BEE-MERGENCY!

Propolis, pollen, bees, nectar, and capped brood.

Sooo... Today was an exciting day in the Api-area!  I (Matt) came home from work this afternoon, and as I was walking toward the back yard I heard the loudest bee-buzzing that I have heard to date.  It was the warmest day since we got our bees and the population is the largest to date as well.  As I walked toward the sound I considered those facts and hoped that it was the sound of many bees coming and going and hovering around the the hive.  I was wrong!  Kate's bees were swarming!!!!

As those of you who follow this blog may recall, we found swarm cells in Kate's hive on Saturday.  We believed we had removed all of them after locating her queen.  The thousands of bees that I found flying around the yard were evidence that we had not.  When bees swarm, 50% or more of the colony leaves the hive with the original queen, while the rest stay and continue in their work with a new queen that they have raised.  

I am not sure when the bees left the hive, but I am assuming it was just before I arrived at the house.  How fortunate!  When I walked into the yard I saw all of the bees flying around overhead. It was a giant cloud of bees! I immediately took Ethel (the dog) inside, threw my stuff down and went outside to assess the situation.

Sorry about the shaky video!

When bees swarm they leave the hive and fly off to an area where they can gather in a cluster around the queen while some of the bees go off in search of a new hive location.  There is no way to tell where the bees will land and form that cluster.  As I watched them all flying over the yard, I was begging them not to go far.  I had visions of jumping in the truck and trying to follow them as they flew over houses and trees, the highway and the river.  Thankfully that was not necessary.

See the bees up there in the upper half of the picture?

As I watch them I noticed some of the bees landing in the hibiscus tree in our yard about 25 feet from the hive they just left.  More and more of the bees landed in the tree and they clustered together over several small branches.  We got lucky.  Now all I had to do was to teach myself how to capture and hive a swarm of bees, and execute those steps before they could fly off and continue their search.  I only had time to check one (portable) reference so I grabbed our copy of "Beekeeping for Dummies" ( which I certainly felt fit our situation) and headed back out to the yard for some T.C.B.ing (taking care of business).

I needed to do five things: 1) find a box 2) get the bees into the box 3) prepare a new hive for the swarm 4) find and lay out a sheet in front of the new hive, making a ramp up to the entrance of said hive, and 5) shake the bees out onto the blanket and at/on the entrance hoping they find the new home acceptable.  Easier said than done.  At least in this situation.  

Many beekeepers are prepared to capture a swarm and have the necessary equipment at the ready.  In fact, for a beekeeper looking to expand their operation a swarm is a blessing.  It is a healthy colony looking for a new home.  Being in our first season of beekeeping and planning to keep only two hives, we have not prepared ourselves for this.  What's a boy to do?  Adapt, improvise, and overcome!

I scrambled around for a box.  I found a box that would work, but after I emptied it out I realized that the bottom was jacked up and in need of tape.  I ran inside with the box, grabbed a roll of packing tape, made

one pass across the bottom with the tape, and ran out of tape.  WAH, wah...  I quickly found another roll of tape and sealed off the bottom and went on to step two.

My intention was to climb up the ladder with the box, cut off the branches that the swarm was hanging on and place them in the box.  Unfortunately they were on several small branches and as I took hold to cut them off the bees began falling off the branches into the box.  I decided to go with it and I shook all of the branches I could reach and "shake" them off into the boxes.  FYI, "shaking" bees is an actual technique. True story (for those of you who watched the video of me hiving my package bees).  I think this is a good time to note that with only a veil on, and bare arms and hands I was not stung even once.  Swarming bees look alarming but they are at their most gentle when seeking with out a hive to defend.  In fact, I do not wear gloves when working my hive and through nine hive inspections have only been stung once by a bee that I carelessly pinched between my thumb and a frame.  I quickly climbed down the ladder and closed up the box.  Almost.  The top of the box was jacked up just like the bottom so it wouldn't close tightly.  So I grabbed a shirt that had been in the box and draped it over the top hoping it would keep the bees in.  But I did not get all of the swarm because I could not reach them.  I grabbed another smaller box and returned up the ladder to snip off the branches with the remaining bees.  I started snipping from the bottom and realized that I needed a new system.  I placed the cut branches with the bees in the box and went forward with a new approach.  I started by snipping a branch from the top and stacking it on the next lower branch, cutting that branch and stacking them on the next, and so on.  That worked out well.  I snipped the largest branch last, opened and added them to the box, and closed it up.  Again, almost.  The shirt didn't quite do it so I covered the box with two old rugs that had been relegated to outdoor service.  Phew,  that was intense!

Matt collected the bees in this box, putting odds and ends over the top so they wouldn't fly out.

Now for the new home.  Like I said, we do not have a lot of extra equipment handy to accommodate a new hive so I had to improvise.  Normally you'd hive them in a deep box but we do not have any extra.  We do have western honey supers.  I filled two with frames and stacked them, added an outer cover and was ready to go.  NOT SO FAST!  We only have two bottom boards.  I found a piece of plywood to set the boxes on  but that would leave no entrance for the bees.  Improvise!  I grabbed a couple of wooden stakes and a hand saw and cut pieces to sit under three sides of the westerns, allowing for and entrance that mimicked that of a proper bottom board!  Overcome!

