What the Heck is that? The Jerry Project

I'm going to give this my best shot at explaining today's adventures.  I got an email last week from Jerry.  So from now on I've got "The Jerry project."  He lives in Missouri and wandered onto this blog.  He wanted to keep bees so in 2010 he got a hive and a package of bees to get started.  He tackled bees on his own.  Just read some things online, bought the equipment and gave it a go.  The bees did okay, and Jerry fed them.  The bees flew around, drew out comb, and seemed to be thriving.  Yet,  they didn't winter over.  He figured maybe he didn't feed them enough.  Interesting.

So the next spring, Jerry got package #2 of bees.  Again, they did okay during the warm months and died by the next spring.  He was baffled.  So last year, 2012 he got one more package of bees.  This is package #3. An average package of bees costs about $100 so we're up to $300 to get some honey.  So the honey is getting pretty pricey at this point.  These bees were doing great.  They put on a lot of honey even in the big drought.  They were alive and kicking as late as Mid December. Jerry was thinking, "I've got it!  I have bees that will live!"  What do you know.  Dead. No more bees are in this hive as of March.   Interesting.

So he made me an offer, come get the honey out for me, I'll give you my hive. He at least wanted to have some of this $300 honey.   He didn't want it anymore bees!  Free hive?  I'm all over that option.  So I went for a road trip this morning to Jerry's house.  I met him and his lovely wife.  Really good people.  They had a nice set up.  Nice sized pond, fruit trees, cute little chicken hutches, some wild geese, pastures and woods nearby,  the works.  So why would he lose bees three years in a row? It didn't really make sense.

I'm no bee expert.  If you've read this blog, you know this to be true.  But I am a quick learner and I am intrigued as to what makes bees prosper and what makes them go kaput.  I opened the top brood box, it was 100% honey.  No brood, all honey.  So the bees never got "Up" there to eat the winter food stores.  They did not starve.  I had a hive starve on me my first year, that looks like a center of bees all together with one bee per cell, Butt side out.  There were no bees in this hive.  Interesting.

Then I checked the bottom box.  Alas, there was something strange.  Here's a picture.  I saw these white small round things.  Round. Like eggs, but not bee eggs.  In my mind I'm thinking this must be some sort of infestation that was killing off Jerry's bees.  Had to be!  Then again....I had never seen this in my bees, so I thought I'd drop by Paul's house on my way home. 

What the Heck are those things?

Paul had just pulled into his driveway when I arrived.  He's always up for a good bee adventure too so he came right over to the van and we got to looking.  He was baffled as well.  Paul.  My bee mentor who had seen it all was also not sure what was going on here.  I asked him if these white things were some eggs of some bug that would have killed off the bees or something that could have moved in after.  He did not know.  "Do NOT put these in your hive yard until you know it's safe."

Now visualize this.  We're standing in the middle of the street in Ursa Il.  We normally do things like pull out frames and hold them up.  But for someone driving by, it may look weird.  To make matters worse, we decide to sniff the frames to see if they smell.  We don't  know what this is, and we even thought it could be frozen over foul brood...we have no idea.  So the best thing to do?  Sniff it in the middle of the street. 

Well, only one thing left to do when Paul doesn't know and I can't put unsafe frames in the bee yard.  I had to call in the top Bee man.  Time to call Bernie.  He just so happened to be up a Dadant's in Hamilton buying bee equipment when I called so we set up an appointment to meet at his house at 1pm. 

When I got to Bernie's we got right at the investigation.  He chuckled and said.  "Oh that's just sugar."  Huh?  sugar?  I know what sugar looks like and I know what sugar water looks like inside of bee cells.  How could this be?  Well, it more complicated than that.

This hive had been very well fed.  Jerry had fed the hive as late as December when he last checked on his last attempt at beekeeping.  The bees wanting all the sugar for winter put it in the cells and it sat there.  But why would they not go ahead and use the sugar?

Here's the interesting answer.  Bernie showed me some things about determining how a hive died out.  He said, "Were the bee butts out or in?"  I wasn't sure.  Oh here's a cell, butts are in.  As a matter fact the bees didn't fully emerge out of the brood.  That was because there were no nurse bees to help them out.  So I had dead bees sitting inside cells, and some died not even breaking the caps. 

Sporadic brood pattern, and bees still inside cells.

