The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Friday, April 28, 1967 — Bees are on the move again in the Trade Fair grounds. Already about 10 or 11 swarms have been taken from pavilions and from poles, trees and other niches.

Members of the Matabeleland Association have been kept busy.

Mr L B Quail, secretary of the association, thinks the bees are swarming some months later than usual because it is only now that their reserves of honey are running out.

The good rains of last year have meant extra honey. At the Shell Company pavilion, Mr Tom Watts and Mr Manson-Smith investigated why an extractor fan would not work — and found bees. The association removed the bees.

But not all swarms have been taken to happier scenes. Some have been exterminated on the spot — not by members of the association. “We never destroy a swarm, bees are far too valuable an asset to destroy,” said Mr Quail.

A messenger, Benjamin Ncube, parked his delivery tricycle in Ninth Avenue, Bulawayo, yesterday afternoon, and carried an adding machine into an office. He returned to find a swarm of bees clustered on the left rear wheel of tricycle.

After a little hesitation, he jumped onto the cycle and pedalled frantically up the avenue. The swarm chased him for a few yards to the robot at the Fife St/ 9th Avenue intersection, but he was not stung.

Police, who had been called, pulled up in a “Bee” car after the messenger had gone. No passersby were stung. Later, the bees clustered on the branch of a tree on the opposite side of the road. Beekeepers’