Parish chairman leads rogue swarm hit team (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Parish chairman leads rogue swarm hit team

A CRACK team of beekeepers had to be hastily assembled after a swarm descended on Cropthorne last week.

The bees first showed up last Monday and announced their presence by trapping some visitors to the area in their car.

The swarm then took off and landed in a garden next door to Cropthorne Parish Council chairman Chris Whittington, who as luck would have it, is a keen beekeeper.

Chris said: "The bees landed in the garden of the house next to me and it was my wife and a friend who were walking through the grounds who first told me about them.

"So I called on the services of Gordon Mullen from Evesham Beekeepers who turned up very quickly in order to hive them.

"We then got suited up and captured the swarm in a box, before placing them into a hive. They are now happily living in my back garden adding one more honey-producing hive to the several already in the village."

Chris believes the swarm may have come over from Fladbury because bees tend to move around at this time of year and that is where the nearest hives to Cropthorne are believed to be.

Chris added: "What is likely to have occurred is that a hive has become overcrowded and the bees left.

"They always send out a scout first to find somewhere appropriate to stay and they were in a tree when we found them, which made it relatively easy to catch them."