I set the alarm for five o'clock this morning, to go and see to the swarm before they were out and about, and woke at two minutes to. Old habits die hard. My plan was to carry the small nuc box up to the apiary, with a hankie stuffed in the door so that the bees couldn't escape, transfer a small colony that was not doing well since my failed attempt at swarm control to my other nuc box, then transfer the swarm to the liberated full size box. On seeing the swarm Plan A ran into an immediate snag, since there was still a small beard of bees on the front of the hive, so I wasn't going to be able to carry it anywhere. Squashing bees is wrong, not just because it is a waste and needlessly cruel to the bees, but because all the other bees can smell what you've done, and it makes them cross.
Changing the running order of events, I took the spare nuc box to the apiary to do the swap, giving myself a shock when I forgot which of two hives was the non-doing one, and lifted the lid of the neighbouring hive which was the other half of the swarm control to be greeted by a sea of bees which were doing very nicely, thank you. There was a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing as I forgot my hive tool and the roof of the nuc box, and had to walk up and down the meadow several times while reflecting that early morning was very beautiful, and that I ought to get up this early more often, if only I were not so infernally sleepy. Eventually I'd got the little existing colony safely housed, and all the parts of their old box back down to the house. I am sure that people who keep their bees away from home instead of at the far end of their garden learn to be far more organised when it comes to remembering all the bits of kit they are going to need.
On opening the nuc box with the swarm in it, I saw why they had been so slow to go inside last night, and why a few had camped out overnight. It was absolutely full of bees. I lifted the frames into the full size box, wishing that more of the bees would hang on to them instead of falling on to the floor of the nuc or clinging to the walls, then tipped and shook as many bees as I could out of the nuc box into the full sized one, added enough frames to fill it, and put the lid on. Rather a lot of bees had fallen on to the ground, and I hoped that the queen was not among them. As long as she was inside the latest box, the rest would probably join her.
Then I made a pint of sugar syrup and put it on the hive over the hole in the crown board so that the bees could reach it, with the roof supported by an eke, hoping that if I bribed them with food they would look kindly on their new quarters, after being rudely transferred from pillar to post. The swarm was conveniently sited immediately under the sitting room window, which meant that while the bees could under no circumstances live there long term, I had a ringside view of what they were up to. After a quarter of an hour or so I became suspicious that the bees outside the box were gathering around the base of the eke, with no activity around the entrance hole, went to check and found that in the confusion I had put the entrance block in sideways, so that there was no hole. I had to disturb them yet again while I prised the box up far enough to turn the block by ninety degrees.
As of half past five they are still in their box. I was afraid I'd messed them around so much that they would simply abscond. It drizzled for most of the afternoon, which may have helped keep them put. The final step, once it is almost dark and they have stopped flying for the day, will be to stuff something in the door, strap the box up and take it in the wheelbarrow up to the apiary. That account of the task ahead glosses over one or two unknowns, like that I have to get the eke off before strapping them up, because it is heavy and I can't have the bucket feeder rolling around. Which means I have to lift off the roof, take away the feeder and the eke, and get the roof on again without lots of bees spilling out everywhere.
I hope I manage to keep them, since apart from being a large swarm they are fabulously good natured bees to put up with being shaken around so many times, and in thundery weather. I suppose the moral of the story is that when I saw that one of the colonies from the split brood was going backwards, I should have switched them back into a small hive at once, to leave myself with a spare large one, just in case. But the idea of hiving a swarm so large that it wouldn't fit into a nuc box didn't feature in my plans.
Addendum I looked out of the bathroom window, after the bees were fed and settled and I could resume my normal getting up routine and take a shower, and saw a small rabbit hopping nonchalantly around in the rose bed. I rushed downstairs, fortunately still fully clothed, seized Our Ginger from his basket where he was having an after-breakfast snooze, carried him down to the back garden and stood him in the edge of the rose bed. I hoped he would be able to smell the fresh scent of rabbit, but if he could he chose to ignore it, since he just stared vaguely at the mass of rose stems and dying Camassia leaves without metamorphosing into a fierce hunter. I went and collected the big tabby as well, as he was around. He did at least stay on the lawn looking at the border for a long time, but I think he was simply trying to work out what he'd gone downstairs for. No rabbit carcases appeared for the rest of the day, but to show that they have a sense of humour one of the cats left a small dead shrew in the hall.
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