To our surprise when we first moved into the Ponderosa we found that the entire back wall of the outhouse was home to .. you guessed it ... bees. The wall was at least 4-5 metres long and the previous owners had tried to kill them, but without success.
We decided there was no way we were going to renovate the outhouse without trying to find a way to "relocate" the bees on the property. I enquired to many bee keepers to see if they could assist, but again without success. They all wanted to take the bees, but were reluctant to relocate them for us.
Two summers ago, we noticed the bees were gone. From what we could see, all of the bees had swarmed inside the outhouse, left the back wall, and died trying to get out of the building. It was quite a sad sight to see and the smell was horrible. Oh well I thought .. I'll just have to source some bees inside a hive and place them on the property.
Last summer .. we noticed the bees were back but not living inside the outhouse or the wall this time. They had found a new home in one of our wine barrels that sits on the deck of the outhouse. Grrr ... great to have them around the vegetable and fruit garden doing their business .. but not good when I'm back to square one again .. trying to relocate the bees.
I know where I want the hive on the property and I even know what type of hive I want. I'm just not sure whether I will have to get more bees or wait for my original ones to do their thing and swarm at some stage. I have the next few months to come up with a plan.
I've seriously been thinking of doing a beekeeping course just to get the basics sorted. My husbands cousin did it for a while and said it's not rocket science .. but of course nothing really is once you get the hang of things.
Happy learning peeps!
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