I'm all right Jack keep your paws off of my stack!
There’s quite a stack of honey in the hives right now, thanks to a long warm autumn. Most of it is ivy honey which doesn’t taste very nice and has crystallised in the comb. But the bees like it, so they guard it jealously because it’s their only source of food for next 3 months.
There’s quite a stack of honey in the hives right now, thanks to a long warm autumn. Most of it is ivy honey which doesn’t taste very nice and has crystallised in the comb. But the bees like it, so they guard it jealously because it’s their only source of food for next 3 months.
The problem is that as it gets colder the bees huddle closer
together to keep warm, so they are not so vigilant. Mice know this!
So they creep into the hive and dine on the honey and wax
and any dead bees lying on the hive floor. Sometimes they even move in! It
makes sense – the hive is dry and kept warm by the bees vibrating their bodies,
and the mouse is surrounded by lots of food.
The trick is to move gently so as not attract too much
attention. Sleeping helps - you don’t want to upset 8,000 bees when you are the
size of mouse.
Usually beekeepers stop mice getting into their hives by
making the entrance very small – too small even for a mouse. I had done just
that in October, but the warm weather meant the bees were still very active bringing
in lots of pollen, which was then being knocked off their back legs as they
scrambled through the narrow hive entrance. So I removed the block and forgot
about it.
Just before Christmas I was checking the hives when I
noticed an unusual pattern of debris underneath one. Careful inspection confirmed
my suspicions – a mouse was getting in because I’d left the entrance block off. Inserting the block is simple enough, but what if the mouse
was still inside the hive? I needed to be sure it was mouse-free. There was one
way to be certain – kick the hive!
Well, not so much a kick as a good bump on the ground to
make the bees angry and startle any mouse. The culprit would then sprint out of
the hive with a dozen or so bees on its tail.
In the event no mouse appeared. I wasn’t surprised. Day time
temperatures had been relatively high and the bees were actively guarding
their honey. It was only at night when the temperatures dropped and the bees
were in a huddle that the mouse slipped in ....
