked them this morning and they are quite active and settling in nicely.

There is a general rule of thumb that swarming bees will not sting.  My experience is that this is true until you start whacking them with a flowerpot on a stick, then all bets are off.  One little beggar got up the leg of my bee suit and stung me on the bum.