Bees From Bill

I know it's not the right time of year to start bees, because there's no flow and the bees are hunkering down for the winter.  But this year at our annual bee auction for my home bee club, Bill Owens offered ten hives of feral bees that he had removed as auction items.

Bill Owens is the best beekeeper in the state of Georgia with a certificate to prove it.  He is Georgia's ONLY certified Master Craftsman Beekeeper.  I enjoy Bill - he's a great teacher, has an always pleasant approach to things, and started me on the certification road myself.

He gave me the practical test at Young Harris for the Certified Beekeeper level, the first qualification level in Georgia.  (I almost failed it, not because I couldn't light the smoker - which is the first thing that one has to do - but because I couldn't light his cigarette lighter TO light the smoker.)

Bill has appeared a number of times in this blog - for example, here, here, and here.  He has a business (one of his many jobs - he teaches, he's a firefighter, he's a beekeeper, he owns a farm, he's an author) doing bee removals.  In addition, he doesn't treat his bees and approaches them with the idea that if they can survive, then they are strong enough to tolerate the varroa mite.

So of course, I decided to bid on two of Bill's feral hives in our silent auction.  Others were also bidding on these hives, but I was determined to get them so I was one of those lurkers who hung around the bidding table, waiting to pounce if someone stepped in to overbid me at the last minute!

I won the two hives, so Jeff and I went to Bill's house in Monroe, Georgia, to pick them up on Thursday night.  I use eight frame boxes, but he had requested 10 frame boxes into which to transfer the bees.  I unearthed a couple of ten frame deeps (the only two I still own) and Jeff and I headed for Monroe.

We got there just at dark at 7:30 and Bill donned his veil, lit his smoker and transferred the bees into my boxes.  First he shook the bees off of the cover into the box.

You can see our strap under the box in preparation for the move.

He then added the frames, one at a time, until the box was full.  These bees had no stores to speak of and Bill advising feeding them "heavily."  He did say he could smell some goldenrod honey in the hives, but didn't see anything.

Jeff manned the staple gun (which I am terrified of using - I do use it, but if someone else is around to do it, I happily hand it over to them) and we closed up the hives with screened wire.

It was quite dark and Jeff shone a flashlight onto the hive so in this photo it looks as if the bees are in some weird circle pattern, but that's the light of the flashlight - made my camera think it didn't need to employ the flash.

I am now convinced that my yard can't handle more than four hives.  My friend Tom has wanted hives in his backyard so ahead of the auction, I asked him if he still wanted hives in his yard and he said yes.  Jeff's office is just down the street so he can oversee the "heavy feeding" of these hives as we go into winter.






So around 9:15 on Thursday night we delivered my Owens' hives to Tom's house where Jeff and I will keep them.

Leveling the hive was a challenge but my smart phone has a level on it and we managed to get both hives pretty level.

I returned the next day to check on the bees and to give them their first round of "bee tea." 

We'll continue feeding them this as winter approaches.  I wish I had honey to feed them but due to the rain, I do not.

We are using rapid feeders for these hive - they hold about 1/2 gallon of bee tea.

So here are the hives, hopefully adjusting to the new location.  The branches on the front of the hive are to help the bees realize that they are in a new place and need to reorient.

We'll see how this works - starting a new hive in the fall.  Bill loved that he had given the hives for auction and was talking about doing it again next year - if these work, I'll probably bid, lurk, and maybe win again!

Bill Owens Speaks to the Metro Bee Club

Last Wednesday, Bill Owens, Georgia's only Master Craftsman Beekeeper (the highest rank you can attain) spoke to our club about his bee removal business. Bill is a great communicator and an entertaining speaker. I enjoyed his talk a lot, although I will not, being constructionally challenged to the max, be doing bee removals from structures.

Bill talked about the importance of customer relations - a job at which I am sure he is spectacular - and the importance of educating the public about the difference between bees and hornets. One thing he said that surprised me is that it is an easier removal if the cutting into the structure takes place inside the house rather than outside. He said bees in the house are much more easily moved into a container than those outside who seem much more upset by the process.

He shared a list of the tools and equipment he carries to a hive removal. He doesn't list it but he also has in his kit a cookie sheet with a long handle attached. He uses that to slide under a mass of bees in narrow spaces!

Bill stayed afterward to answer questions about what's going on in the bee yard. Interestingly he spoke about feeding the bees. Bill doesn't use any chemicals in his 60 or so hives, and he rarely feeds the bees. He said spring feeding is stimulative feeding and who are we to determine when the hive needs to be at its peak. So he sees no point in taking the risk of stimulating the hive to grow rapidly and then finding out that it was wrong timing.

If he feeds a hive going into winter, then something is wrong or the hive would have enough stores. So he works for healthy hives and not for hives that need his assistance through sugar syrup.

