Bees by Boat!

It had been raining all day, so heavily as well!

My bees are at an apiary at my mate’s house in Church Minshull, near to the river. I emailed my mate Dave during the day, and he said he was checking the river hourly and that I should stay by the phone. Dave has built a flood barrier, but it is not finished: it will be by winter time, in time for the worst weather, as you would expect!

9 p.m. Monday came and he emailed to say, “The river is settling now. The rain has gone off!” Ten to twenty minutes later I had a phone call, while I was eating my Viennetta I hasten to add! Dave said, “In the past few minutes the river has gone up by 1-2 feet.” We think this was because of the damn sluice gates at Northwich being raised, to keep the water out of their town. The river then started to back up and rise!

I raced over to get the bees and the water was starting to lap the hive-stands. I got the 2 smaller hives sealed up but the big hive was too big to go in the car, and I didn’t want to open them up. We found some large concrete blocks to raise this big hive up: the water the following day got to within a few inches of the entrance! By the time the other two hives were sealed, there was no chance of using the track: it was quite deep in water, and I didn’t fancy carrying them through fields and fields of scrub, so we decided to use a boat.

Well the only boat to hand was a coracle! We moved one hive at a time and it was surprisingly stable, round the flooded track to the car. It saved carrying them and it was actually very easy to do, all hives should be carried this way! I never got a picture of these goings on, because we were rather panicking at the time - the water was rising all of the time!

I now have the two small hives at a different apiary - next to fields of pollen and nectar mix, so that is quite good! The big hive is still on the blocks as the river Weaver is still swollen. It has dropped a lot, but I think the blocks will stay for a while - peace of mind and all. At least it will give me a bit of time if the river floods again - with all this rain it would not surprise me! I have since removed some supers, so it is manageable now: it is not so top heavy on the blocks that measure up to my waist at least!

Well that was my bit of excitement! Just thought you might all enjoy reading it - quite comic looking back on it!

Dave Riley

CHESHIRE BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION

Apes curamus et nos curant (We look after bees and they look after us)

Founded 1899

Registered Charity No. 227494

Bees by Boat!

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