This afternoon I attended a garden in Shippon to try to capture a swarm of bees that had decided to nest in a yew tree. This was going to be difficult as the swarm had placed itself in between five upright branches and was about 3 meters up.
After two unsuccessful attempts to get the bees out of the tree before the heavy rain came, I put an old fashioned Skep hive above the swarm with a small amount of bee fondant inside. Slowly the bees started to move up into the skep and I managed to get all but about 20 bees that continued to fly around the tree. the skep was then wrapped in a cotton sheet, and taken away to a new home in an empty hive in an apple and plum orchard.
Braeside Bees 