BeeDSL – Swarm of Bees Finds Home in Openreach UK Cabinet
Spare a moment this morning to think of the Openreach (BT or Bee Tee) engineers in West Cornwall (England) who were recently left buzzing (sorry) after opening the door of a street cabinet, which looks to be quite an old Primary Connection Point (PCP) for copper phone lines, only to find a hive of busy Bees occupying it.
The situation occurred after a local Beekeeper, Toby, who was working nearby to encourage another swarm in a farmer’s hedge to Bee-have, spotted that a second swarm was hanging out around one of Openreach’s green street side cabinets – turning it into somewhat of a Bee-side connection point, possibly helping to supply BeeDSL broadband services to local customers. We could say Fibre-to-the-Bee (FTTBee), but that would be incorrect (sorry, again).
In a hive of activity, Openreach promptly dispatched two engineers, Stuart and Barrie, to inspect the cabinet. Upon opening it up, they found that a swarm of Bees had indeed made a bee-line to camp out inside their cabinet, possibly because it’s just been ‘too swarm’ outside lately (I really.. am sorry).
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We’re not Bee experts, but from the picture we do bee-lieve that those are Honeybees, although Openreach cabinets aren’t usually known to be the best place for them. “With the help of engineers Stuart and Barrie, the cabinet was opened, a catch hive was put in place and the bees were relocated. They are now are back to making superb Cornish honey,” said a spokesperson for Openreach.
Over the years we’ve seen some unpleasant and unusual things camping out inside road side broadband and phone cabinets (e.g. wood lice, rats, spiders nests, wasps, politicians), so the idea that Bees could make their home inside one is perfectly understandable. On top of that, they’d probably get a better connection than local homes too.
“Our engineers come across all sorts of animals while connecting the UK to Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband, but this is certainly something they don’t see every day,” added Openreach. It sounds like they were struggling too bee-lieve it all. We can’t help but wonder what’s next, Fibre-to-the-Hive (FTTH) perhaps? I am now, extremely.. sorry.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This must be the sweet spot for the best connection. Although I did hear some buzzing on my phone line! Boom Boom!
beehave
Great to see BT relocating the bee’s rather than destroying them. Well done.
This does raise a more serious point when coming to street furniture, we are now starting to see FTTC and FTTH cabinets that are not vented having excess moisture, fungus, and algae inside them which when combined with an enclosed unventilated area could pose a serious health risk. Engineers opening these cabinet could be breathing in all manner of things, algae build up around fibre connectors that ‘leak’ light are also being seen or ports left uncapped when not in use thus starting to impact on fibre performance. We found a solution from ICEE in Portsmouth who can supply a solar powered venting kit. Next problem.. unsealed ducts !
Every single OpenReach cabinet that has active components is well vented.
They don’t ever put that kit in an unvented cabinet or pod.
Any OpenReach cabinets or pods attached to a cabinet that have no vents contain nothing but copper connections and IDC blocks.
Russ. I have worked for BT for nearly 25 years, or Openreach as it is now. Every single cabinet is vented, ESPECIALLY fibre cabinets. Years ago, there were unvented copper cabinets which were desiccated. I suggest in the future getting a grasp on your subject matter before spreading untruths on the internet. I always said this would happen with the World Wide Web…so much untruth everywhere.
Must be a relic left over from Be broadband that didn’t survive the O2/Sky takeover.
Didn’t Buzzby (Buzz-Bee??) used to advertise BT?
Ugh. These awful puns really sting.
I know.. I just couldn’t stop myself.
Got one of a bigger hive than that in a cab in west wales, little lizzards get in them too.
How to check for phone line faults pick up receiver listen for buzzing sound if there is one your phone line is working
At least it wasn’t Squirrels chewing the lines….
But Mark, please beehave with those puns!
Looks like enough to meet the Universal Pollination Obligation of 10 Megabees per second
You Sir, win the 2021 USwitch best pun award!
Bloody hell, more puns then a Tim Vine show.
10/10 on the puns.
At openreach our engineers ensure the cabinets work giving you the extra buzz the need. We also provide honey too.
I blame aliens! They fly down here, interfere with our bottoms, beam-up our woman and now this!! Something has to be done!!!
As a beekeeper, I can see why honey bees would like the location: warm and dry, and rarely disturbed. Thing is, the pheromones that bees leave behind do linger, so expect to see another swarm in their next year (the swarming season is now pretty much over).
I don’t not bee-lieve it. At least Openreach did not put one foot in the grave for them.
Fiber To The Honey?
How long can we drone on before running out of puns?
When asked the locals said it’s unKernown what attracted the insects to that street cabeenet