Swarming season is upon us, a little late, like Spring, but undoubtedly here now.
Today I collected a swarm from a neighbour, using my skep, which I made at a skep making course a couple of years ago.
It is a simple process made to look quite dramatic by the sheer number of bees that take to the air as you shake them down into the skep.
Providing you have the queen, the others will follow.
The first picture shows the swarm in the tree, the second, the swarm knocked into the skep, the third, the swarm inside the skep, the fourth, back at my apiary and knocked into a hive and the final picture, the remaining bees walking into the hive in search of the queen and their natural instinct to walk up into the dark.