The bees will use the sheet as a ramp

I found the sheet that I thought would least upset Hunny for use as a collector and ramp.  I added a couple pieces of alder for extra ramps and went for it.  I shook the bees like I never shook bees before.  I shook the small branches over the entrance and the box onto the sheet.  Many of the bees began marching in, and some of the bees remained at the entrance "fanning", sending a locating scent to the rest of the swarm.  More and more moved into the hive, but many were clinging to the underside of the alder.  I was worried that if I left them they may not move in so I shook the boards onto the sheet near the entrance.  Most of the bees went right in.  Within a half hour all of the bees had moved into the new hive.  

After Kate got home we added a feeder inside two empty western super boxes on top of my inner cover (not currently in use) and put them to bed.

The lids have tiny holes in them so the bees can drink.

Where Matt put the swarm. (Two honey supers with frames)

feeding the swarm with a different kind of top feeder

Close up the swarm!

 That was very intense.  Handling the swarm was a very unique and awesome experience.  It was something greater that the normal bee handling that occurs during hive inspection.  To experience them acting as one organism was incredibly real, and handling them in such a gentle state has only served to strengthen my bond (if you can call it that) to the bees.  I am so glad that we are keeping bees, and am looking forward to the next challenge and opportunity to understand and connect with these amazing insects.  They are far more forgiving than I anticipated.  There are many threats to domesticated honeybees in north america.  We will do our best to protect our colonies, and hope that out bees will forgive and absorb our inevitable missteps.

Our intention is to keep only two hives.  Therefore we will recombine Kate's colonies in about one week's time.  Stay tuned, as that will be another interesting and exciting experience that we are looking forward to sharing with all of you, our friends.

Matt's hive with the honey super

Update to Emergency 1

Ok. Good news. So Matt talked to Jim from Beez Knees Apiary Supply where we took our bee classes. He said that he thinks the bees got caught outside and got disoriented when it was too cold. They can't fly when it is too cold. It looks like Jim was right.They looked dead the next morning when I left for work. When Matt went to check on them when he got home from work, They were moving. He scooped some of them up and put them near the entrance and they crawled in. The sun came out for a couple of minutes and when Matt went back out there a bit later, they were all gone! They huddled together to keep warm and survive. A rainy night and a day clinging to the rock and the wood chips, and then they went back into the hive when they warmed up! They huddled together to stay warm, and not die and it worked.

This may have been a classic case of "new motherhood." It is easy to worry about our new bees. We are so much as we go. They did look dead and dying though. Whew! The bees probably aren't dying of tracheal mites!

Emergency Entry 1

Normally I just write once a week when we check the hives, you know, no use in cluttering up the blogosphere right? But there is something wrong going on at Matt's hive. When he came home today there were clusters of bees on the ground outside his hive. They aren't moving and they look like they may be dying. When I came home from work I saw them too. We think it may be tracheal mites. But it could be a gut disease called nosema, there are signs of that too. Both issues have similar symptoms. I don't know!

Ugghhh! I hate tracheal mites. As I mentioned a couple of entries ago, tracheal mites live in the breathing tubes of the bees, the trachea. Having an inhaler myself, and having had breathing problems of my own before, I can't bear the idea of the bees having a hard time breathing, let alone suffocating to death from mites living in their trachea. It breaks my heart. As I shake my fist in the air, CURSE YOU TRACHEAL MITES! I know all beings have intrinsic value, but come on, don't kill our innocent bees.

We began treating for tracheal mites this weekend with grease patties, thinking that we were ahead of the game. Maybe we weren't. We will see what happens tomorrow I guess. Sigh.

Queen Killa

"That was major drama at the hive" I said. "I think that was you who was being majorly dramatic"   Matt said. "No! The bees were the ones being dramatic!" I dramatically responded. "The bees were just being bees" Matt calmly replied.

There WAS major drama at my hive because there were swarm cells all over the frames in my hive! Ahhhhh!  Swarming is a bee phenomenon that happens when half the bees leave the hive with the queen to look for a new home when they feel like they don't have enough space in their hive. This is the natural way bees create more colonies, so it's not that crazy; for the bees it's normal.

The reason we don't like it though is for a few reasons. One, I don't want my queen to leave. We live right in a neighborhood and we want our bees to be gentle, and not aggressive. The queen I have produces very gentle offspring and that is good, especially for the four neighbor kids who live right behind us. Another reason is that if half my hive leaves, then I have a much weaker hive. Less bees to do all the work means less honey, less foraging, slower everything. And if they don't have enough honey, and enough resources, they might not survive through the winter. So ultimately, if they swarm, I could loose my hive. That may happen anyway, but not if I can help it!

