Alan's Bees

Two of the many people we have met while at the Cordwood site were Alan and Lynne. Many people are interested in bees, but not many of them have abandoned bee hives and bees over the fence at  the bottom of their garden. After talking to them about the activity of the bees, it was intriguing to go and have a look to see what could actually be happening. Alan had said the hives had been abandoned for quite a few years, so it is unlikely that bees would just stay in old hives. They would be likely to move on as the space became filled. So, fighting off the brambles that had overgrown the hives we could see that they were stacked neatly up against the fence, very close together and covered carefully by a tarpaulin.

Not the way a beekeeper would arrange hives that they were working with. Alan had told us that on good days he could hear and see lots of bees going in to the hives, but because of the covers he wasn't sure where exactly they were going. It was a cool day, not really a day that we would expect bees to be out and about, nevertheless we did see a couple of bees as we lifted the covering to get a better look. There were what appeared to be 3 hives pushed right up to the fence.

 It was possible to get at the middle one, so Trev lifted off the roof carefully and peered in. There was a super with frames and foundation- badly eaten away, probably by wax moth, but no bees! Lifting this off there was a feeder and two floors stacked up together. Looking closely at the others it was clear that these were parts of commercial hives that had been stacked unused and covered to keep them safe. They were in very good condition,considering!  We could see two of the "hives" were empty but the end one must have been where the bees were living. It seemed to be two brood boxes stacked up with no obvious entrance- the bees must have swarmed into it through a gap somewhere at the back where we couldn't see. We put everything back as we had found it and left the bees alone. Hopefully we can get a local beekeeper to go and help sort out the equipment and bees as the spring gets warmer and the bees become more active. Alan is interested in having someone keep bees in his garden and maybe getting to know more about looking after them. The main problem to sorting things out is to find out who has left the hives!