So he said matter of factly, they died of mites  I didn't see mites.  So I thought maybe he saw mites.  Could Bernie use super bee powers to see mites I couldn't see?  No, he didn't.  But he explained how he knew it was mites.  When the mites populate faster than the bees, they take over.   They attach to the bees, and the bees dying will fly away from the hive.  Bernies asked, "Did you see a bunch of dead bees?"  No.  Jerry had said no dead bees were in or directly outside the hive.  They had gotten sick and flew out to die.

Head of bee is facing out while it's still  trapped in cell.

Because the bees had plenty of honey and sugar to eat on, they were able to keep working, hence the honey stores, but were not able to keep feeding and tending larve and capped brood.  The hive died out slowly over a period of time.  So when Jerry saw bees in December, they were most likely close to dying out, and just couldn't keep up.

So the "Infestation" was sugar.  And the bees died of mites. 

Tons of Sugar cells.  Hundreds filled on each frame.

My plans now are to extract some honey for Jerry and see if I can get some successful bees living in his hive  It's at my house.  I'll try to do a split or put in a swarm this spring.  If we can get some good bees living in there, I'll see if Jerry is truly finished with beekeeping on wants to give it another shot.  I'll consider this hive "On loan" for now. 






I took several pictures because it looked so odd.  Maybe this will help some other members of our bee club see what to look for in their hive inspections. 

The capped honey in the upper box was in great shape.

The sieve is full.  I'll just wait for it to filter by gravity and bottle it up for Jerry. 

All in all, it was a fun day.  Looks like Jerry's getting some good honey.  The kids enjoyed this after school activity.  The initial taste test is positive :)

Feeding Time

 Just a quick note today.  I fed the bees sugar water this afternoon.  According to weather channel, we are not dropping below 32 for the next 10 days so time is right.  We'll trigger the queen to start laying eggs in the hive and in 21 days...wham!  Lots of bees.  The earlier I can get her laying without a freeze the better.

I went into winter with 5 alive here at my bee yard, I have 4 strong hives today and one just barely hanging on.  It was a small cluster I had picked up on a swarm call.  It may not make it. There are a few slow moving bees in there, but the hive may not be strong enough to fight off other spring bees.  The other 4  looked great.  Very excited over the food source.

I like to feed bees in the early morning.  They are not all out
flying around yet.  I make up some old juice clear plastic bottles.  This is easy to fill half with sugar, use the tea kettle pour in hot water about 80% full and shake like crazy.  Then fill the rest of the water and cap.  When I'm taking kids to school, I drop by the hives, fill each entrance jar with sweetness and I don't drag the glass jars all around.  Much easier. 

Calendar notes:  March 28, started feed.  Check for laying of eggs in 5-7 days to ensure my queen is healthy and laying eggs.  Also, rotate top and bottom boxes. Target Friday April 5.

Mail Order

I'm probably considered late.  But I've got all my bee supply catalogs out looking at what I want to buy.  It's fun to shop for bee stuff.  My first year, I needed hive parts, so it wasn't quite as much fun.  There are not as many variables to pick from.  Buy 2 Hive bodies and call me in the morning!  Pretty simple.

This year, I'm looking at all kind of gadgets.  I attended Dadant's 150 year Anniversay event this past weekend.  It was great, and got me to thinking about my basic bee problems.  Yes, I have bee problems.  One big problem, is that I can't ever see my queen.  Three years of bees, and I can't find her.  It's worse than a Where's Waldo print.  I look at the frames and I'm pretty sure she sees me and jumps on another one.

How can I see my Queen?  How can I ever catch her?  First, I should probably mark her.  Most bee keepers mark their queens with special pens.  They recommend a color system so at one glance we know how old she is.  Or, if while the beekeeper was not looking, the hive superseeded her and made a new queen.  Sounds good, but I'm going to need a marking pen and some patience to find her.

Then I saw some interesting Queen restriction tools.  One was just a regular old Queen Excluder, you check a frame and by process of elimination narrow down where the queen is located.  I may need that kind of help.  Then I saw a kind of cool press in Queen trap.  It allows worker bees in and out, but traps the queen so there is no threat of me accidentally smashing her.  That sounds like a great idea.  I can just see me spending hours to find the queen just to smash her.

