The iterative method of swarm capture

Part way up the ladder I stopped. The cardboard box I carried kept catching in the branches. The box was too big—I knew that—but I liked it because it was deep. I was hoping it would restrain the swarm longer than a shallow box. Standing on the ladder was not the best place to try new things, but what the heck.

Much to my surprise, the ladder was steady and felt right. As soon as I stepped on it, I knew it would be okay. Engineers pride themselves on designing systems that “barely work,” and my husband, being one, did himself proud: although it barely worked, it worked just fine.

The swarm hung from a branch but was wrapped around the trunk, playing hard to get. Once I got the box under the swarm, I used the hive tool to scrape the bees from the trunk into the box. It was a big swarm, and I felt like I got two-thirds of it before it started to rise out of the box. I closed the lid and climbed down.

My husband had promised to steady the ladder from below, and he had been patient while I struggled with box, bees, and branches. But as I started down the ladder enrobed in a haze of bees, he said, “I’ve got to leave.”

“No!” I said, still worried about the ladder and the now heavy box. “Don’t go!”

“I’ve got to. Bees all over the place!” he said, running toward the creek.

“What the (deleted) did you expect?” I hollered back. “I’m not picking berries up here.”

Once on the ground, I carried the box around to the back of the house and dumped it into the bait hive I set up last week. The mass of bees seemed to orient and examine the surrounds.

I let the remaining part settle for maybe twenty minutes, then I went back up to get it. To make things easier, I took a plastic bag instead of the box. The swarm seemed a lot bigger now, and I began to think I’d captured only half of it. So I swiped as much as possible into the bag and added it to first group.

By the time I went up the third time, I was comfortable on the ladder, but I was still having trouble scraping the bees into the bag because of all the little branches. This time, the weight of the first clump of bees caused the plastic to fold over on itself, so the ensuing clumps missed the bag completely. I dumped what little I got on the third try into the hive and, again, waited for the swarm to settle.

Seeing the trouble I was having, my husband suggested I use the butterfly net.

The butterfly net! Why didn’t I think of that—it was deep, easy to handle, and I could ease it over the swarm before I began to scrape. Excellent suggestion.

The swarm seemed even bigger than before, but I was undaunted. I climbed a fourth time, fit the net over the swarm, and knocked it in. The net was so heavy the handle bent like a bow. I flipped the net over to lock the bees inside and maneuvered it down the ladder. I couldn’t believe the weight.

I dumped the bees into the hive assuming I was done. Bees clouded around the hive, the ladder hadn’t collapsed, and the tree was still standing—all good things. I went to the front yard and sipped a glass of water. But when I looked into the tree, I was amazed: the swarm was still clearly visible. I decided to get more of it.

So for the fifth time, I ascended the ladder and came down with a load of bees. But this time, before dumping them in, I decided to have a look in the hive. I opened the lid and peered down through the frames, and what did I see? A dozen bees, maybe twenty. The rest were gone!

In all my swarm catching days, the swarms always stayed where I put them, but these bees were going right back to their tree, to the very same branch. This was new to me. I decided that I must be missing the queen each time. She must be nestled in a branch and protected from my scraping and swiping. Or maybe I killed her. Bees were dying in this process, and maybe she was a victim. Would the bees go back to their branch without her? I wasn’t sure anymore.

At that point, I remembered there was some queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) in the freezer. QMP can be used to hold a queenless colony together until a queen can be obtained. The stuff was ancient—maybe ten years old—and I can’t even remember why I had it. But I got it out of the freezer, put one of the plastic straws in the bait hive, and went up the ladder for the sixth time.

This time, the clump of bees held. As soon as I dumped them in, they clamored over themselves to get to the lure, smitten by a piece of pheromone-laced plastic. They didn’t try to kill it; they were enthralled by it.

So up I went the seventh time. I got a good load, brought it back, dumped it in. It was like magic, but not the kind I expected. The bees flowed out of the net, but when they hit the top bars, instead of going down between, they bounced as if on a trampoline. In one clean motion, they glanced off the bars, lifted, and flew away. The bees cooing over the QMP were the only ones left in the hive.

If insanity is defined as repeating the same action while expecting a different outcome, I was well on my way. This had to stop. I gave up. Discouraged, I closed up the hive and returned to the front yard.

I stood there, hands on hips, eyes on the swarm when suddenly the noise increased. The swarm expanded, slowly at first, then rose into the air. I stood amidst the chaos, trying to perceive its direction. I was almost sure it was moving toward the house . . . yes . . . over the house and . . . yes, you won’t believe this . . . into the bait hive. The same hive I tried seven times to get them into; the one they flowed from less than five minutes before. Like a mob of teenagers, it had to be their idea, not mine.

So what happened? Had the swarm been considering the bait hive all along? Would it have gone there had I left them alone? Did the QMP have anything to do with it or nothing at all? Why did the bees boomerang back to their branch all the time? Did they have a queen? What made this swarm so different?

I have no answers to these questions. I removed the QMP, gave them a frame of eggs and young larvae, a frame of honey, and two boxes of drawn comb. So far, they are still there, but they haven’t said why.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

My husband made me do it

It was a Sunday morning, exactly nine days after I split my top-bar hive with a Taranov board. I finished answering e-mails before I walked outside and headlong into a frenzy of darting, diving, dipping insects that were coalescing in a tall Leyland cypress.

I wandered into the midst of the chaos, curious why Leylands attract so many swarms. I wondered if I could bottle it.

The bees continued to spill from the top-bar hive for another few seconds. I had recently checked on the split, and it was fine. It ended up with the old queen and, after only a week, displayed a perfect patch of brood. So this was an after-swarm, probably headed by a virgin queen from one of the 24 queen cells I had seen there.

My husband and I agreed the swarm was too dangerous to get. The tree was skinny and we feared the weight of the extension ladder might damage it, or that a slight shift of the trunk might cause the ladder to topple. We decided to leave it.

“Three packages of bees up there,” he kept saying, which made me feel terrible. But I try not to be stupid about bee retrieval, so I did my best to ignore them . . . and him. My three swarm traps had fresh lures and the bait hive behind the house was stocked with used brood comb and a frame of honey. The best I could do was wait.

One day passed, windy and cold. The second day was stormy, and the night was worse. The third day yielded raindrops the size of jelly beans. The fourth day was cloudy, but clearing. I knew the swarm would soon leave.

“I’ve got an idea,” my husband announced while making breakfast. “I will lash a t-post across the top of the extension ladder so it will rest on two trees instead of one. The weight will be divided between trees and the ladder will be more stable.”

“No way,” I said. “The trees aren’t strong enough to support your weight.”

He gave me an odd look. “Not my weight. Yours.”

I felt instantly sick and left my breakfast on the table.

I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon stewing. He’s not the beekeeper. He’s doesn’t even like bees. He wants nothing to do with my hobby. So why is he telling me how to do it? And why does he think I should risk life and limb on his Rube Goldberg device? Finally, I got so angry I wanted to prove it wouldn’t work. “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

So while he collected extension ladder, t-post, and cable ties, I assembled tools for catching a swarm, none of which I thought I would need. When all was ready, I gave the dog my cold toast and honey as a farewell gift, and ascended the ladder with cardboard box and hive tool in hand. Any moment now, I thought, the tree, the swarm, and the ladder with me on it will smash a crater into the driveway. And as the bees fly away unscathed, my dying words will be, “I told you so.”

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Next time: The iterative method of swarm capture

The quest: a fairly large swarm from the top-bar hive.
The quest: a fairly large swarm from the top-bar hive.
A big ladder for a skinny tree.
A big ladder for a skinny tree.
When life depends on a small block of wood.
When life depends on a small block of wood.
Nylon cable ties connect t-post to extension ladder.
Nylon cable ties connect t-post to extension ladder.
The t-post rests on a neighboring tree.
The t-post rests on a neighboring tree.

