Ash tree falls on home apiary, 3 January 2012
The home apiary has 5 National hives and 3 Warré hives.
Severe gales struck on the night of 2/3 January and the landowner of the home apiary called in the morning to say a tree was down in the apiary.
At the peak of the storm that morning, the wind reached violent storm force 11 on the Lleyn Peninsula with a gust of 93 mph at Aberdaron (25 miles (40 km) west of the apiary).
Above:
A = remaining 25 ft high stump of a 70 ft tall ash tree.
B = bottom of fallen trunk.
W2 = Warré hive 2 (populated 2007)
In falling, the tree appears to have been blown 15 ft. sideways causing the trunk and main limbs to land on the empty centre of the apiary horseshoe arrangement of hives. Thus only the smaller branches disturbed or toppled the hives.
Above: Warré 2 (2007), labelled in red in the photo, the oldest Warré colony was largely missed by the branches, being only slightly shifted on its stand.
Above: The only colony to have had its combs completely removed from the box was a National (TyN8). The bees were still clustered quite tightly on the combs. When it was righted a patch of brood about half the size of the palm of the hand was noticed.
Above: The bees were still clustered quite tightly on the combs of TyN8. While the combs were being replaced, a patch of brood about half the size of the palm of the hand was noticed on one of the middle combs.
Above: Rear left are the two inverted boxes of W1, a Warré populated in April 2011. Miraculously the boxes remained propolised together. The combs were still intact. It was just a matter of inverting the hive back on its floor and stand, and putting the quilt and roof back on.
Above: W1 is now righted. The chaos in the foreground is a stack of largely redundant National supers which were under sheets of corrugated iron weighted by bricks. Again miraculously, only one super was damaged, and that was only minor.
Above: The red arrow shows the easterly trajectory of the tree, leaving behind its 25-ft stump. 'A' and 'B' are where the main limbs hit the ground.
The hive 'TyN1' gives most cause for concern. This is a feral clony that late in the season entered unnoticed a bait hive near another apiary. As it had built many combs by the time it was discovered, it was decided that transfer to a proper hive should be delayed until spring 2012. A branch of the ash tree knocked it off its stands and all the wild comb became detached from the crown board (inner cover). A sizeable swarm was clinging to the crown board indicating that the queen was very likely alive and well and in its midst. To remedy the situation, the swarm was put on one side; the combs, still surprisingly well covered with bees and full of stores, arranged around the bait hive box; a National brood box with 11 combs and honey placed over it; and the swarm shaken into the brood box. After putting on a fresh crown board a 50 mm slab of polystyrene was placed on it before the roof was put on. The photo below shows TyN1 after righting.
