So exciting! Collected a swarm or bees! (Well they are probably just a cast.)
Steve has received a call almost each day about swarms, (one day this week he had twelve!) Each time I could feel that he was quietly hopeful that it would be local, but before today they were all over the U.K... until today.
I was sat next to him at the moment when he realised that the call was about a swarm that was just down the road. I didn't know the local geography but his reaction said everything. We rushed off to a small sea-side town called East Preston. They were hiding under a sawn-off branch of a tree down by the sea. Very docile. I put the "nûc", (nuke) in the apiary with the door open. We will inspect them tomorrow.
A cast is a small swarm.
A "nûc" is short for nucleus, which can either mean a small, (hundreds or a few thousand) with a queen, OR the small hive that they live in. So a cast becomes a nucleus the moment you get them into a nuc. I guess that a it is called a nucleus because it is the smallest viable bee colony.
This makes an interesting philosophical question about life, (which, once again I have to give Steve credit for this idea): Is a worker-bee a living animal? The obvious answer seems to be yes until you consider, "is each cell of your body a living animal?" A worker-bee can't survive on its own for more than a few weeks and it certainly can't continue its species.
Steve has received a call almost each day about swarms, (one day this week he had twelve!) Each time I could feel that he was quietly hopeful that it would be local, but before today they were all over the U.K... until today.
I was sat next to him at the moment when he realised that the call was about a swarm that was just down the road. I didn't know the local geography but his reaction said everything. We rushed off to a small sea-side town called East Preston. They were hiding under a sawn-off branch of a tree down by the sea. Very docile. I put the "nûc", (nuke) in the apiary with the door open. We will inspect them tomorrow.
A cast is a small swarm.
A "nûc" is short for nucleus, which can either mean a small, (hundreds or a few thousand) with a queen, OR the small hive that they live in. So a cast becomes a nucleus the moment you get them into a nuc. I guess that a it is called a nucleus because it is the smallest viable bee colony.
This makes an interesting philosophical question about life, (which, once again I have to give Steve credit for this idea): Is a worker-bee a living animal? The obvious answer seems to be yes until you consider, "is each cell of your body a living animal?" A worker-bee can't survive on its own for more than a few weeks and it certainly can't continue its species.
No comments:
Post a Comment