Being Mugged by Bees

As I have bees I have to keep a lookout for swarming. This can be prevented by destroying the new queen cells in the hive. ie good maintenance of hive. Wnen bees swarm they mostly cannot sting as they gourge themselves on honey before leaving hive and so cannot bend their abdomen to drive sting in, although they try to. However there is always the one or two who don't eat as much so watch out, they can and do sting. If they are just flying around and nor "clumping" as swarms do I am not sure what they are up to .However if the queen does not like the place she won't stay there long and will take swarm off somewhere else. Jim

It is a bit cloudy so no bees today. Interestingly a few bees always manage to find their way inside the house and they end up near the windows trying to get out - when it gets dark they quieten down and just die within an hour - however if the bees find a little hideway out of site they do not die - found two this morning under a cloth all alive and well while their mates who did not take cover were dead soon after the sun went down last night.

I did my good deed for the day and set them free.

I picked up a full sized primary swarm in Hawker (ACT) this pm.

The resident people were most interested in the process. Lucky I have few spare bee suits!!

Job and knock, and I was back at the alehouse half an hour later......

Gumnut