In this first‑person vlog, North Wales beekeeper Laurence Edwards describes a sudden, wind‑driven tree fall at one of his apiaries. After receiving a text from a landowner about a downed tree, Laurence rushes to the site, fearing massive loss because the area stores numerous high‑value empty hives (long, Layens, nucleus, concrete) and equipment within a four‑metre square. He finds the massive conifer trunk has fallen nearby but missed the stacked hives by a few metres, sparing thousands of pounds in damage. Laurence walks the viewer through the layout of the apiary, the cleared space, and his plans to clear the fallen wood, chip the area, and install screening to protect against future tree falls. He reflects on the risk of placing colonies near trees and advises beekeepers to keep hives as far from trees as possible. The video combines a real‑time inspection, relief at the near‑miss, and practical beekeeping safety recommendations.
Chapters
In North Wales, we are facing some serious windy weather at the moment, and I just got a text from one of my landowners to say tree down in the apiary. I've texted him, I've called him back, but he's not getting back to me. I know where the apiary is, but I have no idea kind of what damage has been done up there. So I'm going to go up there now and take a look. But I'm so annoyed with myself. Like, I moved all of my beehives, all of my apiaries away from trees because of the amount of trees that fall down and have smashed beehives in the past. Like when they fall on a poly hive, they just obliterate it to bits. And even on wooden hives, you can't really stick them back together, or it's not very easy to stick them back together. So I'm driving up there now, and I'm really hoping that there's not going to be like a huge amount of damage. What's particularly bad at this apiary though is that it's not got any beehives there because I moved them all away, but it has got stacks and stacks of very expensive beehives, empty beehives, in one location that if the tree's fallen down onto those beehives, then It is going to have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. It's got my long hives, hide hives, long hives. It's got my nucleus hives, it's got my layens hives, it's got my concrete hives, all within the space of about like 4 meters square. And next to it there is an absolutely huge conifer, like with a kind of 2-foot-wide trunk. And if that's the tree that's come down, then it is going to have blitzed all of those hives. So I'm going to go there now. Fingers crossed we're not going to see some serious beehive carnage. So So we have got so, so lucky there. You can see there in the background that there is a trunk that has come completely down. The landowner's been here, he has chopped it down now. So I kind of delayed it for a couple of hours and he very proactively has come up here. But look how close this is. So you'll see over here, got my storage boxes here, and then I've got all of my cleaned and scorched equipment outside. And okay, it's not ideal to keep stuff outside, but these beehives would be kept outside anyway. I've got my long hive there. I've got my layon's hive. I've got my other long hive. I've got all my stands. I've got all my concrete beehives over here as well, 4 concrete beehives. And then behind there I've got some stuff stacked up. And then look at this here, this is the trunk, and then that is where it has fallen. And then obviously over there you can see, look at the size of that tree that's come down. And the landowners just cut it down just to get access through. But you can see over there, look at the size of it. Absolutely monstrous tree. If that had come down onto all of my equipment over there, I would have been in so much trouble. But just look at it. Look at the angle in which it turned 90 degrees the other way and everything would have been smashed. This time I got very, very lucky. But it kind of makes me think, what's up there? Is there something else that's going to come down? Maybe I need to sort out this apiary and get it cleaned up. But while we're up there though, let's have a look around this apiary quickly because there is loads of stuff going on in this apiary. Very, very different to how it used to be here. All of this space here has been completely cleared out. And if I just flick around here as well, so there's my storage containers there. And then if I come around here, you will see Look at all this space here. It's completely open, absolutely huge here. Now all of this is going to get scraped, going to get full of chippings, then we're going to put up some screening, and then all of those trees up there— I think a lot of those trees there, they're coming down as well. And amazingly, that is due south, so it's going to give my bees a perfect little haven in this woodland. So I definitely got lucky that time. Nothing has been damaged. The tree came down, missed everything by a couple of meters. But my advice to you is that if your colonies or your beehives are near trees, get them as far away as possible.
