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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

Tomorrow: The iterative method of swarm retrieval

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.

A beer box for bees

This is just a little thing—a Girl Scout “be prepared” kind of thing—but it makes life easier. Every year just before swarm season, I make sure I have a cardboard box big enough to hold a swarm. I usually use a beer box because they’re sturdy and easy to come by. I seal all the extra openings with duct tape, including the handles on the ends and the slit on the bottom. Then I just stick the box in the shed.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run for the box over the years. I’ve scarfed up swarms in trees and bushes, swarms on fence posts, swarms under hives, and even one on the ground. Often I just clip off a branch and place the whole thing in there. Once I get it in the box, I just fold over the lid and take it to wherever I want to hive it. I’ve even left bees in the box overnight with no problem.

Having it ready in advance makes all the difference because I don’t end up scrambling around looking for something I just took to the recycle center. Before I started doing this I had a swarm leave a low branch and disappear while I was routing around looking for a container. How annoying.

I like a cardboard box because it is light, easy to carry around, and holds the bees in confinement (if well taped). It is small enough that I can climb a tree or hang off the edge of a building and not lose control of it. Besides that, I get to drink the beer, which is also fun.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Be sure to tape the handles and the bottom.
Be sure to tape the handles and the bottom.

Managing packages and swarms

Sometimes little gems of wisdom get hidden within the comments section. In this tip, Jim of Withers Mountain Honey Farm in Flint, Michigan, describes how he bolsters new bee packages with brood from strong hives that might swarm. It is a way to equalize the strength of his hives while boosting packages and reducing swarming. It also increases his chances of getting a honey crop from first-year colonies.

Jim is a beekeeper I trust because his management ideas are always based on a solid knowledge of honey bee biology and colony life cycle, which he then combines with a good dose of economic sense. Although he has many hives, these steps would work for anyone who has both a strong overwintered colony and at least one new package. Below is the entire message:

I installed 20 packages this year and and bought 35 queens for splits bringing my hive count up to 150 . . . I know, crazy! One of the things I like to do to boost my packages and, at the same time, reduce swarming is to steal about 5 frames of bees and brood from my strong hives to combine with the package.

The procedure works like this:

    1. First, I give the package time to release the queen and for her to start laying. Indeed, I wait until there is capped brood a couple of days from emerging. By this time the bees that came with the package are only a couple of weeks from expiring at best. This typically occurs around the end of April. This is also when the bees around these parts begin having visions of swarming.
    2. I go through those strong hives and do a little thinning of their population by stealing about 4 frames with capped brood with the attendant bees and a nice frame of honey. Obviously, you must be certain not to take the queen when you do this. I checkerboard either empty drawn comb or new foundation in the place of those frames. In most cases, this slows the swarming instinct.
    3. The bees I took are combined with the package bees by placing a sheet of newspaper over the box with the package and placing the box with the stolen brood and bees over top of that. It takes the bees a day or two to chew their way through the newspaper and, in the process, become accustomed to their new queen’s pheromone. I would guess the success rate of the combined bees accepting this new queen to be in the high 90′s percentile. I have seen times when the new bees, apparently, killed the queen and made an emergency queen cell but this is rare, likely because I make a point of taking only capped brood and larvae too old for them to make a queen out of.

This procedure super charges the new hive so that I can expect a honey crop from it and, perhaps, prevent an overwintered hive from swarming. It has worked well for me the last couple of years.

Jim
HoneyBeeSuite

A reader’s questions answered

To a reader in central Florida,

I couldn’t get your e-mail address to work, so I’m putting the answers to your questions right here, front and center. I hope you find this.

Questions:

I live in central Florida near Ocala forest on a ¾-acre lot that I’m allowing to revert to native growth and I’m planting many types of flowering shrubs and flowers. There is also a large abandoned citrus grove within twenty yards. Last year a honey bee colony took up residence under an old aluminum shed. I’m happy to have them but they disappeared for three or four months. This winter it was mild with no frost. They are now back happily going about their business.

Question 1: Where did they go? Question 2: I’ve been studying them and wonder why they sometimes seem to attack and carry away living bees?

Thanks for your site. I love bees (never been stung even with my face among flowers weeding or watching closely at the hive) and hope the hive stays.

My answers:

#1. If they really did disappear, then the bees there now are not the same colony that you saw three or four months ago. The original colony may have left or may have died for any number of reasons. But new swarms are incredibly attracted to old combs even if they are empty of honey. They can detect the scent for long distances and seek it out. Because they don’t have to build a new home from scratch, it gives them a head start.

The other possibility is that the colony was there the entire time, just holed up for the winter. Because you didn’t see any activity for month after month, you assumed they were gone. On the other hand, if it was as mild as you say, this probably was not the case because bees are usually active on warmish days even in the winter, and if they were active you would have noticed. Still, it’s hard to say for sure, especially with them living under a shed where it’s hard to see them or hear them.

#2. Honey bees are famous for what is called “hygienic behavior.” Healthy worker bees will cart away any bees that are ill, weak, or have deformities. It is their way of keeping the hive as strong as possible, preventing disease spread, and conserving food stores. It sounds cruel by human standards but it makes sense for them. Sometimes you will even see them carry away partially developed pupae because they can sense that something is wrong even before it hatches.

Thanks for writing; those are both excellent questions.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Beekeeping myths, half-truths, and rumors

I found the following quote in a newspaper article this morning. It was attributed to the president of a large beekeeping club in the southern U.S.—someone who ought to know better.

Backyard beekeepers are offering a glimmer of hope for bee populations because every swarm that outgrows the hive and leaves to start a feral colony in the wild increases the health and survival of all bees.

I find not a glimmer of truth in this statement. Not only do swarms from managed hives hardly ever survive for more than a year or two, they are the very thing that contributed to the downfall of feral populations in the first place.

Bees escaping from managed stock took their parasites and diseases with them and ended up decimating feral colonies all across the continent. In addition, there is evidence that diseased bees are spreading their ailments to certain species of wild bees as well. In truth, escaping stock does just the opposite of increasing the “health and survival of all bees.”

I often skim the headlines for bee news and not a day goes by when I don’t find false or misleading statements about honey bees and beekeeping. With all the interest, with all the investigation, with all the money being poured into bee research, you would think there would be more “common knowledge” than there is.

Sadly, these erroneous statements often come from trusted sources. The beekeeping president quoted above is probably a really nice guy who knows how to run a meeting and get the dues collected. He’s probably an experienced beekeeper too. But honestly, his statement (assuming it was accurately reported) makes me wonder how much he knows about any aspect of beekeeping.

The statement reminded me of a beekeeper who taught a class of newbees to keep their syrup feeders full at all times, even with honey supers in place. Her heart was in the right place I’m sure, but she truly believed her bees stored nectar, ate sugar syrup, and never confused the two. She fed syrup all summer long and harvested it in the fall . . . while mentoring others to do the same. So sad.

But what’s a beginner to do? When all the really good information is hopelessly entangled with myths, half-truths, and unfounded rumors, how is a newbee supposed to figure it out? Truth is, I don’t have an answer; I’m just obsessing at the keyboard. Perhaps if I didn’t read the papers, I wouldn’t get so upset.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite