Saving the bees, one box at a time

Catching a swarm

So a few weeks ago I was called by the Health and Safety Officer from Tegral Building Products in Athy to come help with some advice as they thought they had a swarm of bees on their property.
At the time they called me it turned out that they had a lot of scout bees looking around the roof of the building in the video below..The scout bees had in mind to bring the main swarm to the attic of the building belonging to Tegral 
Just back from holidays I had very little equipment with me at home , but I got a couple of nuc box's and set them up around the building.the scout bees were interested in. 
 
I then realised that I had to get my smoker which was with my main apiary near Newbridge.  An hour and a half  later when I returned from my apiary I was in the process of lighting my smoker to try chase the bees out of the roof of the building when the main swarm arrived and headed straight into one of the bait box's ( also called a nuc box ) 

How lucky were Tegral - because if there was no bait box there for the bees I imagine they would of swarmed into the attic of the building to set up their new home.
​Imagine the headache of taking the roof off the building - getting a bee vacuum ( which i dont have ) and having to take the bees out of the roof . 

Check out the video below ( from Tegral's Facebook page ) to see the swarm arriving 

So the bees went into the bait box and began setting up their new home 

Moving the bees took place at 6am 

We decided to move the bees away from Tegral. At the time the weather was fantastic and we needed to be at the bait box early in the morning and try get as many of the bees before they began leaving the hive to start their days work. Even at 05:45 in the morning the temperatures were over 14C and the bees were flying - so we closed up the hive and moved them elsewhere 

How the bees are doing since being moved from Tegral 

Since the swarm was saved , Tegral Building Products have bought 2 of the swarm traps from beesupplies.ie to encourage swarming bees not to swarm into the roof's of any of their properties. 

We'd like you to do the same and purchase a swarm trap or provide a location where swarm traps can be located. The swarm traps cost €80 plus delivery and need to be painted to help them become weather proof so that when a swarm moves into one - they can stay in that box for may years to come ( the box can be moved with the bees in them ) 

How you can help !

Saving the bees one box at a time 

And save yourself some bother too.  
So I was contacted by a local lady Ger O'Neill for some advice about saving bees and she suggested that we ask for some help to get a few more bait box's out and around for the bees to swarm into. . 
An idea took shape that if we can encourage people, farmers or local business to put a couple of Nuc box's out and around the county , we may be able to save a few more swarms of bees  

B S Nuc

If you would like to sponsor a bait box to help save the bees or if your have a location we could put a bait box up to encourage swarming bees into - please get in touch using the contact form below

Have a listen to myself and Ger O Neil on KFM who picked up the story and interviewed us at the end of July  

Have a listen to the podcast from the Kildare Today show on KFM from Thursday 26 July 
​The article about beekeeping starts at the 21 minute mark 

Click here if your would like to donate toward buying a swarm trap

If you would like to donate ( any amount ) towards buying some swarm traps - please use this link  or the button above. Swarm traps cost upto €80 each ( Plus delivery charges ) 

Check out some swarms of bees arriving to nuc box's 

Links and Credits 

• Tegral BUilding Products  and Tegral on Facebook 
• Ger O Neill 
• KFM Raido
• BS Nucs - whoose nucs we are fundraising to use 
• Bee supplies  - where we are buying the B S Nuc;s from when they come back into stock in September