Bumble bee on piggy-back plant

Piggy-back plant, also known as youth-on-age, is a delicate little woodland plant in the saxifrage family. The species, Tolmiea menziesii, is native to the Pacific Northwest coast where it grows in moist forested areas and along streams. It is often accompanied by red alder at low to middle elevations. At the base of the heart-shaped leaves, buds develop that grow into new leaves. The new little leaf develops right atop the big leaf, giving rise to the common name.

The flowers are brown to purple and grow on a stalk above the leaves. Every year I look forward to these little harbingers of spring but, until this year, I never knew they had bright orange pollen. The flowers are very small, about 6 to 9 mm long, so you can’t see the pollen without magnification. But last week I noticed that all the bumble bees working these plants were loaded with bright orange pellets.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

I’ve never seen a honey bee on these flowers, but the bumbles love them.
I’ve never seen a honey bee on these flowers, but the bumbles love them.
The long skinny parts of the flower are the petals. The sepals make up the flower tube.
The long skinny parts of the flower are the petals. The sepals make up the flower tube.
The pollen baskets are so bright I can see them at a distance.
The pollen baskets are so bright I can see them at a distance.
Tolmiea menziesii showing piggy-back leaf.
Tolmiea menziesii showing piggy-back leaf.

A beekeeper’s trip to Corvallis

During the abyss of grade school, through mind-numbing months of long division, spelling, and the names of planets, I scrooched at my desk and stared at a yellowing wall map of the United States. Far to the left, one place captured my imagination and beckoned me to it.

While the scent of brown-bagged peanut butter teased by stomach, the shape of that far-away state fueled my dreams. Perhaps it was the name, or the tales of pioneers, or the stories of a valley so fertile it could grow any crop. It was a mystical, magical, Jack-and-the-beanstalk kind of place.

Oregon. The word was music and I said it aloud. Oregon. So while my friends were off California dreamin’, my imagination was north in that great fertile valley caressed by the Willamette.

From those early fantasies, the dream of Oregon persisted. I ended up living there for a time and graduated from OSU, but my fascination never waned. Work, family, and opportunity eventually led me elsewhere, but my heart still lives in the Willamette Valley.

So last fall when I got an invitation to visit a beekeeper in Eugene, I jumped at the chance. It had been years since I’d been to Oregon and the thought of traveling back through the valley was irresistible. I added the trip to the front end of a busy summer.

Fate has a way of rearranging our plans and, as it turned out, my Eugene contact cancelled. But by then I was determined to visit my favorite place. I hadn’t yet decided how to proceed when I happened to answer a beekeeping question from an “oregonstate.edu” e-mail address. I remembered the name from previous exchanges so, on a whim, I asked if I could stop by for a visit.

The beekeeper, Mark Luterra, not only sent back a welcome but accompanied it with a list of everyone he thought I should visit while in Corvallis. It was a mother lode of names, contact information, websites, and phone numbers. I could not believe my good fortune.

I contacted everyone on the list, and within a few hours I had a five-day schedule of people, places, and events. During my brief stay, I met Karessa Torgerson of Nectar Bee Supply and attended her “Understanding Swarms” class where I met more beekeepers. I was invited to the home of Linda Zielinski, president of the Lynn-Benton Beekeeper’s Association, where we gathered around a cozy outdoor fireplace and “talked bee” over red wine, tasty food, and the fragrant tang of burning wood. During the evening, Karessa and another beekeeper, Greg Long, became interested in hearing about prison beekeeping and are now pursuing plans of their own. And I was honored to meet Amanda, an enchanting teenage beekeeper, who became enthralled with my butterfly net.

I attended a presentation of the pollinator film, Wings of Life, along with the Oregon Master Beekeepers. In succeeding days, I visited more beekeepers and photographed many hives and bees. During a visit to the OSU Honey Bee Lab, I met Ramesh Sagili, Assistant Professor of Horticulture, and Carolyn Breece, Research Assistant. Carolyn walked me through the process of testing for Nosema ceranae and Ramesh showed me samples of Apocephalus borealis adults and larvae. Matt Stratton, a student technician, showed me a hypopharyngeal gland recently removed from a honey bee and explained how it would be examined for its protein content.

