On a hot and otherwise lazy summer afternoon I sensed an almost electric kind of buzz from the twisted apple branches above.
Looking up, a swarm of honeybees clustered busily around the Queen; wrapping around the branch in a formation that shifted and undulated. All the while their scout bees search the area for a suitable new home.
My mum‘s partner Andrew has a history in bee keeping so I headed back to the cabin to tell him about the swarm.
Jumping up in excitement we shifted into an electric action of our own. He searched for his bee suit while I prepared my camera. After gently removing the branch from the tree with a handsaw, Andrew knocked it down with a short and sharp action, sending the swarm falling into the hive along with their queen.
It must have been a satisfactory new abode as the Queen bee decided to stay in the new hive where the colony still remains today.
- Honeybee, 2021.