On the evening of Thursday 1st May, a bee swarm was discovered in the shrubbery of Oakfield gardens in Yardley Hastings. Our Property Manager, Brendan, called a beekeeper from Turner’s Bees who came that day to rehome the swarm. Paul soon arrived with his wife and daughter to begin safely removing the bees from the shrubs and housing them into one of their new hive containers. The process took about two hours from start to the last bee walking into its new home.

The main part of the swarm was removed from the shrub, containing the queen bee at the centre of it. Once it was dropped into the new container, all the other bees main concern was to follow where the queen had now been placed. This is when the container was just left for the thousands of bees detached from the swarm to now follow the queen into. They cannot survive without the queen and so follow her scent to be with her and surround her once again.

Once landing on our shrub, it was the worker bees’ job to surround the queen in their thousands to keep her safe and warm.

Now, the bees have been taken away to be rehomed with Turner’s Bees, soon to have Oakfield’s logo on their new hive and to one day produce Oakfield Community honey that will be able to be purchased from our pop up shop, along with some donated candles made from the wax the bees produce.