Later Carolyn escorted me through the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture where Michael Burgett, Emeritus Professor of Entomology, showed me each of the honey bee hives in his eclectic collection, as well as the many types of native bee housing he has created. From there Carolyn took me to the OSU Experimental Farm where I got to see the 150 pounds of newly installed bees and the honey bee flight cages—enclosures for studying honey bees where they can fly but be restricted to certain diets.

When I wasn’t with beekeepers, I had time to visit the campus, walk by the places I used to live, and drive out to the cropped fields to photograph both honey bees and native bees in action. On one afternoon I drove around to all the places where native bee housing is being established in the community, and on another day I checked out the bees at the Starker Arts Garden for Education.

During my many visits with beekeepers, I learned some creative techniques, saw innovative pieces of equipment, heard fresh takes on beekeeping philosophy, and learned new things about both honey bees and native bees. Everyone I met was cordial, generous, and bubbling with bee enthusiasm. It was a dream trip in a dream place—the valley did not disappoint!

I have already written about a few of the things I learned while in Corvallis and I have dozens of discoveries left to share. But today, I wanted to say a public thank you to the beekeepers and bee researchers I met in Corvallis. Their kindness, knowledge, and willingness to teach were truly extraordinary.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

A bee watering device at the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture.
A bee watering device at the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture.

Details of the Taranov split

The Olympia beekeeper who submitted the photos of splitting a Langstroth with a Taranov board, Dave Hurd, sent in some details based on reader questions. He did a nice job explaining his method, so I’m presenting it as today’s post. Once again thanks, Dave, for all your input and your great photos.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite


I can add a little more info about my split experience. On the afternoon of 4/28 (two weeks ago) we were having some usually warm weather and the bees were flying so I thought it would be a handy time to start a HopGuard treatment. I first installed the strips in my nuc and then moved onto my triple. I put strips in the top box, then as I lifted it off I saw a couple of capped swarm cells along the bottom of the frames. I carefully lowered the box back into place and closed the hive. That was probably around 2:30.

At that point I was sure that the hive had either already recently swarmed or was just about to, and decided to make the split immediately in case the girls hadn’t bolted yet. Having read Rusty’s excellent description of the Taranov method I knew what I needed to do (run back into the house to read it again), so I came up with the materials to fabricate my board and put it together, got a nice floral print sheet from my wife, and got set up.

As I was placing the board and sheet I noticed right away that through some adrenalin induced measurement error the lip of the board was about 1.5″ too high, so I slipped a couple of 2x4s under the hive to even them up. It was probably about 3:00 when the apparatus was assembled, in place, and ready for action.

I started shaking frames working from the top down, stacking the emptied boxes on the top cover. When I got to the bottom box I pulled, shook, and replaced the frames leaving the box in place.

Per the instructions I made sure to carefully brush the bees from frames with swarm cells to protect the new queen. For the other frames it only took one or two firm shakes to drop the bees onto the sheet. The whole process proceeded very quickly; after 20 minutes the hive was as empty. I spotted the marked queen midway through the middle box as she fell on the sheet.

At 5:00 all of the bees were either back in the hive, clustered under the board, or out foraging. By 5:05 the cluster was in a new home sipping sweet syrup. This was a brand new box, with brand new frames of brand new foundation; no queen cells added.

Today, two weeks later, the old marked queen is still in the new hive with quite a bit of eggs, brood, and capped brood. They seem to be doing well; in fact they seemed a little crowded so I added a second box on top of the first. I’ll check the old hive to make sure there are eggs next week, and if not I’ll requeen it from my nuc.

As far as needing help, I did this all on my own and it was, in hindsight, not a big deal work-wise. I will admit to being a little panicky during the process because, well, that was a lot of bees! I was much relieved when I saw the queen and knew that I had caught it in time. I don’t think it could have gone much faster if I’d have had help; but there would have been someone to hold the video camera . . .

Dave Hurd