Another swarm of bees

After yesterday's swarm, we ordered another hive and this morning drove to Carlisle to collect it. Back at Willowford we began to transfer the bees from the nucleus hive to the new permanent one - quite a simple procedure of lifting wooden frames of honeycomb, complete with bees, from one hive to the other. All was going well until the final frame when suddenly the tone of the buzzing changed and all the bees took to the air: the queen must have flown off and they had swarmed again. Within minutes the sky was full of bees. Again.

To cut a long story short, they settled in a branch of the apple tree and we managed, after much deliberation and numerous cunning plans, to coax them into the new hive, where they now seem quite happy, for the time being at least.