Bees

Last week we had a bee swarm.  A few days ago my daughter came in and said that we had bees flying around the north wall of the house, which I took I must admit not a lot of notice of, as we always have a lot of bees about.   Those bees have now taken advantage of our complete failure to do anything about our dodgy pointing and made themselves at home in the wall.

So far we have not much in the way of encounters with the bees, though when I went out to the bins, which are round that side of the house, a little cloud of bees flew down to have a look at me, and then swept back up again, which was momentarily disconcerting.  I was glad I was not Pooh Bear and holding honey. Alas they are far too high up for me to do anything about collecting the honey, which is a shame, as I am very partial to honey  If I am honest I have not the faintest clue of how to start collecting honey, though dismantling the house wall to get at it probably wouldn't be a good first step, and one tricky to explain to English Heritage.   And probably not too popular with the bees either.

My husband appeared in the office a few days after the bees arrived and asked if I'd looked outside recently.  The front garden was a buzzing mass of bees; the first time I'd seen a swarm starting out.  I did a quick google and found out that the bees stock up on honey before they swarm, and are in holiday mood.  They eventually settled in one of our yew trees, and were removed by local beekeepers.   I asked what would happen to the scouts left behind, and was told they would go back to the hive they'd come from.  They haven't made it yet.  There's a little grapefruit sized swarm still left. 

They don't show any sign of leaving Badger Towers.  They are very handily placed next to my two very long lavender hedges which are just coming into flower, so it must seem like camping out next to the Ritz for them.