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!

I Captured a Swarm!

Cindy Bee (Ga Beekeeper of the Year 2006) keeps a swarm catcher list. I never got a call last year but today I did!

I was driving to work, feeling a little down because I only had appointments at 9 and 10 this morning and then nothing else until late this afternoon. As I pulled into the parking lot, my cell rang and it was Cindy - she had a swarm for me in an office complex parking lot near my house.

I called the woman who reported the swarm and told her I couldn't get there until 11:30, but I would be there then. Then I went to work and hoped, hoped, hoped the bees would still be there at 11:30. The bees had first been spotted last night, so I'm sure they were about ready to move on.

At 11 I raced home, grabbed my pruning shears (she said they were in a small tree), a large cardboard box, a sheet, some tape, my bee brush, my gloves, two bandanas (to keep my helmet from slipping over my eyes!) and then found that my beesuit was wet in the washing machine. I threw it in the dryer for a few minutes while I packed the car.

It was raining when I arrived in my still-damp beesuit. But the bees were the easiest to get in the world. They were a small swarm on a drooping branch on a tree. Because of the rain a number of bees were also clustered on the juniper bushes below.

Cindy told me to put a sheet under the cardboard box and then shake the bees in. I tried to put the sheet on the tops of the juniper bushes, but it was difficult. The box I set right under the bees. I had to work around parked cars and these ^$^#^^%$ juniper bushes.

I shook the swarm from the four different branches on which it was located into the box and then cut some of the juniper out from the area below and shook those bees into the box. I waited about 45 minutes for the bees to find the box. Several put their rear ends up and started the nasonov dance so I felt pretty sure the queen was in the box.

The bees kept me company in the car and were all over the back window. When I popped the back of the car and took out the box, I moved really slowly so that those loose bees might feel inclined to come along.

Cindy had told me to take an empty hive body and set it over the hive body full of frames in which the new bees would live. That would serve as a funnel for the bees to get them on top of the frames in the box below.

I turn into a complete nervous wreck doing something like this, so bees were not only in the hive box funnel but in a pile on the deck in front of the box. For the life of me, I don't know how I could miss such a big target, but I did. I was afraid the queen might be in the clump on the deck so I slid those onto a piece of cardboard and dumped them into the box.

I hope I didn't injure the queen in my awkward transfer from box to hive, but it is accomplished and the bees are orienting and I'm happy.

Josie, the lady who reported the swarm, was kind enough to take pictures of the removal. She got stung in the process. I hated that - bees were swarming all over me and I didn't get stung even once, so I felt bad for her.

Great day not to be busy at work! I hope these girls are happy in their new box (the one I had set out for a swarm lure).

Heifer Hope Honey

Years ago when I was a Girl Scout leader, my co-leader had the idea that our girls, who had everything in the world they needed, might be more appreciative of what they had if they learned about how others in the world are doing without enough food, etc. So we worked on a project through Heifer International to give pregnant goats to families in Haiti. The girls were fascinated learning that goats frequently have twins, so when we donated a pregnant goat to a family, the family in all likelihood would receive three goats - the mom and her twins.

I've always remembered the impact of that project. So at the holidays I like to give presents to my nieces and nephews that represent helping other people. For the last few years, I have given them a gift from the Heifer Project. Now that I am a beekeeper, I give them a gift of bees

This picture is from the Heifer Project web page

The Heifer Project takes the money I give in my relatives' names and provides a hive of bees, one for each niece and nephew, to families in countries around the world. The family then is taught by the Heifer Project about beekeeping. I love that the Heifer Project gifts include the obligation of the family to pass the gift on to others in their village.

Here is what they say at the beginning of the page about honeybees: "From Uganda to El Salvador, bees from Heifer International help struggling families earn income through the sale of honey, beeswax and pollen."

Today I got an email from the Heifer Project about the sale of honey from these bee projects around the world. You can learn about Heifer Honey and how to purchase it. What a worthwhile project.

Julia's Swarm

During the day at work, I keep my email up and running. On Thursday between appointments, I checked my email to find one from my friend Julia entitled: "Yikes!" Of course that got my immediate attention.

Her son's hive had swarmed. She watched the bees fly out of the hive by the thousands for the twenty minute process of leaving the hive. And then as luck would have it, the bees gathered on a branch in Julia's yard.

Julia, who was taken entirely by surprise by this development, called Martha, the president of our bee club and the Georgia Beekeeper of the Year. Martha came over with an extra hive box and the process of trying to capture the swarm began.

Julia's husband and sons collected the swarm while she took the pictures. (Her youngest son is wearing Julia's beesuit!) They shook the bees into a large Rubbermaid container. Then they poured the swarm into the hive body. Julia sent me pictures and you can now see the process of capturing this swarm by clicking on the slideshow below to see the pictures full-sized:



I love the picture of the proud swarm-catchers in the last slide.

Up to now Julia and her oldest son have each had bee hives, although the family clearly has the outfits for everyone to participate! Now this new hive will belong to her youngest son.

