Another bee day

My new hive and "stuff" arrived this morning. It's a whole kit, the same as the one I got already got, plus it includes some honey extraction kit (vats and sieves and more stuff). So I've not got two sets of suit/veils/gloves too. Cool.

It was the late afternoon when I had the chance to crack open the many boxes and start assembling the flat-packs into a hive. I was hammering on the work-bench in the back garden and just completing the brood box when a head popped over the hedge to the communal garden and said "The bees have swarmed. They're in the big tree." And indeed they were. I may already have mentioned that in the communal garden there are two colonies of feral bees: one in next door's chimney and one in a London plane tree several doors down. It was the latter which had swarmed. Great! I though - this is my chance - what a wonderful coincidence just as I am constructing the hive. But no, the swarm was way too high up: it sat deliciously but frustratingly about 20 feet above my head as I stared up at the outer branches of the tree. It wasn't even low enough to tempt me into some overly elaborate and dangerous ladder-pogo manouever. I checked on it several times into the evening, and I believe it's still there as I write this late into the night. Boo-hoo.

I had also popped over in the afternoon to see Graham, another local beekeeper who keeps bees in one of the other communal gardens in the area. I was supposed to be popping round to join him in his hive inspection, but due to some spectacular mismanagement of time on my part I only managed to drag him back to my place for a quick peek at the swarm. I hope to join him in an inspection in a week or so.

I am anxious to get my hive constructed since the more I think about it the more concerned I have become about my own colony and the space they have. To have filled that brood box in 12 days with comb filled with nectar, eggs, larvae and pollen was quite impressive. Of course there will also be more bees emerging in the next week. Was that extra super I left them really enough?