One year we stored a hundred or so supers of empty used comb in an unused portion of the
workshop. Knowing that the temperature over winter would be warm enough for waxmoths to do
their recycling job on this comb, the young lad whose responsibility it was to stack the
boxes was instructed to use PDB crystals, and to use enough so that the sublimation did not
cause the crystals to run out. The boxes were stacked to a height of about eleven feet and
each joint was sealed with self adhesive parcel tape. The crystals were placed in small
tubs at several points throughout each stack, using an empty eke to house the tubs. Also
stored at this time were a couple of stacks of brood boxes with drawn comb, some of which
had bred many generations of bees... This was pointed out to the lad who was doing the job
and as a result he was a little heavy handed with the quantity of PDB crystals used in
these stacks.
During spring of the following year it was noticed that these brood boxes had a
very strong smell of PDB and another employee was detailed to set these up in our factory
yard at an angle so that sunlight could penetrate deeply and any wind could blow through
freely in order that these combs could be aired.
Perhaps it was the fact that every time it rained that the boxes had to be
shifted under cover and then laid out again when the rain stopped, but these boxes were
not adequately rid of the smell despite the assurances of the guy doing the job.
As the only bee business in the area we received many 'swarm calls' during warm
weather and sometimes these were established to be honey bees and were collected.
We were in the habit of using one particular apiary (bee yard) as a dumping
ground and quarantine station for swarms of unknown origin. On this particular day we had
five swarm boxes [future link] containing freshly captured swarms, but we knew there was only one empty
hive left in the apiary that we were going to place the bees in. At 5.30 pm, when we
normally shut the factory two of us loaded up the swarms and all the kit that we were going to
need, including brood boxes from the stacks in the workshop. On arrival
at the apiary we had to lay some paving slabs first in order to have level bases on which
to set up the new hives, so by the time we started to dump the swarms into their new homes
the light was starting to fail.
Putting the swarms in only takes a few seconds and so we were on our way out of the gate when
the first swarm came out again closely followed by three more... All of these clustered in
a small group of young pine trees in a plantation a few yards away. It was a simple matter
to collect then up and throw them back into the hives. This time they stayed (with
hindsight I can now say because it was too dark).
I thought the activity strange, but by this time I had not put all of the pieces of the
jigsaw together in my mind. That happened at nine O'clock the following morning when the
first swarm call of the day came in... It was in the little pine tree plantation. Armed with
some brood boxes that had been checked out by my own nose two of us went to sort out the
problem to find all four of the fresh hives empty and two very large swarms in two different places on one of the
trees that had been the focus of one of the swarms the night before. Each swarm being an
aggregation of two of the originals, or maybe bees from all four (probably due to all the
bees having acquired the scent of PDB).
These two swarms were hived in fresh equipment and left to get on with it.
However at nine O'clock the next morning we had yet another call to say that there was
a swarm again, in the same place as the day before. This time it was one massive swarm that
required two boxes to get all the bees into. Not being sure why they had absconded this
particular time it was decided to re-hive them at another location a couple of miles away.
This was done using yet more equipment with the two groups of bees being treated as if they
were just swarms.
Even this was not the end of the story as that same evening there was a large
cluster on a juniper tree that was notable for attracting swarms, as the other boxes still
had bees these were hived separately.
It is fairly easy to look back and sort out why it happened and what was
happening, but at the time I was not certain... Needless to say the boxes received a lot
more wind and sun exposure before they were used again!
The very last group of bees to be hived went on to be a test colony in an
experiment that restricted the entrance to one single 10 mm diameter hole for more than a
year. [future link]
Originated... 12 June 2002,
Text added & New Domain... 06 February 2004,
Upgraded... 23 July 2004,
