'I have a swarm for you, I have your box, they are fanning at the entrance and it looks like it was a successful catch. Can you come and collect them?'
With Suzy shouting various bits of information in the background as to how to get there it was all over in about a minute. At least he proved that you don't necessarily need a solid floor for a swarm – that was my first thought. I was suddenly incredibly excited but also a nervous wreck. Eight months' worth of reading, writing, investigating and learning was about to pay off with this simple and unemotional one-minute phone call. It all seemed so easy and straightforward with one exception: I still didn't feel remotely ready.
While I was talking I realised there were several things that I still hadn't done. Firstly I needed to move the hive position as it was too near the shed. Secondly I had no sugar to make up a sugar solution to give the bees upon arrival to encourage them to 'draw' out the comb. In their new home will be the frames with wax foundation strips and you need them to build the comb onto these strips in which the queen can start laying. These also provide a base for the bees to store pollen or nectar so if they don't get this job done first there could be a few problems settling in. It is my understanding that this is standard procedure for newly swarmed bees but perhaps most importantly, I didn't actually have a feeder to give the sugar solution to them. I would have to ask Suzy if she had one and whether I could borrow it. These are usually large plastic or wooden containers that sit directly on top of the hive and will hold the sugar solution. There are a few different sorts of feeder but the bees will have easy access to the solution and make use of it in the hive. Within a few weeks, having topped it up several times, you should apparently be able to take it off because the bees will have established themselves in the hive.
I finally left home at 7.50 p.m. with my heart beating a little faster than normal. About five minutes down the road I realised I hadn't brought the address with me nor brought any gloves. Typical. It didn't matter too much as the address was cemented into my mind and I was not going to be touching the bees today, just the hive.
I got to the nursing home just after 8.30 p.m. and dusk was settling in. I drove in and Suzy was there with her daughter Laura, all dressed up and ready to go. We exchanged pleasantries though I felt a little awkward, especially as I was about to steal their bees! While we waited for Richard the swarm-catcher, I was feeling strangely grown up and couldn't really put my finger on exactly why.
Richard's car pulled in and out stepped a gentleman in his early sixties. I am not sure what I expected a swarm-catcher to be like but I am not sure I expected him to be so charming and normal. From our discussions I was expecting him to be quite precise and almost military-like but this was simply not the case. Tall and gangly like me, with an air of calm and quiet authority, Richard went about explaining what had happened and what we were to do next.
Walking through the grounds of this care home in my beekeeping outfit, in the distance I could just about make out the hive situated under a 5-foot-tall tree. As Richard had pointed out, these bees could not have been any more accommodating. Surrounding this small and rather sad-looking tree were some 50-foot monsters, which would have needed extreme climbing gear and probably some of Reigate's finest scaffolders to build complicated platforms to get to the swarm. However, they had very kindly picked this small tree.
So, on the ground was my nice little hive, on top of a white sheet. It was immediately apparent that my open-mesh floor had been replaced with a red, rather old-looking solid floor which had been screwed in place using a metal plate. Richard mentioned that Adam had kindly done this as he felt it had a better chance of keeping a swarm in my box, which I thought was very kind of him. It just meant that I would have to change it back again in a few weeks when they were settled in.
Earlier on in the day, Richard had cut off the branch holding the swarm and held it over the box and given the branch a tap. The aim was to knock as many bees as possible into the hive along with the queen. The branch was then laid in front of the hive and on top of the sheet, and the stragglers could walk into the hive, sensing the queen was already in there. We simply put some wire mesh over all the openings and held it in place with drawing pins, before carrying the hive to the car; all the while I could hear the buzzing of the bees, which were probably wondering just what on earth was going on.
I have to say, despite knowing that the bees couldn't escape, it is one of the weirdest sensations putting a beehive in the boot of my car. I cannot think of one more stupid act in the world. To top it all off Richard, who at this point I deemed wiser than one of the Wise Men, gave me a long diatribe about what to do next. One statement slightly perturbed me. Just as I was leaving he said, 'Drive slowly, don't go round too many bends and avoid bumpy roads.'