I picked up a Queen and a swarm of bees this weekend from a breeder in the Wellington region. They came with 6x frames inside a temporary “Nuc box” which is often used for transporting Queens and their colonies.

Somehow as I was driving, the Nuc box opened, and suddenly I had close to 50 bees flying around inside the car.

I thought about winding down the windows, but didn’t want to leave any Bees behind… so I did the only thing I could think of. Singing the Herbs song “E Papa”.

This seemed to have a calming effect on the Bees and they were understandably relaxed upon arriving home considering my choice of waiata on repeat.

I proceeded to prepare the bees new whare, and light up the smoker (which is a great tool that kindly asks the bees to get out of the way) and in my bee suit, transferred the nuc frames into the new hive.

After a few minutes of total confusion and chaos, the bees accepted their new home and quickly began to explore and construct more of their incredible hexagonal wax structures around any gaps in the hive.

Bees are so attuned to their space (and their Queen) that they set an internal GPS location on their hive - so when you mess with their house and move their frames around, you need to make sure to put the new hive right in the exact same place - otherwise you are asking for trouble.

I sang one more round of E Papa to the Bees, to make them feel welcome.

Stay tuned more more updates.