Changing Urban Landscape

A potential problem for urban beekeepers is people. Other people. The prospect of a couple of hundred thousand stinging insects living next door is probably fairly daunting for most people in this country -especially those not too familiar with bees. When siting my hives, well intially my hive, I had to position them to minimise the chances of any neighbour/bee encounters.

Luckily bees fly in straight lines. When they fly over an obstacle they maintain that height instead of tracking the terrain. So my hives have been sat in a corner of the garden with the entrances facing a wall and my neighbour's shed. The bees have been flying over the wall and shed then crossing neighbouring gardens too high to bump into anyone. Good plan Batman.

For reasons unknown the garden wall is far lower here than the rest of the wall. There was a section of rather decrepit wooden fencing sat on top of the low wall and leaning on the shed, it was falling apart though so before getting the bees I got a couple of pallets, a plank of wood, some screws and some wood stain and made a new section to replace it.

Palletwood panel and shed

Recently my neighbour decided to replace the old shed it with a brand spanking new corner shed. If I'd known I would've just closed the hive entrances up the night before work was started but I wasn't aware until the old shed started coming down.. I suppose about three hundred quids worth of new shed (some assembly required) sat in our shared passageway for a fortnight could've been a hint but as I rarely use the passage I hadn't noticed the quarter ton of cut wood neatly stacked there. The upshot was the bees were already flying and if I'd closed up the entrances returning foragers wouldn't be able to get back into the hives. Foraging bees are the older workers, they also do guard duties. When you get too close to a hive they're the ones who start headbutting you and if you're a bit slow on the uptake they're also the ones who'll sting you. So, a cloud of confused angry forager bees building up was something to avoid.

I lit the smoker and sat it on the hives to calm them. With some 20mm plastic mash, a signpost, part of a door, half a shed side and my suddenly redundant palletwood fence section the neighbour and myself made a quick barrier for the bees to fly over. It gave the garden a bit of a redneck look but did the job and next door finished taking the shed was taken down.

Shanty town chic

The neighbours had some spare bricks and decided to raise that section of wall in line with the rest of it. For that the barrier would need to come down. Believe it or not bees don't see red, so that night by the light of a bike rear light I jammed some sponge into the reduced hive entrances locking the bees in. I also took the opportunity to put some landscape barrier down on the ground in front of the hives as its a bit awkward to reach if anything starts growing there. I popped some stones and a couple of breezeblocks on top of that so the chickens don't just rake it up and threw some lose soil and mulch over the fabric.

The wall grew

The builder came along and added eight courses of brick in an afternoon before laying a concrete footing for the shed, when I got back from work I opened up the hive entrances again. The bees had stored food in the hives and I'd also put feeders in place so it wasn't a huge hardship for them.The next day the bees were free to go about their business whilst the new shed parts were being painted. When it got dark I got out my bike light and locked them in again so they didn't bother people whilst they were assembling the new shed. Better to err on the side of caution keeping bees in urban areas.

The next day I was surprised to see a few bees on the outside of the hive. As the day wore on there were far more of them buzzing about than I'd expected. I did briefly wonder if there was a gap in one of the closed up entrances and they'ed been coming out of but the bees seemed to be arriving rather than leaving. I lit the smoker stood it with the smoke drifting above the hives and put some crownboards and correx sheets on top of the wall to make them fly higher.

In the evening I opened the entrances, it was too late for bees to be going out but it gave the foragers knocking about a chance to get back in. Next door the shed was taking shape but wasn't quite finished so I figured I'd need to seal them in another day. It'd been pretty hot and stuck inside the hives the bees had no access to water -well they had some 1:1 syrup I'd given them to stimulate brood but that was all and I'd given the mesh floors a quick spray of water, but I thought they might need a more substantial water source for another warm day so I poured some tap water into the indentations in the tops of the rapid feeders I'm currently using. I didn't know for certain that the bees would find it, afterall it's dark in there and it has no scent but it seemed a good idea. In retrospect what I think I should've possibly done was just place a wet sponge above the crownboard that the bees could've reached.

By about five o'clock the next day the shed was finished and in place. There was a small gap between two parts of the trellis I spotted a couple of bees flying through so I put a little plastic mesh over it. There's a yellow and green leaved creeper of some kind near it so perhaps I'll be able to train it to cover this gap and remove the wire mesh. Opening the hive entrances again it wasn't long before bees started flying again. I soon spotted a coroner bee carrying away a tiny chitin clad corpse for disposal away from the hive.

New wall, trellis and shed behind the hives

 Talking to the neighbours they'ed observed a large wasp attacking the bees on one of the days they were open. I suspect wasp numbers will be pretty low at the moment but given how low in number in the colonies are I've decided to put out a wasp trap for now.