Then my next issues are hands and feet.  My gloves suck.  They are awful.  Plus at some point I tore a hole in them and have one whole finger covered with duct tape.  I need something new.  I know what I want.  I want gloves that are like my garden gloves.  That thick covered glove that is rubbery and still gives good dexterity.  I read several forums and have decided to try the extra thick Nitrile gloves.  I ordered some 8mil thickness.  I'll let you know. 

We all know about my feet.  So I also have on my list, "Get some shoes!"  so I am looking for some rain boots to cover my feet and ankles that do not attract the bees.  Seems like most rain boots have flowers painted on them.  That seems like a trick for the bees.  I can just see them trying to pollinate my boots.

I'm off to shop, I'll post my purchases and reviews for you.  Maybe we can solve some ongoing bee issues together!

Radio Buzz

This morning Guy Spoonmore and I were guest with Jim Dewey on WTAD am 930.  He had us in the studio to talk about our upcoming bee class February 16th.  It's our annual spring kick off for beekeeping in the area.  We took a few calls while we were there, and we had several people visiting the website for more information.  As we talked bees, Jim asked several questions I thought I'd share with followers.

Why would someone keep bees?

I think it's an assumption, that anyone keeping bees might be a little off their rocker, but people do find lots of reasons to keep bees!  First, Honey is the most obvious.  I did not go into detail on the radio about why people would go to such lengths to get honey when they can just buy it in a store, at a farmer's market of online.  The answer is that not all honey is created equal.  Some is highly pasturized and loses it's health qualities, some is from out of state, and loses it's allergens, and some plain doesn't taste good.  The only way to ensure you're getting good quality honey is to buy local from a beekeeper or become a beekeeper.  I have leaned honey is like wine, there are lots of grades, and some is good, some is not .

How much time does it take to keep bees?
To keep 2 hives, as a beginner, you will end up working the hive about 15 hours, and if you harvest another 5 or 6 hours.  The thing about bees, is that when you're new, you find reasons to get into the bees and check them out.  You'll spend more time because you want to spend time.  When it's July and hot, you'll find other things to do.  But when it's a nice spring day, you'll wander to the bees and take a look.  It's fun!  You may only spend 10 mintues working the bees, and it may take you 3 minutes putting on the suit.  But overall keeping bees is not a time consuming hobby unless you want it to be.  Should you expand like many beekeepers do, you'll need to plan more time for your bees.

Where do bees come from? How do you get them?
I guess I had forgotten about this question until Jim asked.  We buy bees from other beekeepers.  We get them in these little box cages that are screened.  The package of bees is 3lb, which is determined to be a good starter hive size. about 1000 bees per pound.   Then you get a queen.  To keep bees you do not have to go hunt up a wild hive in the woods.  I would have never gotten started if I had to hunt bees.  Our club puts in a group order each spring for anyone expanding or replacing hives. 

Can people who don't want to tend the bees themselves still support beekeeping?
Sure!  Some farmers allow bees to be kept along their fields which give them better polliination, and gives the beekeeper a yard to rotate bees and be allowed to conduct hive splits.  Some people have beekeepers raise their bees for them for a share of the honey.  Kids raise bees for 4H projects and need fair support.  Of course, buying direct from a beekeeper helps them to manage the honey flow efficiently. 

What should people who are allergic to bees do when they get them at their house?
First, determine if you have 3 bees or 3000 bees.  If you have a settlement, you'll need help.  Don't grab the Raid, call the beekeepers association or local pest control.  You may only have a few bees that are attracted to a plant of sugar substance.  They won't hang around long, they also are not aggressive guard bees.  These are gathering bees, and are busy gathering.  Too busy to notice you unless you decide to intervene.  A small group of gatherers will travel up to 2 miles from their hive to nectar or pollen (or a piece of hard candy stuck to the sidewalk).  If you have a swarm, it's 1000's of bees looking for a new place to live.  Call us, don't try to handle a swarm on your own. We'll help them relocate to a hive someplace safe.

Why should people be thinking about getting bees in February?
We don't actually place bees into bee yards until April or May.  But it takes time to order hive parts, paint them up all cute, and find the perfect spot in your yard for a hive.  You'll need some time to read your new bee book and order your package.

Have you been stung?

Yes. and Yes.  I was stung pretty bad last year because I decided NOT to put on my bee shoes but wore flip flops out in the beehive area.  I was working inside the hive which usually riles them up anyway, and I got stung 6-8 times on my ankle.  I took 2 Benedryl, had a cold one and felt better in a couple hours.  This is not normal.  I've been stung 2 times, once with a wild hive we were relocating to my bee yard, and the aforementioned lazy summer day when I should have put my shoes on my feet.  I will not be so easy going this year!  I guarantee, bees can be dangerous, and I will never bee this guy!  By the way, when you see bee beards and this, they spray sugarwater on themselves so the bees will want the sugar.  They then eat up the sugar and their bellies are all full, they can't get their stinger raised up to properly sting.  Its kind of a bee trick.  But you will never see me doing this!


If you have more questions, you can email me anytime, I'd be happy to answer best I can.   LeAnn Moyers

Winterizing

It's time to help the bees get stay warm for the cold months ahead.  It's pretty simple, yet seems to fire them up a bit.  I'll give them some pollen feed supplements, and put on the entrance reducers. I'll double check that they have the screen tops off, and the inner tops for winter in place.  Anything that will give them a break from the harsh winds and cold. 

If you're interested in getting bees for next spring, try to catch a local meeting before February.  We meet on the last Tuesday of the month in Quincy, we do skip Dec due to the holidays.  That just leaves 2 meetings before we start planning spring bees!

Email me anytime to details at lmoyers@adams.net  Also, we'll host a big class about bees in February and we as a club order new bees in March. Our class will be February 16th and cost is $30 for a family.  Includes your intro book, lots of handouts, and your membership fees.  It's a good way to get started-with lots of support!

Time to catch up on my bee reading and online education.  Night Night bees!

Honey GLORIOUS Honey

This weekend we have perfect weather. It was finally time.  I started with bees in the spring of 2011.  My two hives were very successful last year, but I was unsure.  I was very afraid to take too much honey away from my bees.  If I had taken honey, what would the bees eat all winter?  Yikes, I decided to play it safe and wait for year two.

You may  be wondering what the big deal was in waiting.  Bees are not an inexpensive thing to get into.  To start, you need hives, frames, a suit, equipment, and of course bees.  All of it costs a pretty penny.  So to take a risk that I would starve my bees over the winter did not seem like the right thing to do.  So I didn't.

Hence 2012.  I was so excited to have not only my 2 hives, but 3 more packages.  I had also purchased 2 packages for my mother's farm.  Then, the early warmth hit.  Those who have been following my blog know I picked up several swarms this year.  FREE bees!  I got up to 9 hives in my bee yard, and 2 over at mom's.  That's a lot of bees. Of course, I'd have plenty of honey. 

Then the weather turned.  The Drought we had here in Ursa IL was terrible.  The worst I can remember.  It does no good to complain, true farmers were much worse off than my poor bees.  Bees do not need water, but they do need plenty of blooming plants to collect from.  With the drought so severe, I didn't even have the occasional white clover in the lawn for my poor bees.  They were just foraging day after day, and not able to collect pollen.

Each time a beekeeper checks the bees, you distrupt the flow of the workers.  So about the first of July, I quit checking them.  They were under enough stress, they didn't need me smoking them up and causing panic just to see they had no honey.  So I waited.  And I waited.  And about mid August we got some rain.  So I waited until the goldenrod started to bloom.  And I waited.  And now it's the 22nd of September, and it's time.  Time to check for honey.

 I cleaned the equipment and set everything up.  Really, I was just hoping for the best.  I was very unsure as I went out the bee yard.  I knew they were "Okay"  I could see them flying in and out and working as hard as they could.  My hopes were that I would get at least 9 bottles of honey for my family for the year.  That would be plenty of fresh honey and at least I'd have some to enjoy.

When I opened up the first hive....nothing.  No honey I could rob.  So I went to my second strongest hive.  I had 7 frames with honey.  As quick as I could work I brushed off all the bees and put one frame at a time in my minivan and closed the hatch.  The last thing I wanted was mad bees hanging out in the family van.

Gorgeous!  The honey was beautiful.  It was a nice yellow color, light and clear.  That is what most honey producers are looking to harvest, light colored beautiful honey.

Next was to ready the frames for the extractor.  To do this, you need to lightly scape the cappings of wax off the cells.  Be careful!  if you scrape too far, the bees have to rebuild the wax comb.  If you just scrape the tops, then they just refill the cells and recap.  Save those ladies some time and effort!.

