Moving Bees - Again

My daughter, Valerie, and beekeeping son-in-law, Jeff, have bought a house.  Jeff had two hives of bees at the house they were renting and these bees had to move.  Jeff's new house doesn't have a good space right now for bees, so we needed to put the bees elsewhere.

One hive we planned to put in my friend Tom's backyard, where we had bees this past year.  One of the two hives had died and we wanted to replace it with one of Jeff's.  We planned to move the smaller hive to Morningside Community Garden where I had lost another hive.  I'll talk about that loss in another post and link it here when I do.

I have had a posterior tibial ligament injury all year and carrying the heavy hive down the hill in Jeff's backyard is not something I need to be doing.  We enlisted one of Jeff's neighborhood friends to help him load the hives into the car.

Gary was a good sport.

He suited up and was all ready to go.  

The two of them looked like this in Jeff's former carport, before going up to the hives.  

We finished strapping the hives and closing the entrances.  The first hive was very small.  We got the hive from Buster's Bees very late in the nectar flow at the very end of April and they had not done well.  As we stapled the entrance closed, not a single bee poked her head out.  The hive felt very light.  It was only a deep and a medium.  We strapped it with no curious bee showing at the entrance.  

We determined that it must be an empty hive and that the bees had absconded.  We still had to move the equipment out of the yard so we put it into Jeff's car.

The second hive was one we installed at the same time, but they had made enough honey for us to harvest a single box.  The bees in this hive were not happy for us to block the entrance.  We found them flying out from under the telescoping cover when we went up to finish the strapping with Gary. 

As usual when I keep bees with Jeff, I was the only one stung during the whole operation.  Once I was stung at the front of this second hive and another time when I got a bee in my hair behind this hive and after I finally brushed her out of my hair, she stung me on my ankle.  

We drove the hive to Tom's house where Ella, his daughter, and his family all participated in our installing the hive.

Jeff returned to feed this hive a quart of honey in a rapid feeder the next day.

Then Jeff and I drove to my house to unload the empty hive and extra equipment.  As Jeff opened his tailgate, NOW there were bees at the hive entrance.  We carried the extremely light hive to my backyard and set it on bricks.  We freed the entrance and opened the telescoping cover.  Tons of bees were there.  

Since the hive is only a deep and medium and felt very light, we put a feeder on the top of the inner cover, filled it with honey, and closed up the hive.  They have been very happy in my backyard for the last ten days and seem to be adapting.  In spite of being light, they have not emptied the feeder which only held one quart of honey.

ANOTHER Swarm at Tom's

This morning I got a call from Tom - the second hive had swarmed!  He sent me these photos:

See it on the right, hanging from the cherry laurel.  About two cats, I'd say.  Here it is up close:

It was hanging on the same cherry laurel that the first swarm had chosen only this one picked a branch lower to the ground and about a foot closer to the hives!

Jeff met me and we put a sheet under the swarm.  I brought a plastic banker's box,

 a ventilated hive top cover and straps.

First I sprayed the swarm with sugar syrup.

It was close enough to the ground that we didn't need a ladder.  We just shook the branch and the bees fell into the banker's box.  We put the ventilated hive cover on it but the bees were accumulating on top of the screen.  Then we covered the screen with two hive drapes to give some closure to the feel of the box.

Over about 20 minutes, during which Gail, Tom's wife and a graduate of the short course, made us tea and brought it to us outside - how luscious - and what luxury - who gets tea during a swarm capture!!!

The bees were emitting nasanov at the entry to the box.

We strapped the banker's box and the ventilated cover together and I drove home.  I had to be at my office at 12:15 to meet an appointment and when I arrived at my house, it was 12:00.  I never even went into the house.  I went to the backyard, grabbed a bottom board, a slatted rack and a box of frames.  I put two drawn comb frames in the center and put the box together on stacked stones (had no cinder blocks).

I took an empty super to be a funnel and poured the bees into the hive.  Then I put the frames into the hive box.  I got a third box with frames in it and gradually put the frames from it into the empty hive box.  I threw an inner cover on the box and the telescoping cover.

I jumped into the car and drove to my office and got there at 12:20.  (My office is 5 minutes from my house).  Fastest install I have ever done.  I hope the bees do well.

I don't think I can put any more bees in my backyard.  I think six, even though one is weak and pitiful, is enough for a neighborhood where there are at least five beekeepers each within a block of my house.  The next two hives go into Jeff's yard.  I'm picking up two nucs from Buster's Bees on Friday night and we'll put them over there.  I have two more nucs coming that will go to the Morningside Community Garden.  

Then I have three nucs coming that I have not a clue where I will put them!  (I was pretty pessimistic at bee ordering time that I would have any hives survive the winter.)  Maybe I'll buy an electric fence ($$$$$$$$$) and put them in the mountains.

When I came home at 2:30, my yard was aswarm with bees.  All of the hives were sending out hoards of bees to gather and forage on the warm mid-April afternoon.  The new hive was orienting and working hard to claim their location.  It's going to be a good bee year!

Bees at Tom's House - Second Inspection of the Year

When we first opened the hives at Tom's, we added a new 10 frame box to each hive.  These were foundationless frame boxes with one frame of drawn comb in the center of each box.

The first box has appeared to be the strongest hive so I wasn't surprised two weeks later to find that these bees had completely drawn out the new box and used all but the edge frames in the new box.

Here's what the last frame in the box looked like:

I love to watch the bees exuding wax and building the three teardrops with which they start most frames.  They are hard at work making wax and will fill it sometimes before the frame is completely filled, i.e., the queen will start laying or nectar will be stored in the teardrops before the rest of the frame has wax in it.

And then when I pulled the third frame in the box, there was Her Majesty!  I was thrilled to see her, long golden body, looking quite healthy.  And she laid an egg while I watched.  I carefully returned the frame to the hive, but not before taking several photos of her.

The second hive was built out almost as fully as the first.  They had made some crooked comb and I completely blame myself.  When you take frames out of the hive and cut out old comb, a remainder of wax is left against the wooden frame that suggests where the bees had built before.  The frames I put in these hives had been cut out but not "melted out."  

As a result, I think these bees were following the guidelines left by some previous crooked comb builders.  It only has to be a problem on one frame and then the rest follow to match the first.  So one half of this box - five frames - had crooked comb at one end.  You can see it between the hive drapes.

I hung each comb on the frame rack and worked on it there since I was alone and didn't have a helper to hold it for me.

I cut out the offending comb and then rubber-banded the comb into position.  I did something else that you are not supposed to do, but I hope helped with the situation.  When I returned the five frames to the hive, I turned every other frame opposite of the way it had been sitting so that the cut out part was against straight comb on both sides. 

This will confuse the bees as if I had rearranged their furniture without permission, but hopefully will encourage them to build straight comb.

In the photo above, you can see how the rubber bands are at opposite ends in frames 5, 4, and 3.  Hopefully this will fix the situation.

I didn't see the queen in this hive - didn't even look for her because I was doing comb repair.  But the hive looked healthy and I did see new larvae.

The hives need new boxes and Jeff has them to put on the hives on Thursday which should be finally a warm enough day to open the hives.  The foundationless frames in the new boxes have been cleaned - which means that I have dipped the frames into boiling water for 30 seconds on each end to melt the old comb patterns.  Then I have glued in popsicle sticks.  Hopefully they will not build crooked comb in these frames.

These bees are doing great and I am happy.