O U T

Terrible news. I spoke with the site manager this evening who told me to get both hives off site as soon as possible. Is it relevant that he referred to the drop in pond level being due to the bees (though I've been surprised to never seeing them drinking there)? No. Fundamentally, it's been decided that having bees on that site is not feasible since it will interfere with use by people. It's a great shame since I have seen bees work so well on other sites such as many allotments, but each site has its own priorities and I respect that. It's just unfortunate that this decision has been made after I initially had permission, and then moved bees on site. So much for my crafted discussion document of last week. I wish I had been in last week's Nature Reserves Forum meeting.

So that's that. I'll really need to get cracking looking for another site, and if it's to be at all geographically convenient for me to look after I'll have to somehow deal with the battle of moving them less than 3 miles. Perhaps I can stealth in at night when they're all asleep, or something, and then keep then sheeted up on the new site for a good while. I'll ask around to see what advice I might get. Nightmare.