When I opened my hive for a hive inspection today, I found queen cells. There are three different kind of brood cells that a bee can make: worker bee cells, drone cells, and queen cells. They are bigger and longer. See there in the middle of the picture?

To prevent the bees from swarming, the queen cells must be scraped off. BUT I had to make sure my queen was still in the hive. Sometimes if the queen dies or leaves, the bees will make a new one. I had to make sure that was not what was happening. That was a whole other drama: finding the queen. After a few frames of searching, I found her. Whew! So I scraped off about seven or eight queen cells. I was sweating in my bee suit. It was kind of sad because they die. I'm such a queen killa! If Matt and I lived out in the country and our bees were not near as many people, we might not manage them as closely.

 You can really see the five queen cells here (below). There is queen larvae in the bottom of them but they are not capped yet. When I scraped them off, there was lots of, what I am assuming was, royal jelly which looked white and creamy. Queen bees are fed only royal jelly for their whole entire lives.

Queen larvae (on the right) that we pulled out of the cell. 

That was super hard core.

 See that gooey orange stuff? That is propolis. It is everywhere. The bees use propolis to fill in cracks and make the hive waterproof. It makes checking the hive very sticky business. Propolis has antibacterial properties and the bees also use it to keep their hive healthy.

Also, we saw some drones, male bees. They are bigger and have bigger eyes than the worker bee.

See him in the middle there?

Grease Patties

 Tonight at bee club we talked about Integrated Pest Management. This a way of managing pests while minimizing chemical inputs into the hive. I will give an example: Tracheal mites are a pest that affect bees by living and breeding in their trachea. This makes it hard for the bees to breathe and work and eventually kills them. Booo! You could put a chemical in the hive that kills tracheal mites, but it also might leave chemical residue, the mites might become resistant to it, etc.

Through integrated pest management, one way of managing tracheal mites without using synthetic chemicals is to combine sugar with vegetable shortening and a few drops of peppermint oil. The bees eat the sugar and the grease gets into their trachea, making it impossible for the mites to hang on. Beekeepers have successfully using grease patties as a tracheal mite control for decades. We made some up and put them in our hives. 3:1 sugar to vegetable shortening with a few drops of peppermint or spearmint oil. You just put it on top of the frames like this. You can make a big batch and freeze it in log form, cutting off a patty when you need it. 

Drone Cells and Hover Flies

The weather has been rainy and in the 50s and 60s all week. BUT, it was nice enough today to check the bees.  We tried not to mess with them too much, but it looked like they were doing fine and working hard. My queen has been laying lots of drone eggs. The drones are the male bees. They don't do much but mate with queens. You can tell the drone cells because they are bigger and more mounded. See in the blue circles? They are sticking out more than the capped cells around them.

My hive also had tons of new eggs and so did Matt's hive. Another thing that was interesting was that Matt's bees made more burr comb but this time, it was a different color than the last time. Check this out:

We are trying to figure out why the wax is more yellow and one theory that Matt came up with is that they are eating more stored honey and/or pollen instead of sugar syrup. It's a mystery to me!

Here is the burr comb.

Here is a good picture of the hive tool that Matt is holding. 

Lots of things are blooming in the garden like Chamomile which is very popular with the bees and lots of other flying insects. There were a bunch of these flying insects which looked like bees, but then I thought they might be flies. It turns out they are Eristalis Tenax, a kind of hover fly but they mimic the look of bees. 

Eristalis Tenax

I also want to say that I never thought bees were cute before, but now I do. 

Here are some close-ups from today:

This bee is smaller than the end of my pinkie.

These bees are having a meeting.

On Matt's shirt.

On the strap that keeps my sleeve tight.

A Second Story Addition

The bees have built up their numbers enough now that they needed more space, so we decided to add a second deep (wooden box with frames) for the bees to live and work in. To add to the hive body we took two of the outer frames that were partially drawn out with comb and added them to the middle of the new deep to encourage the bees to hang out in there. We put brand new frames in the bottom deep to replace the ones we took out. If we did not give the bees more space, they would be tempted to swarm (half the bees take off with the queen to find a new place to live). 

Two old frames, eight new frames for the second deep.

This frame looks great with capped brood in the middle and some honey and pollen at the tops and sides.

On another note, the bees have been building comb in the feeders, especially Matt's. We had to get the bees and wax out and clean the feeders, but it turned into quite an operation. In the picture below you can see the white comb attached to the mesh screen.

Matt scraped out as much off the bottom as he could. It was a bummer, but we can't let them build comb up there because it makes taking care of the hive too difficult and they won't be able to access the sugar syrup.

Matt unscrewed the screen and scraped wax off the top. 

 We both ended up taking our feeders completely apart to get the bees out of the nooks and crannies. We washed them, put them back together and refilled them. Matt is trying his feeder with the inner cover under the feeder to discourage them from building comb. We will see if the bees can figure it all out.

After checking them today, they seemed to be feeding pretty well. We had to spill some of the sugar syrup on purpose so Matt's bees would know where it was now that the inner cover is on. 

These hives look too legit to quit! 

Lupine