On Wednesday 16th, just a few days after checking the hive and finding lots of happy bees, there were suddenly a lot of bees (really a lot) on an old tree stump, halfway down the hill. After a bit of investigation it turned out that there were really, really, really a lot of bees there. And very, very few in the hive. We chased them out of the tree, they buzzed around a bit (ok, a lot) and we hoped by the morning they'd have found somewhere safer to go (ideally, back into the hive). Unfortunately at 7 the next morning there were clouds of confused bees buzzing around the steps, and by about 9 o'clock someone had called in the government pest control people who sprayed the bees. There weren't many dead bees on the ground so we're hoping that most of them managed to fly off in time, but the end result - no bees. There were a few going in and out of the hive for a couple of days, but on Saturday morning, nothing. Plenty of honey in the comb, a few capped brood cells and quite a few dead larvae. Also some kind of wax moth, but probably not enough to have scared the bees away. So, bee fail. We will wait until the spring time and try again.
