While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

On 19/06/2012 20:16, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


So it was bees then! I wouldn't have liked to be in the middle of that
cloud, it looked quite intimidating!

On 06/19/2012 08:16 PM, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


Yes, a swarm of bees indeed. What a sight! Fantastic.

If you can spot where they've gone, a local apiarist will be really
pleased to come and collect them for a hive. Then you'll be able to eat
the honey from "your bees" for many years to come.

cheers,

On 19/06/2012 21:11, Emery Davis wrote:
On 06/19/2012 08:16 PM, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


Yes, a swarm of bees indeed. What a sight! Fantastic.

If you can spot where they've gone, a local apiarist will be really
pleased to come and collect them for a hive. Then you'll be able to eat
the honey from "your bees" for many years to come.

cheers,


They just disappeared into the distance over a neighbouring farmers
field of maze. I was a somewhat relieved when they'd gone! It was quite
a stunning and surprising sight though.

"David in Normandy" wrote in message
r...
On 19/06/2012 20:16, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


So it was bees then! I wouldn't have liked to be in the middle of that
cloud, it looked quite intimidating!

Do you know the rhyme "A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay, a
swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm of bees in July isn't
worth a fly" ?
Keeping bees is very hard work - stopping them swarming needs the hive
examining often for queen cells. IIRC.
As I am not that fond of honey, I prefer to buy mine..

Tina

On Jun 19, 8:03*pm, David in Normandy
wrote:
On 19/06/2012 20:16, Chris Hogg wrote:





On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.

So it was bees then! I wouldn't have liked to be in the middle of that
cloud, it looked quite intimidating!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

A swarm of bees is quite harmless. They are virtually guaranteed
never to sting.

On 06/19/2012 10:41 PM, David in Normandy wrote:
On 19/06/2012 21:11, Emery Davis wrote:
On 06/19/2012 08:16 PM, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


Yes, a swarm of bees indeed. What a sight! Fantastic.

If you can spot where they've gone, a local apiarist will be really
pleased to come and collect them for a hive. Then you'll be able to eat
the honey from "your bees" for many years to come.

cheers,


They just disappeared into the distance over a neighbouring farmers
field of maze. I was a somewhat relieved when they'd gone! It was quite
a stunning and surprising sight though.


A handful of years ago we watched them gather over the house and then
disappear down a chimney. It was positively cartoonish, really looked
as though the chimney was a giant hoover, sucking a tornado of bees.

The bee man who collected them estimated the swarm at over 70 thousand!

We have 3 ancient limes (Tilia) in the front garden, and the bees are
very attracted to the scent of the flowers.

On 20/06/2012 11:36, Sacha wrote:
They're very
unlikely to be a danger to anyone when swarming because they're so
intent on being with the queen. I suppose if she landed on your head it
might be a bit of a problem!

Only if she tried to steal my crown! ;-)

Sacha wrote:
I have to disagree that keeping bees is hard work. Inspecting a hive
every two weeks for three months really isn't that arduous. If you see
queen cells forming, you knock them off. If anyone is interested in
keeping bees - and heaven knows we need them in the world - find a
local bee keeping course and go for it! I cannot think of another food
producing, plant pollinanting and therefore human food production
creature that requires less human intervention.

Interesting that you say that. That would have been my opinion until Nick
started keeping bees, and now he seems to spend more time Doing Bee Stuff
than anything else, including sleeping.

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2012-06-20 10:55:44 +0100, David in Normandy
said:

On 20/06/2012 11:36, Sacha wrote:
They're very
unlikely to be a danger to anyone when swarming because they're so
intent on being with the queen. I suppose if she landed on your head it
might be a bit of a problem!

Only if she tried to steal my crown! ;-)

The cheeky beeeesom!

haha
--
--

http://www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk/

On 20 Jun 2012 11:46:22 GMT, wrote:

Sacha wrote:
I have to disagree that keeping bees is hard work. Inspecting a hive
every two weeks for three months really isn't that arduous. If you see
queen cells forming, you knock them off. If anyone is interested in
keeping bees - and heaven knows we need them in the world - find a
local bee keeping course and go for it! I cannot think of another food
producing, plant pollinanting and therefore human food production
creature that requires less human intervention.

Interesting that you say that. That would have been my opinion until Nick
started keeping bees, and now he seems to spend more time Doing Bee Stuff
than anything else, including sleeping.

Someone I used to work with started keeping bees when he retired. His
wife often said that there seemed to be a lot more work involved than
she had expected because he was down at his hives (some miles from the
house) almost every day. He knew what he was doing - he'd built a
fence around his hive area in the farmer's field with a little gate in
it. On the opposite side of the enclosure, outside the fence, was a
large shed which the casual observer would think was not part of his
"property". I visited him there on several occasions. Camping stove
for tea etc., cool box for beer, TV running off a spare car battery,
shelves of books.......

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from Swansea Bay. Dave's at that end; I'm at this end.
Bill G's in the middle. Come to think of it, where is Bill G these days?

"Jake" wrote in message
...
On 20 Jun 2012 11:46:22 GMT, wrote:

Sacha wrote:
I have to disagree that keeping bees is hard work. Inspecting a hive
every two weeks for three months really isn't that arduous. If you see
queen cells forming, you knock them off. If anyone is interested in
keeping bees - and heaven knows we need them in the world - find a
local bee keeping course and go for it! I cannot think of another food
producing, plant pollinanting and therefore human food production
creature that requires less human intervention.

Interesting that you say that. That would have been my opinion until Nick
started keeping bees, and now he seems to spend more time Doing Bee Stuff
than anything else, including sleeping.