Bill Owens and the Bees that Found Me

At GBA I ate lunch on Saturday with Bill Owens, the only Master Craftsman Beekeeper in the state of Georgia. I was telling him about the swarm that appeared in my backyard last week. I told him they weren't from my hives because my hives were chugging along and hadn't absconded.

Bill suggested that the bees were from my hive. Perhaps the hive I re-queened actually had a queen who wasn't laying due to the dearth. When I added a queen, the old queen gathered some bees and left. That makes sense to me because when they returned to my backyard, they landed about 20 feet in front of the hive from which they probably originated.

Today I came home about 3:30 to find the original hive looking like it was being robbed. I closed the top and put on a robber screen. The frenzy continued, so I got out the hose and sprayed water over the hive as if it were raining. When I stopped the hose to go back to work, I found that the bees continued swirling and frantically going toward the hive.



I left the hive closed up - bees can come in and out at the right lower edge of the robber screen, but it was otherwise closed up.
When I came home tonight, I noticed a clump of bees at the corner of the telescoping cover. What could this be? I wonder if a queen were in the center of the clump. Maybe they are balling the queen after all the ruckus this afternoon and maybe it's the small swarm trying to return to the original hive.

I guess I won't know the rest of the story until I can open the hives on Thursday. I'll leave it relatively closed up and we'll see what happens.

Young Harris Beekeeping Institute and Bill Owens' Demonstration of Hiving a Package

I came home today from a wonderful five days in the N Georgia mountains. On Friday and Saturday I took part in the Young Harris Beekeeping Institute, sponsored by the University of Georgia Entomology Department. This year marked the 16th year of the Institute.

There are several learning tracks one can take. Since this is my first year at the Institute, I took the beginner courses and sat for the exam to attain the certificate for Certified Beekeeper. It involved a practical exam as well as a written exam. This wasn't easy. Lots of material was new to me and I felt very challenged. I am thrilled to say, "I PASSED!" I am now a Certified Georgia Beekeeper.

The next level (Journeyman) is even more challenging, but I'll probably try for it next year or the year after.

There were presentations all day long both days. The first day I went to a wonderful demonstration of how to hive a package of bees. It was given by Bill Owens, a Certified Master Craftsman Beekeeper (the very highest rank you can attain). Click on the album to see the pictures and read the descriptions of what we learned.

IPM and the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Meeting

Tonight the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers' meeting centered on IPM (Integrated Pest Management). Jennifer Berry from the University of Georgia's entomology program talked to us about studies she is involved in about the varroa mite.

Although she did discuss some chemicals, I am not planning to use chemicals in my hive, so I won't report about that part of her talk. She did talk about research showing that the screened bottom board is essential to effective IPM. At UGA the screened bottom board stays open on the hive all winter long. She discussed three non-chemical ways to manage the varroa mite (all in conjunction with the screened bottom board):

1. Using hygenic stock such as the Minnesota Hygienic bee or the bees raised in N Georgia by the Purvis Brothers Apiary

2. Killing drone brood. The drones are in the capped state longer than house bees and so the varroa mite likes to lay her eggs in drone cells because the mite has a greater chance to grow up. So you put drone foundation in a frame in the hive and when the cells are capped, remove the frame and put it in the freezer. This kills the drone larvae (and thus the mite can't grow). Put the dead drone frame back in the hive and the bees clean it out and start again.

3. Doing the powdered sugar shake (as I did this year). Take a flour sifter (now why didn't I think of that?) and sift the powdered sugar over the brood box. Put a sticky board under the SBB to catch the varroa which fall as the bees groom each other and the mites fall off. Then you can count the fallen mites to get an idea of how many mites are in your hive. If you do a powdered sugar shake every 10 days for a month, you should significantly lower the mite count.

I asked her about small cell bees and she said that the UGA lab is just beginning a study on small cell. One major beekeeper, Bill Owens, in Georgia has all of his hives regressed to small cell and she talked about his successes. With 800 hives, he has only lost 3 hives this year and not to varroa.

On the other hand, she mentioned that while Dee Lusby is going around talking a lot about small cell, she didn't feel convinced because she noted that Dee lives in Arizona and all the bees there are African honeybees - which have a shorter developmental cycle anyway and are varroa resistant. Jennifer's point was that the bees that Lusby has regressed to small cell would be small and varroa resistant because of their genetic heritage (African) and that the cell size didn't make a difference. She also talked about how long it takes to regress bees and how hard it is.

Jennifer is sampling honeycomb which Cindy Bee finds in her bee removal business. So far the "wild" comb is about 5 mm and doesn't support the theory that bees in the wild naturally build 4.9 mm comb. If you'll scroll down this link, you'll find a short write-up about both Cindy Bee and Jennifer Berry.

In spite of all of this, I am ordering small cell foundation this winter to begin regressing in the spring.