Several years ago i started off a honeybee rewilding project in Inishowen, which is located in the northerly part of county Donegal, Ireland. It started of with the placing of a couple of log hives in the area to see if there were still wild honeybees left in our region. Within no time at all all the log hives were taking up by swarms of bees. Every year after this I keep expanding. We keep placing more and more hives throughout the countryside. The aim is to have 1 log hive per square mile so we can achieve a sustainable population of wild honeybees. To date our efforts are paying off and every log hive we put out has a colony of bees in it. I hope to keep continuing to do this, spreading further in to the county and the rest of Ireland.
But to get this vision accomplished we can use everyone’s help. If you have a garden with a few mature trees in it, it could be an ideal location to place one of the log hives. Once the bees move in you wouldn’t even notice them. This is because the log hive the bees are in is well out of the way, 4 to 6 meters from the ground. Having a colony of bees helps with the pollination of plants, shrubs and trees. The pollinated flowers turn in to seeds in will provide essential food for many other species. So why not give it a go yourself? In the first couple of months of the year all the hives are made ready for the oncoming swarming season which starts in April and lasts till the start of August. The best time to start placing the log hives is during the month of March. When the colony prepares itself scout bees will start scanning the countryside for suitable location like the log hives. When the day comes that the bees swarm in to the log hive it is a sight to be seen. The beautiful dance of the bees as the fly around the queen protecting her until she is safe in the log hive is mesmerizing. Whenever I see this event i always feel privileged and i can recommend it to everyone to witness it yourself.