I used the uncapping knife I had purchased for this task.  It was not so great.  I found it to be a bit cumbersome and hard to hold while balancing my frames.  The frames, by the way, are very heavy.  Ladden with rich honey these guys look light, but weigh a lot.  Plus, you want to be careful to hold just to frame to avoid smashing the comb.  

Eventually I said, "To heck with this!" and picked up a kitchen fork.  It seemed to do the trick and was simple and easy.  The caps just fell aside and the honey was exposed.  I could have saved some moolah if I had just thought to use a fork the first go around.

My extractor is a second hand buy.  I purchased it from Bernie of Andrew Honey Farm. It's perfect for a small scale harvest.  It's a hand crank, which did give Avry and Me a workout.  We both felt it was invigorating!  Not bad since she's 14 and I'm ...well....it has a 4. 

The Extractor is basically a tank with a spin operation.  We fling the honey out as it spins.  Kind of like a salad spinner with a basket to hold the frames.  Then at the bottom is a nice gate/spout to drain the honey and wax that has collected at the bottom of the tank.

Incidentally, I'm doing this right in the middle of my kitchen.  Why not?  It's clean, and I don't have to worry about bees getting in the house to track the honey.  So right between the sink, stove and fridge.

Spin baby spin!  Avry grabbed the camera to get an action shot.  This is about the point where I'm huffing and puffing.  When the frames are heavy, it's hard to get it really spinning, but as the honey flings out, it gets easier.   This is a perfect set up. NO need for an electric one for a small amount of honey.  IF I had 10 full hives and 200 frames I'm sure I'd be buying the electric ones. 

 Can you see the honey at the bottom?  The wax is caught inside the basket, so most of the wax is contained. Yet there is a lot of capping wax mixed into the honey as it is spun out of the comb. It's starting to really smell good. 

Can you smell the sweet honey?  I think it's at this point where both Avry and I end up sticking our fingers in the honey to be sure it's sweet.  Yep.  It is. 

But maybe we should check again....

And Again.....

And Again....

Okay back to work.  Now it's time to filter the honey.  There are wax cappings, and a couple blades of grass, one stubborn bee in the pot.  So we start to filter.  We used a simple bucket purchased at Dadant's.  We drained the honey from the extractor to the bucket and seive.  We used a 400 micron filter.  It was perfect.  Cleaned the honey so we could eat fresh raw honey right out of the spigot. 

This is where having help pays off.  "Avry, get in there and scrape the sides with a spatula.  She was good help.  But it looked fun, so I took away the spatula and did some honey scraping my self.  Not too bad!  It cleaned right up.  We took as much honey as we could get from the extractor. 













The bucket in the meantime was filtering slow.  Which is good.  It can take up to 48 hours to filter this honey.  Yet, some was already accumulating at the bottom of the honey bucket.


Hmmmmm....Lets not wait!  Let's bottle some up right now!  So we did.  We were just too excited.  Professional honey folks will wait until all the air bubbles have settled (up to a week)  Not us!  We were too happy to have this golden honey and wanted it to be in these cute little bottles. 





Here's what I found most shocking.  I only took 6 frames due to the drought.  And I bottled 28 lbs of honey.  Whoa.  That's a lot of honey per frame.  I did not realize how much honey those bees were packing up in the hive.  No wonder the hive weighs so much.

The other wonder, was how light the honey was.  I expected to have good clover honey this year, which is light and valuable.  But with the drought, I thought I'd have more wildflower and goldenrod looking honey.  Or, an amber tint.  This is was very light and had a nice flavor.



We lined up all the bottles, and even tried to make a pyramid with them, FYI that doesn't really work with these bottles. 

The whole family got into the process, but my main helper was Avry.  She asked what we are going to do with the "Ucky stuff"  and I explained that beeswax is very valuable for making cosmetics.  Her payment is the wax, she ordered some lip balm tubes on Ebay and she's going to make her own Beeswax lip balm.  I'll let you see how that goes next week. 


On Sunday, we loaded up bottles for the neighbors.  They see the bees all the time, it's only fitting we share some of the bounty.  Here's the cute little bottles we gave out. 







 It was a first time harvest and full of excitement.  We have already had Peanut butter and Honey sandwiches, Tea with Honey, Honey flavored BBQ, and Katy's Favorite, Honey on a spoon.  It was a very rewarding experience and I hope to do even more of it next fall. 

Rain!

