Bombing in the dark - new girls on site

This evening I drove up with Fabiola and Donald, her husband, to an allotment in Ealing where she keeps most of her hives. The allotment's beautiful: some of the people there keep vines and make wine; there are many beautiful vegetables and greenhouses; and we initially stopped off to see her friend Ian (another of the Ealing BeeKeeping mob I had not met before) who was sharing drinks with friends in a beautiful open-sided shed complete with chandelier. The colony itself had been kindly beefed up with several extra frames from Ian. We taped up the hive entrance, bound the floor, brood box and roof together with a few lines of cord and then carried the whole contraption rather gingerly into the car. I drove carefully back to Maida Vale with my suit still on and veil to the ready, with all the windows down.....just in case.

By the time I returned on site, struggling under the weight of a heavy hive, it was getting late. There's not much light at 9.30pm even at this time of year, and as I got beneath the trees I realised it was going to be a challenge to get things set up gently and precisely. Indeed I was right. As I juggled my knife to slice off tape and cord and moved the stack onto the waiting stand, angry bees issued forth and started bombing my smock and veil. I shoved in an extra new frame with foundation to make it 11 and shuffled the boxes around as best I could in the dark. I also set aside all the spare kit (brood box, a coupe of supers, roof, etc) on the far side of the site. Even here, though, some bees had followed me and they were clearly unhappy. These poor girls were never to make it home. On a new site and with me unable to either calm them nor explain where their new home was, attacking me was all they had left. I dallied until they at last lost interest and took their chances of finding home in the gloom.

So, after a slightly unpleasant experience the new colony is safely installed. I've decided not to leave it the full 14 days till the first inspection. After all the colony is operating on (mostly) built out comb, and I'm not too sure what's going on in there after all. Perhaps a quick peek in 7 days will do.