Protecting the Community Garden Beehives

For several years now I have had hives at the Morningside Community Garden, within walking distance from my house.  On three occasions, I have visited the hives to find something awry.  Once the entire top was off of the hive - inner cover and top cover and both were on the ground about 16 feet away at the bottom of the hill on the top of which the hives are located.

Once recently I was out of town over the weekend and when I came back the top cover was off of the one hive there at the time.  The bees were tightly circled around the hole in the inner cover.  It had rained over the weekend - not a lot, but some.  More rain was coming that night.  The top cover was leaning against the hive as if a human had removed it.

Every time this happens, I try to blame the weather.  Maybe the top covers blew off, etc.  This most recent time did not in any way look rain related.  I figured some teenager took a bet that he/she could take the top off of the hive.  Then he/she was stung and ran off, not interested in repairing the injury to the hive.

So I first put big stones on top of the hive assuming that the wind would be rendered powerless:

Then I ordered on Amazon this garden flag which is really cute but keeps getting blown off of its flag holder.  Today I'm taking safety pins over to secure it!

Maybe the rocks will deter the wind and the sign will discourage the vandals!

Blue Heron Bee Report

Over last weekend, Julia called me from the Blue Heron with the sad news that she opened her hive and found it dead. The terrible vandal left it open to inclement weather, the bees had probably lost or balled their queen after that, and the hive had dwindled down to nothing. Very, very few bees were left in her hive and there was brood that needed to be capped and had died since the larvae was never capped. Very sad situation.

Julia had taken honey to feed her hive. My hive did not need food, so she left the honey on a cinder block with slits in the baggie for any takers. When I arrived to check my hive, there were bees enjoying the honey.


Here are Julia's hive boxes, now empty. We will scorch the insides for safety but the cause of death for this hive was mistreatment and exposure.


You can see bees on the landing of my nuc hive. The bees were flying in and out. I did see a few with pollen in their pollen baskets which was hopeful for the hive as a whole.



When I opened the hive, they had not emptied the jars of bee tea - when you have honey available why would you want bee tea? In addition the asters are still blooming profusely in the fields around the apiary.



I left them with the half empty jars and will check on them again this coming week.

Blue Heron in the Dark of Night

As you remember, on Sunday I moved the Blue Heron hive into a nuc for the winter.  On Monday night Jeff and I planned to move the nuc to my backyard - it would take two of us because it's a 2 story nuc. (Not to mention that he has the straps required to keep the thing together in the process of a move.)

On Monday in the middle of the day, I went over to see how the nuc was doing.  The bees were blissfully flying into the nuc with pollen on their legs and full honey stomachs from the field of aster in bloom just outside the apiary in the garden.

I looked at the garden, at the football field's worth of land, covered in white aster with some purple in the mix as well.  Each plant was weighed down with bees.

I couldn't justify taking this already damaged hive to a new place right now - it would be like saying they had to eat at MacDonald's when Godiva Chocolate was free for the taking.  So I decided I had to leave the nuc there until the aster bloom is finished.

The other glitch was that I was going to Santa Fe for a professional conference (where I am right this minute) and wouldn't be able to oversee the hive, so we needed to do something to protect them.

I wasn't free to do this until after dinner on Monday and Jeff agreed.  So in the dark of the night, we drove over to the Blue Heron.  It WAS dark.  We had flashlights and made lots of noise getting out of the car to scare the honey thief, or any other vagrant who might be around (there are supposedly two homeless people who live at the Blue Heron).

Jeff suggested that I leave the car unlocked so we could make a quick get away if we needed to, but I wasn't comfortable with that - his suggestion points to how unsettled we both felt.

Our plan was to lock up the hive with a bicycle lock as Julia had with hers.  We set the combination in the car - we had to hook two locks together to be able to completely surround the hive.  Then we headed for the hive.

We set everything up first - put the two boardman feeders I had brought together (set the jar of sugar syrup on each of them); prepared the nuc box that would serve as a surround for the feeders so we could place them on top of the inner cover; figured out what each of us would do to make this happen.

Jeff started to unlock the bicycle lock.  "Don't say the combination out loud," I said, still worrying that someone might be hiding in the bushes listening.

The pictures are below.  We did lock the hive up as best we could, but someone could still push the boxes out from under the lock, as they could at Julia's as well.

I suppose we needed another cable lock to make a "gift package" approach which would indeed secure the hive.  Jeff's suggestion was that we do some sort of hinge lock system on hives that aren't in our backyard.  Sounds like a plan to me.

BTW, Jeff was right about the car.  When we got back, I fumbled with the keys and took forever to get the thing unlocked - good we weren't being chased or threatened!  I don't believe we'll visit the Blue Heron at night again!

Oh, but we will have to go again at night to move the nuc when the asters are done......

As always, click on the slideshow below to see the photos full sized:

Thoughtless Vandals Damage Blue Heron Hives

We are so sad to report that the Blue Heron hives have been vandalized by someone who apparently sought to steal honey.  Julia's hive was the only hive in the apiary that actually had honey.  The vandals removed her honey super and took three frames of honey away with them.  They then left all of the hives at Blue Heron opened up to the elements.

I'm sure bees died.

These hives are not in a good location.  They are not doing well and we feel violated as the hives have been, not to mention really discouraged.

Tomorrow I am moving what is left of my hive into a nuc and bringing it home for the winter.  In the spring I'll either move it back to Blue Heron or start over there with a new hive.

The best part of the Blue Heron project is that I have something special to do with Julia and with Noah.  Also the Blue Heron hives are a great central location for teaching new beekeepers about hive inspections and these hives have been important in that program for the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers.

But.....it's hard to get invested in those hives when we've now had the hives destroyed in two of the four years we've been there - first by flood and now by some thoughtless person.

Although Noah ventured the thought that perhaps someone thought that if the hives are at a public garden, then the honey is for the public to take.  I thought that was incredibly generous of him.

I personally have mean and ugly thoughts about the vandal.

Julia took these pictures when she went to survey the damage: