Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead Beekeepers' Society

Following my disastrous experience last year, I have endeavoured to nurture and care for the swarm that gave itself up to my care.  I am happy to say it is thriving and taking down the candy, so far they seem docile and healthy.  

However, the empty hive, carefully treated with a spray to deter wax moth and wrapped in plastic was standing at the side of the apiary ready for a new colony.  Because the beginning of January was so mild, I thought I would get ahead of the game and take all the plastic off and set it up for the spring.  I lifted the lid and noticed the plastic had been shredded.  Curious and a little tentative, I lifted off the super and the queen excluder that I had left on the hive to find the largest acorns I have ever seen rammed into every crevice of the brood box, no damage to the brood wax but really tightly packed.  I had also left a varroa floor underneath the brood box which, when I looked through it, had something that moved underneath the metal grille.  I was alone in the corner of a field and knew that I had to clean it all up, mice or no mice, and I had seen movement.  I lifted up the brood box and all the acorns rattled through on to the varroa floor, I now had a heap of acorns and a varroa floor with movement underneath.  Plucking up my courage, I tipped the whole lot on to the ground very quickly and stepped back just in time to see three flying mice take to the air and disappear into the hedgerow.

I am not afraid of mice but I prefer to see what it is I am trying to deal with and once I had seen them leap for their lives I felt reasonably reassured that they were gone, at least for the time being.  I looked around at the battlefield and the exploded hive parts and set about cleaning and reconstructing the hive,  I had a mouse guard on the hive and could not for the life of me figure out how they and the giant acorns, had got in there, given that I also keep my hive raised up on two pallets.  As I reconstructed the hive I noticed that the mouse guard could be easily pushed from the middle to open up the door and provide a snug little space inside the varroa floor but it still did not explain how the very large acorns got into the brood box.  I re-orientated the hive thinking, ‘that will fool them’ and took the extra parts off leaving just the brood box in situ.

I went again to check my live colony and just out of curiosity, checked the spare hive.  Lo and behold, the little ‘things’ had chewed the wedge I had put on the mouse guard and started loading up with acorns again.  These must be super mice to lift acorns of that size that high and force them into such a tight space.  No doubt someone out there has had a similar experience; please tell me they are not rats.........