It all started during a beginners Saturday morning session at Shugborough whilst we were talking to members about swarm management.
Somebody said, ‘there are a lot of bees in the air, is it a swarm?’ No, we all said together, it isn’t our bees.
But of course it was and eagle-eyed Jo noticed that they were very interested in a cone on one of the fence posts nearby.
So after the session was finished we went to investigate, sure enough there they all were neatly tucked up inside the cone where we couldn’t see them. Somebody commented that they weren’t in the cone but Jo was adamant that she had seen
them go in. Jo was right and a sharp tap of the cone on a nuc box transferred them swiftly to their new home, queen and all.
A few weeks later and they are building up nicely so no need to ‘cone off’ the area after all!