It's been an inspiring month this month a couple of weeks ago I rescued a colony of bees from a chimney in Epsom. I won't know if I've got the queen until we inspect next week but I promise to keep you posted you can check out my Instagram video below.
I didn't manage to capture the queen, but as you will see from the photo below we have a beautiful queen in our current hive who is laying like crazy. I'm sure you will be able to spot her she has a much longer body and it's darker then the other bees. If the small colony from the chimney is queenless, then I can put A-frame of eggs into the new nuc box and these incredible creatures will create a new queen for their hive.
Just a quick reminder that if anyone is interested in joining our bee WhatsApp group, just give me a shout in the comments and you can come just for a one-off to watch an inspection or get more involved and perhaps have your own hive there when you feel ready – all ages welcome!
Following a conversation with Sue, whose plot is right next to the bees, I mentioned how sad I was that when I rescued the bees from the chimney I had to use an small vacuum that was donated, in the hope that I could save more bees, but that it really wasn't fit for purpose and only a few bees survived.
If I had a specialist bee vacuum (https://www.eezeebeevac.co.uk/) I could have saved nearly all the bees. Sue kindly offered a very generous donation towards the £275 cost. If anyone reading this feels able to make a small donation to help me reach my goal you can do so here.
It would enable me to do more chimney rescues where we can save a whole hive from being exterminated and increase our hives at the allotment for extra honey and those potentially wanting their own hive. Just as an aside a nucleus of bees cost more than the Bee Vac 😊 thank you in advance just in case.
Helen
The Accidental Beekeeper
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