How I got where I am now

[Bob Williams]

I got my first hive in August 2020, from a beekeeper who was downsizing. He had taken off the honey stores, but left one super. The hive was 20 miles away so I had to get it home. I started by removing the super, smoking off any interested bees and taking it home. I returned in the evening to seal the broodbox ready to move the next morning. We were in the middle of a heatwave and a goodly number of workers were outside the hive and wouldn't go back in, so I went ahead and sealed all the entrances and joints, and put straps around the whole thing.
The next morning, I returned with a couple of friends; we wrapped the hive in a dust sheet and put it in the back of my car. When we got home, we carried it to its new location at the bottom of my garden.
We then noticed a lot of bees flying around, taking an interest. A look underneath revealed all the bees that had been locked out of their home the previous evening were clustered on the open mesh floor - I had driven 20 miles with them like this!
That was my first lesson, and a lucky escape!

 

[enrico]

I got my first hive in August 2020, from a beekeeper who was downsizing. He had taken off the honey stores, but left one super. The hive was 20 miles away so I had to get it home. I started by removing the super, smoking off any interested bees and taking it home. I returned in the evening to seal the broodbox ready to move the next morning. We were in the middle of a heatwave and a goodly number of workers were outside the hive and wouldn't go back in, so I went ahead and sealed all the entrances and joints, and put straps around the whole thing.
The next morning, I returned with a couple of friends; we wrapped the hive in a dust sheet and put it in the back of my car. When we got home, we carried it to its new location at the bottom of my garden.
We then noticed a lot of bees flying around, taking an interest. A look underneath revealed all the bees that had been locked out of their home the previous evening were clustered on the open mesh floor - I had driven 20 miles with them like this!
That was my first lesson, and a lucky escape!

You will have hundreds of stories within a year! I once made a travel screen with the mesh too large. As we got to the last mile of a thirty mile journey they found they could get out!!!and they did in their hundreds! We had to leave the hive in the car until night time when most of them found their way back into it!
E

 

[Apple]

You will have hundreds of stories within a year! I once made a travel screen with the mesh too large. As we got to the last mile of a thirty mile journey they found they could get out!!!and they did in their hundreds! We had to leave the hive in the car until night time when most of them found their way back into it!
E

The car or the hive?

Funniest beekeeping thing I have ever seen was my friend Chris driving his Red Defender 90 down the high street in Liskeard with a ploom of bees following it.... when I finally caught up with him he said he realised the roof had come off the hive and had to keep his speed down to 15mph all the way back to StCleer so that the bees could keep up!!!

 

[Nige.Coll]

Had to move a hive or two one evening, strapped them up and took them home for the night.
Next morning after only one cup of coffee I put the hives back in the truck. Completely forgetting I had loosened the straps on one hive to straighten it up.
As I pushed that hive into the truck the brood box slid off the floor, No bee suit on, now confronted with a lot of slightly confused bees. Ran and got a bee suit on and went back to deal with the carnage, put the hive on a stand next to the back of the truck after putting it straight again, there were now thousands of bees flying around the now open entrance trying to work out what was going on.
I thought about it for a bit and grabbed the hosepipe, set on spray I sprayed the area where the hive and bees were flying with water, it worked, the bees thought it was raining and went back inside.
Had about 50 bees in the truck with me but managed to get them to the new site without further drama.

The book of mistakes is always thicker than the book of victories in beekeeping.

 

[Cuckmere couple]

I got my first hive in August 2020, from a beekeeper who was downsizing. He had taken off the honey stores, but left one super. The hive was 20 miles away so I had to get it home. I started by removing the super, smoking off any interested bees and taking it home. I returned in the evening to seal the broodbox ready to move the next morning. We were in the middle of a heatwave and a goodly number of workers were outside the hive and wouldn't go back in, so I went ahead and sealed all the entrances and joints, and put straps around the whole thing.
The next morning, I returned with a couple of friends; we wrapped the hive in a dust sheet and put it in the back of my car. When we got home, we carried it to its new location at the bottom of my garden.
We then noticed a lot of bees flying around, taking an interest. A look underneath revealed all the bees that had been locked out of their home the previous evening were clustered on the open mesh floor - I had driven 20 miles with them like this!
That was my first lesson, and a lucky escape!

one of my early rules was
always look under any box/nuc you move!

 

[Swn58]

one of my early rules was
always look under any box/nuc you move!

Picked up a swarm once with my long suffering partner. She was driving. I had assured her that they would not escape from the net curtain they were wrapped in.
A mile from the apiary, she saw a bee. I said 'don't worry....it's a straggler.' Then there was another.....and another.....then twenty.....fifty. I've never seen her drive so fast.
We got to the destination and she 'decamped' and was off......sprinting across the field.
No one got stung.....I don't know what all the fuss was about!

 

[pargyle]

Some years ago I collected a colony from a newish beekeeper who was giving up, I knew the bees as I knew who had originally sold them to him .. he told me when we arrived at the apiary that the floor was fastened to the brood box with those u-shaped metal clips - I could see them in the dusk between the floor and the brood box - he told me that the hive had been delivered to the apiary like that and he couldn't get the floor off. I blocked the entrance up but the stand they were on made it a bit difficult to get the straps around so I figured I'd do that when I got it into the back of the Mitsubishi L200 I had at the time .. lifted the hive into the wheelbarrow, not a problem ....

You can see where this is going can't you ?

Barrowed it about 100 yards to where the truck was parked ... no probem. Picked the hive up - by the handholds on the brood box (stupidly) not from under the floor and started to lift it on to the tailgate ... and the floor fell off, bounced off the wheelbarrow and onto the ground ... the clips were there but had been cut at some point, the floor just been held in place with propolis. To make matters worse the floor was attached to a huge piece of free comb full of bees. The light was on in the back of the truck and they all teemed out.

I was, fortunately, booted and suited but the back of the truck was full of bees ... the more I tried to put things back together the more bees came out. Eventually I shoved everything in the tilt and shut it up. They were still buzzing around by the time I got them home ... I couldn't get the brood box onto the floor - it was a warm evening and some were clustered on the piece of comb . others were crawling all over the windows and headlining. Total chaos - all of my own making !

I had to leave it all in the back of the truck as it was too late to mess with them. They stayed in there overnight and through the following day with the tailgate open so they could fly and in the afternoon I managed to get the frames into another box with a floor and some straps round it and the bees eventually went home and I completed the hive move.

Lesson learned ... unless you have secured the hive yourself ... be very cautious of someone who says - it's OK it's all secure, you can move it .... never again.