Someone I used to work with started keeping bees when he retired. His
wife often said that there seemed to be a lot more work involved than
she had expected because he was down at his hives (some miles from the
house) almost every day. He knew what he was doing - he'd built a
fence around his hive area in the farmer's field with a little gate in
it. On the opposite side of the enclosure, outside the fence, was a
large shed which the casual observer would think was not part of his
"property". I visited him there on several occasions. Camping stove
for tea etc., cool box for beer, TV running off a spare car battery,
shelves of books.......

Uhoh!!!!!!!!!! lol

--
--

http://www.shop.helpforheroes.org.uk/

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2012-06-19 23:22:20 +0100, "Christina Websell"
said:


"David in Normandy" wrote in message
r...
On 19/06/2012 20:16, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet
diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field. The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing
cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


So it was bees then! I wouldn't have liked to be in the middle of that
cloud, it looked quite intimidating!

Do you know the rhyme "A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay, a
swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm of bees in July
isn't
worth a fly" ?
Keeping bees is very hard work - stopping them swarming needs the hive
examining often for queen cells. IIRC.
As I am not that fond of honey, I prefer to buy mine..

Tina

I have to disagree that keeping bees is hard work. Inspecting a hive
every two weeks for three months really isn't that arduous. If you see
queen cells forming, you knock them off. If anyone is interested in
keeping bees - and heaven knows we need them in the world - find a local
bee keeping course and go for it! I cannot think of another food
producing, plant pollinanting and therefore human food production creature
that requires less human intervention.
--

And feeding them during the winter? I have no experience with them, but my
German friend keeps them, and they seemed very labour-intensive to me when I
was over there.
I could very well be wrong.
I spent my first day there jarring up honey. For hours, and when she was
visiting me, she was always e-mailing home about the bees. This and that
needed to be done with them.

Tina

When I kept bees, a good few years ago, I found it quite time
consuming. I only had two hives, but weekly inspections for queen
cells, general health and expansion during the season, followed by
honey comb removal, spinning out the honey by hand in early autumn,
bottling the honey, cleaning up the comb afterwards and feeding the
bees sugar syrup for their winter stores took a lot of time. I used to
get an average of about 45 lbs of honey, per hive, per season, but TBH
I wasn't sorry when I gave it up.

Chris

I keep my bees mainly as pets for pollination. Here in the far North, I only
tend to make honey one year in three (and this aint one of them) only taking
some honey off as gifts for friends. You can 'mess' with bees as much or as
little as you want, in fact the mistake that novice beekeepers make is to
mess with the bees too much - the bees know much better how to run their
lives than you do. Couple of empty hives as bait hives for any swarms that
appear and leave them with most (if not all) of their hard won honey, and
they are little work. Just depends how greedy you are.

Phil
Northern Highlands of Scotland, 40 miles N. of Inverness.

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2012-06-21 21:08:58 +0100, "Christina Websell"
said:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2012-06-19 23:22:20 +0100, "Christina Websell"
said:


"David in Normandy" wrote in message
r...
On 19/06/2012 20:16, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:30:32 +0200, David in Normandy
wrote:

While sitting outside this afternoon my attention was caught by an
intense buzzing sound. Looking up I saw a cloud around 50 feet
diameter
and twenty feet off the ground move close to our house then drift
off
over the lawn then it moved off into the distance across a field.
The
cloud must have consisted of thousands of buzzing individuals. I
couldn't see what insect it was - it was literally a huge buzzing
cloud
of dots. Bees or what? I've never seen anything like it in my life
in
all my years of rural living. I didn't think bees made such huge
swarm
clouds?

Sounds like a large primary swarm of bees. Bear in mind that June is
the month when bees are most likely to swarm, and a large colony may
contain some 50,000 bees half of which may debunk in the first
(primary) swarm.


So it was bees then! I wouldn't have liked to be in the middle of that
cloud, it looked quite intimidating!

Do you know the rhyme "A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,
a
swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm of bees in July
isn't
worth a fly" ?
Keeping bees is very hard work - stopping them swarming needs the hive
examining often for queen cells. IIRC.
As I am not that fond of honey, I prefer to buy mine..

Tina

I have to disagree that keeping bees is hard work. Inspecting a hive
every two weeks for three months really isn't that arduous. If you see
queen cells forming, you knock them off. If anyone is interested in
keeping bees - and heaven knows we need them in the world - find a local
bee keeping course and go for it! I cannot think of another food
producing, plant pollinanting and therefore human food production
creature
that requires less human intervention.
--

And feeding them during the winter? I have no experience with them, but
my
German friend keeps them, and they seemed very labour-intensive to me
when I
was over there.
I could very well be wrong.
I spent my first day there jarring up honey. For hours, and when she was
visiting me, she was always e-mailing home about the bees. This and that
needed to be done with them.

Tina

It may be different in Germany with a colder climate. But IF my bees
needed feeding, which happened rarely, because the honey was taken off in
mid-July, giving them the whole of the rest of the warm weather to forage
for their winter larder, they were given a sugar and water syrup mix, from
what I recall. I don't remember that happening more than once, possibly
twice, in the 15 or more years we had them. Climate must make a
difference, I feel sure but this not labour intensive. Taking off the
honey, which is what you helped to do probably took about two days in
total. In one particularly successful year, I got 80lbs of honey from one
colony and the least I ever got was 25lbs. Whatever it took, that was an
amazing reward.
--
It is probably different there but it was hard work and I don't plan to have
bees any time soon ;-)
Also hornets were there, preying on the bees. It seemed a constant thing to
make sure the bees were OK.

1 jar of honey will last me a year. I use it for mustard/honey glaze and
for reviving bumble bees.

Tina