Anaesthesizing the bees

The Styrofoam starter hive was placed on top of his neighbour to make room for the brand new wooden hive that will be the bees permanent home. Timothy the beekeeper gives every year a different colour to the hives he makes himself. This one should have been a bright pink as he assured me it was this year’s colour. But it had a brown tarnish: ‘Store bought,’ he said. What a pity. I love a bit of the old pink. The lid was off the Styrofoam box but before he was able to move the swarm from the one hive to the next Timothy had to give them a dose of the anaesthesizing smoke from the bellows.

The bellows

Before they left Timothy the beekeeper showed the workings of his smoke producing bellows. It was a beautiful gadget of unditerminable age made out of copper and was full of dents. It was obvious that it had seen a lot of action in its working life. A friend had given it to Thimothy. The leather on the bellows had badly deteriorated but after it was replaced by part of an inner tube it worked again. The smoke is supposed to have a calming effect on the bees and is produced by smoldering hay or straw. Amanda photographed it all on her smartphone. Notice that the wooden starter hive is not tied up to the hive stand nor weighted down by a stone. It would cause great drama the next day...