New garden guests

I've been a bit of a blue bee keeper for a few weeks now...

Its not just been the fact that we've started eating the last jar of last summer's honey...
Its not just been the weather... (though heaven knows that would be enough to make anyone miserable)
I'm really quite cheesed off that my first hive of bees didn't make it through the winter.
And with the weather being as cold as it has been there has been no opportunity to get out and check on how the other hive of bees are doing.
Having one hive is not a good thing as if anything goes wrong there is nothing that can be done, salvaged or rescued with the help of a neighbouring hive.

:(  :(  :(  :(  :(

So when the opportunity of adopting two hives from a bee keeper who needed to give up in a bit of a hurry presented itself , I fairly jumped at the chance.
Squeeeeee!!  New bees!!!

Now to bring them home...

First, wait till after dark.... after all there's no point moving a hive unless ALL the bees are in it!
Then carefully bung up the hive entrance with a piece of foam...

 

Lift and slide the hives carefully and slowly into the back of the car, close the boot quietly and off you go.

I did rather wish, as we were driving VERY slowly from one side of the village to the other that we had a big red sign in the boot saying "CAUTION BEES IN TRANSIT" .
One of those scrolling word signs form the post office might have done the trick in terms of keeping other drivers a little further from the back of the car.
I considered hanging out of a window and yelling "back off road hog" but instead we regaled each other with tales of what might happen if we ran out of fuel or needed to do an emergency stop!

Thankfully we arrived back at my house pretty soon and a mere 45 minutes after we started 2 hives of bees had been safely carried to the bottom of the garden.  Handover complete.

:)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :) 

Two happy bee keepers ....tho' for different reasons.
Good luck Tom, really hope your move abroad brings you loads of exciting adventures. Enjoy!