A few days ago my faithful friend and house-keeper came and told me she’d seen several bees buzzing around the side wall of ‘the old-wooden house’.
‘They’re probably a scouting-party’, I told her. Let’s hope so. With bee-colonies worldwide being under threat these days from the over-use of toxic pesticides.
It reminded me of a similar situation with the same old house a number of years ago:
One of the things about living in old houses, especially old West Indian Wooden houses is that they’re full of history. Now, believe it or not, to a bee ‘bee history’ is very important, so much so that whenever there is the need for new quarters for a dividing or ‘swarming’ hive, the bees scout around their very large district and can usually find an old but currently unoccupied place to set up the new nest by ‘sniffing out’ the long ago remnants of an old location. Apparently there is some residual scent detected by the bees who then bring the new group back to an old site.
This happened a couple of times in the small house I was living in up in the mountain in St Kitts. The first time I was not actually the tenant but the neighbour, an unsympathetic ‘radio-ham’, occupying the house had merely had them smoked out unceremoniously and had the access hole into the cavity between the wooden side wall of the house sealed off. That was a bad idea; for a couple of years later, by which time I had acquired the house and was living in it, they came back. Finding no difficulty in gaining new access, very soon there was a constant flight of bees in and out of a small hole just under the gallery floor, which like the rest of the residence was of wood; and really they were not troublesome.
Eventually I decided that if I was to be surrounded by bees, I’d better get them into a proper home and invoked the assistance of Doug Llew-wiss, our vereey Welsh – “south act-uallly, Swanseee to be truuthful – well – Mumbles – (the place, not him) – see?” – local Apiarist, together with Ralph Vanier our ‘sort-of-retired’ bee-keeper, both apiarists ‘extraordinaire’. They came complete with smokers, veils, suits, and a crow-bar, to prise open the wall to reach the wild nest within, and to set it up in an empty hive they’d brought with them.
Some time later Doug came up with a second hive-full of bees to go with the ‘first set’ that they had extricated from the house that quiet afternoon in April – quiet that was until they started meddling with the bbbbb’s, who were by then well ensconced in their new quarters but in need of some added ‘strength’.
This second hive Doug had obtained as a ‘swarm’ somewhere ‘in the country’ and he reckoned they were a strong colony and would add to my interest in ‘Bee-Keeping’ – as opposed to just ‘bee-having’ as the books say. He was going back to Wales for his son’s wedding and a vacation, having said that he would visit Bayfords again upon his return to put another ‘super’ on top of this strong hive. That’s a sort of upper-deck, and with a screening device with which one can exclude the Queen from going up there to lay and so, consequently, just have honey stored there by the diligent workers.
“You shooould ‘ave honeeey by Chriss-mass” Doug had said, enthusiastically, before his departure.
Well, all went that way, until a short time later, on a Sunday afternoon, when two bees were a’buzzzin’ round my head as I sat in my room at this machine (or its predecessor) writing a couple of letters – “why don’t you two buzzz off?” I’d said, a trifle irritatedly by that time. Later passing through the living-room on my way to the Kitchen, imagine my concern at seeing at least 150 bees’ in there buzzing round inside. I thought perhaps they were trying to find, or maybe had found, new nesting quarters about the house. I opened all the doors and windows and shut myself back in my room. Then, after a brief shower of rain, bingo – no more ‘in-house-bound’ bees – until the next time…..