How lucky to be there for the swarm, to have it land in her yard, and to have it be low enough to effect a capture! I wish I could have seen it, but the pictures are fantastic. Thanks for sharing these, Julia.

The Mystery of the Vanishing Water Source

This morning I had a visitor to see my bees - Elizabeth Rice, a reporter from the Home Town News. I took her out on the deck to show her the hives and the water source was not on the deck railing! I had just posted pictures yesterday of the bees happily enjoying the water.

I looked down fourteen feet below and there lay the crashed water source, no longer a bee paradise. I went down and gathered up the parts - the two pot saucers (thank goodness they are plastic) and the piece of brick paver that serves as a place for bees to stand while they drink.


It looked mussed and sort of forlorn on the deck railing. But I filled it with water and hope the bees continue to enjoy it.


I do wonder what toppled it. An owl is probably too light. Perhaps a wandering possum decided to take a drink in the night and lost its balance.

Do You Know Where Your Bees Are? or How to Get along with your neighbors

This post is really part two of the beginner question: "How do you deal with your neighbors when you keep bees?" Part one is here.

There are a number of issues to consider in dealing with your neighbors such as protecting your neighbors from the bees' flight paths. This can mean putting your hives beside a tall fence so that in order to leave your yard, they have to fly up above your neighbors' heads. In my yard this is solved by putting my bees on a deck with a high hedge around it.

A second issue is to protect view of the hives to keep the neighbors from constant awareness of your bees. If the bees are too prominent, you are likely to be blamed for every yellow jacket sting in the neighborhood.

A third issue is where the bees will get water. If your neighbors have a swimming pool, the bees will be drawn (who knows why) to the chlorine in the water. But more than chlorine, bees like really nasty water. My first year I provided them with a lovely water source.
I've since learned that they like it best when old leaves, moss, etc collects in the water source.

Below you can see several pictures of my bees this morning, drinking out of the water source, now filled with leaves and other yuck.




Click on this picture for a lovely view of the bee's tongue in the upper bee on the moss.

First Signs of Spring

At my house one of the earliest signs of spring is when the rosemary bush begins to bloom. Now not only is it blooming, but the bumblebees have begun to visit it.
Another sign of spring in the south is the budding of the azalea bushes.
In Atlanta one of the most obvious signs of spring is the blooming of the dogwood which began this week. We think this is such a sign of our spring that we have had an Atlanta Dogwood Festival every year for 72 years. But if you are a beekeeper, the first sign of spring is when you observe a DRONE in the hives. When the male bees begin to emerge in the hives, the business of making queens and making new little bees becomes a serious spring activity. This drone circled in red in the picture above, is from March 27 of 2007 . You can see him best by clicking on the picture to enlarge it.

I saw my first drone this year last Saturday on March 22, just after the official first day of spring. He was walking proudly through the hive. I think he felt more territorial since he was the only one I saw.

I was in an awkward position when I saw him, balancing the frame in one hand and putting the frame rack on the hive with the other and couldn't take his picture. He was actually more handsome than the 2007 first drone, but I can't always snap what I want to snap. In the early spring, the new drones stand out because they are so much larger than the worker bees. However, later in the season when there are at least 100 drones in most hives, the lone drone is not a spectacle but part of the ordinary.

I find it so interesting that the bees push the drones out of the hives to starve to death in the fall. The hive then lives through the winter as a circle of women. In the spring the queen begins to lay eggs in drone cells again and the process starts all over.

The drone has a grandfather but not a father. Workers and queens develop from fertilized eggs. They have genetic material from both the drone with whom the queen mated in midair and the queen bee.

Unlike the workers, drones develop from unfertilized eggs. The eggs from which they come have only half of the genetic material - their mother's genetic material. So drones have grandfathers (the queen's genetic material) but not fathers. They are haploid beings.

The drone has no stinger, so he is a good practice bee for the art of picking up a single bee. I'm hoping to do this this year so that someday I, having practiced with drones, can pick up and mark a queen.

But I have a hard time picking up dead bees from the deck - speaking of dexterity, not squeamishness - so I don't think this will be an easy challenge.

Some more Random Smoker Thoughts

Here is a picture (above) of the smoker being lit with the wax impregnated paper towel from the solar wax melter. I keep those paper towels in a ziploc bag and tear off pieces to help light the smoker.

Here's how the smoker looks when it is operating properly. Note there's plenty of smoke coming out.

Fire is a consideration when you are finished using the smoker. I hang mine in an aluminum bucket. The smoker has a bent metal hook on the front side. I then stop up the smoke opening with a wine cork. This deprives the fire of oxygen and it soon goes out. There remain unburnt pieces of pine straw or whatever fuel I was using to help start the fire the next time. In Scouts we always learned that it was easier to start a fire with wood from the night before that had already burned some rather than starting from scratch. The smoker works that way as well.

This is the most unique job my smoker has ever had to do - be the centerpiece for a flower arrangement for the Short Course in January!