More Bees

Whilst waiting for the arrival of my replacement queen I came to the conclusion that I really needed to have two populated hives as insruance against problems like queenlessness. Luckily there was another beekeeping auction in driving distance on 14th May 2011. So off I went with smock, ratchet strap, gloves, smoker, lighter and a bit of sponge for the nuc entrance. This auction like the last started with the sale of a range of used beekeeping gear, I'd been told this auction was shockingly expensive compared to the last so once again I didn't bother with any of the equipment and kept my beertokens for the main event. When I set off it'd been nice and warm in Hull and I only grabbed a jumper to take as an afterthought. This auction took place outdoors at a farming museum, and it was freezing! I wandered about, looked (ok yawned) at old tractors, and WWI trench digging engine. I don't think it worked but it looked pretty interesting -no I didn't photograph it and their website only seems to show tractors unfortunately. Anyway where was I? Oh yes, buying bees.

So eventually the auction moved to the bees. There was a number of nucs on sale and some bees in travelling boxes. I'd driven about 35 miles to get there and figured for the drive back I'd best go for a travelling box rather than a nuc as it would be better for the bees plus I wouldn't have to wait 6 hours for the bees to get back in the box as the nucs had their entrances open and their bees flying whilst the travelling boxes were closed . Unfortunately of the four travelling boxes some were quite obviously leaking bees, as the auctioneer pointed out. I certainly didn't fancy driving home with a leaky box of bees in my Corsa.

I was pretty certain the first box was leaking so I didn't bid on it, a few people did and someone won. I didn't think the second box was leaking so I thought I'd best go for that one. It wound up with myself and a middleaged lady bidding against each other for that one. I'm not sure if she was particularly attached to that box or like myself she was wanting to take a box she knew wasn't going to fill her car with angry insects but as we bid against each other she was evidently not happy and was really glaring at me. Well that was my second auction ever and I feel that I bred a little enmity there, however I'm fairly certain that people bidding against you is what normally happens at an auction so I won't worry about it too much. I won the next travelling box of bees for the princely sum of £140 plus £7 which I think the 5% extra charge was toward the association hosting the event or the venue maybe. I was now the proud owner of a second box of stinging insects. Ace!

My second box of bees.

I got these home without a problem, sat them next to the first hive, removed the travel lid and popped on the crownboard, contact feeder, eke and metal roof from the first nuc for a few days and gave them some 1:1 syrup to drink. The whole lot looked a little precarious so on went the ratchet strap whilst I assembled the commercial frames I was going to put in their brood box.