Possible Good Swarm News

Bermuda is my hive that died. When it did, I moved the box that had honey in it into my house and froze the frames. The other two boxes I left on the hive, planning to clean it out in the next couple of weeks. There are dead bees all on the screened bottom board and near the entry. Earlier I posted pictures of the sad loss of the hive.

I noticed a few bees flying in and out of this hive early last week. As the week moved toward Friday, the numbers of bees flying around the hive increased. Yesterday there was increased activity all day. I wondered if these were scouts looking for a new home for their hive as it reproduced via swarm or if these were robbers, going for honey I hadn't noticed.

Today the hive was full of activity. Bees were doing what looked like orientation flying all day long. I began to think a swarm had moved in while I was at church this morning. As the afternoon progressed, my thoughts that this might be a swarm got firmer.

I noticed that a lot of housekeeping was going on. As you can see in the next few pictures, dead bees are littering the ground. Robbers don't usually do housekeeping and bees that are moving in often do.






So we'll see tomorrow. After dark I put my hand on the side of the hive and thought it felt pretty warm. I also thought I heard buzzing but didn't want to do anything disturbing as of yet. Cross your fingers for me! I want this to be a good swarm story!



I installed my first bee hives on Easter Sunday five years ago, so it would portend well for a hive moving into Bermuda on Easter Sunday 2010.

What Kind of a Place is This?

When I got the swarm yesterday, I didn't have much preparation time for housing them. I already had a swarm lure hive set up on my deck and given the press of time, I decided as I drove home with the bees in the car that the swarm lure hive would be their new home.

I confess, I didn't give them the best room in the house. I had not much hope for the swarm lure, so the hive was set up with a solid bottom board and old frames from the last two years. A few of the frames had comb with wax moth damage. A few of the frames had remnant of comb left from my cutting out wax moth damage. A few frames were completely empty. The last time I opened the swarm lure hive, three huge palmetto roaches ran out - you know the kind - about 2 inches long and fierce looking remnants of the stone age. (They've been around for 300 million years - who is going to argue with them?)

So today the swarm has been cleaning house. They were up and out before either of my established hives to get a jump on the day. You can see the busy housekeeper bees, carrying out all kinds of refuse.


The two bees below are probably saying, "What kind of a place is this?" I'm sure if they could complain, they would report me to the bee landlord association or the board of health.



Tonight I got home after dark and went outside to take a picture of the hive. Look at the housekeeping progress that has been made! They have swept the landing deck almost completely clean and made neat piles of trash on the deck below the hive.



They are probably making wax - the Boardman feeder was completely full yesterday so they are sucking down the sugar water - a good sign of wax production.



I have a good screened bottom board for this hive - I'll put it on when I open up the hive on Sunday or so. It's a Country Rubes Board and may make up for my giving them a less than decent place to live at the beginning!

Bees and Good Housekeeping

Remember my post two days ago about the dead bee bodies accumulating on the porch of the hive in the cold weather?

Yesterday our high was in the 60s all afternoon. The bees, being extremely good housekeepers, took care of the debris and this morning their front porch is all clean and shiny. I wish I were as good a housekeeper as these girls are!

A sad winter's tale of bees

Note: Originally the pictures didn't show up in this post. I've had a terrible time since Google went out of Beta for their Blogger program. When I post pictures through Google's Picasa program, they don't show up here online. I tried today and with some effort (and signing in to my blog site numerous times) I have finally managed to get the pictures onto this posting and to make some new posts as well.

We have the luxury in Atlanta of winters that are often quite mild. This winter has been one of the mildest in memory - and I've lived here since 1978. However, we've had several days in a row when the night temperature is 25 degrees and then the temperature in the daytime rises to the 50s. I've seen very little bee activity.

Suddenly yesterday the temperature rose to 60 degrees and the mortician bees went to work. Since my hives are on the deck, the bodies are obvious and not hidden by grass. I opened the hives today and know that the bees are well and active, but the sight of this many bodies all of a sudden was disturbing. The bodies on the landing are dead bees as well as all those bodies on the deck.

Here's a closer view of the bodies in front of Bermuda.

Today there was a lot of bee activity around 3 PM but the skies clouded up and the bees went back indoors to huddle. It will not be as cold tonight (expected low of 40 degrees F) so there may be even more housecleaning tomorrow.


The bodies look so sad to me - their little eyes are still shining and often as in the picture above their wings are outstretched but they are as dead as can be and are just waiting for the wren who likes to eat them. Today I saw a downy woodpecker leave the nearby pinetree which grows through a hole in my deck and land on the deck itself to feast on dead bees.

The bees keep a clean house

Apparently in a wind last night the pine cone in the foreground blew off of a tree and bounced off of the front porch of the beehive. When it did, a piece of the pine cone stayed on the front porch while the cone rolled onto the deck.







The bees were quite disturbed by this - I watched this morning while several of them worked like ants to move the big pinecone piece off of their front porch.
When I returned from work today, the pine cone piece was on the deck in front of the hive. The bees succeeded in cleaning house.