We finally got some rain.  My house in Ursa had been skipped the past two times it had rained in Quincy.  My grass was crunchy, and my bees had nothing to do!  They needed something growing in order to be making honey.  I had given up on any good honey crop this year due to the drought, then bam!  Two rains over the weekend.  I'm so happy. 

I did manage to merge two weaker hives into some larger colonies.  They were struggling and with the drought, I thought it would be best to have 7 good hives than 9 kind of good.  I'm hoping we continue to get scattered rains over the next few weeks.  Then my clover will start blooming again, and maybe just maybe with an extended fall, my bees will make enough honey for me and for them too. 

Come on Rain!

Capital Bees

Just got back from a trip with Avry and the 8th graders (they say, High Schoolers) from Unity Middle school.  We went to DC.  While we were walking around the grounds of the White House we saw the well manicured-perfectly manicured-kitchen garden and to my surprise, two beekeepers.  The men were suited up and messing with the bees. 

Cool right?  So they had out their boxes all up on stilts.  Stilts look good for show.  Then I counted boxes.  We were standing pretty far away, so I used the zoom on the camera.  There were six shallow boxes to this hive.  Odd.  No deep brood boxes.  Then the guys started shuffling the boxes around.  One had bees all over the box.  ONE had bees all over the box.  Two of the shallows they tipped and there were no frames at all. 

In concept, very good idea to have bees near the kitchen garden.  But no bees?  No brood?  Not so good. Bees won't go around stinging tourists.  They rarely will leave a 1 mile area, and that is only if there isn't anything to pick up near them.  AKA nectar or pollen.  So next to all those flowers?  It's not like Ive ever seen a president walking around the kitchen garden for a photo op. 

Yet, everyone else in the group was impressed with the bee boxes and the two guys in white suits.  They snapped up pictures right along with me.  We all looked like tourists!

Redneck Swimming Pool or Bee Waterer

So my bees are thirsty.  They are all over the swimming pool toys so they can land and get a bit of water without drowning.  I went out to the bee yard and put a chicken waterer out there, which is supposedly the bee water method of choice.  Not my bees, heck no.  They only drink off of water guns and floaties.  So I've put out a big bucket with some bee toys in the yard.  Let's see if I can retrain them to drink from their own pool!

The full bee yard.  10 hives.  I have 2 that are struggling, the others are doing very well.  Still have two more at moms.  I'll be looking for places near Ursa Il to put additional hives.  Anyone need pollination for your crops?  

By popular demad

Okay not really popular or demand, but one person wants to follow my blog by email, I put the sign up on the left sidebar.  Feel free!

Bee Squad in Action

You've heard of Geek Squad right?  Well, Paul Woodworth and I are the Bee Squad of Northern Adams County.  Why?  Who knows why!  Why do any of us keep bees?  Let along go on bee calls.  People call with their BEE issues and we spring into action.  Today was a humdinger of a bee project.  I'm going to try to explain what happened and show you the pictures.

Paul told me last week that he had an "interesting" bee call planned.  He was not kidding.  He said he could use an extra hand if I'd be able to go Monday morning.  I said sure, I'll be ready to go.  Usually this means my job is handing him the sugar water bottle and keeping the smoker lit.  Not today my friends....not today.  Today I was just as much in action as Paul.

Today, I could have used more hands.  We may need to expand the Bee Squad for jobs like this one in the future.  Yes, now that I think about it, two more hands would have been good....any takers? We'll get you a special suit.  All white.

So we arrived on the scene and found an older home with some wooden slat siding on the porch of the north side of the house.  There was some obvious rotten wood that provided a hole or opening for the bees to fly in and out of.  The occupants were a really nice older couple who said they thought there were some bees living over there and that is why they called.  They suspected that the bees moved in last year.

As we looked at the hole we saw the bees going down and not up in the hole.  Which was a bit odd.  Normally bees like to build up.  But because of the windows, there was no room to build up.  Just down.  So Paul started pulling off the wooden siding.  Then he needed a power saw.  Then a crowbar, and a hammer.  I was glad it was him in charge of Bee Squad and not me. 

As we pulled the boards off, we could tell the bees had built comb all the way down the wall.  So we'd have to pull all the board off the side of the porch.  The owners did not care, they were planning to get new siding this summer.

 See that rather small opening in the bottom corners of the two windows?  That was the entrance hole.  Doesn't look like an entrance to so many bees does it?

  Smoke.  Smoke....MORE smoke.  The smoker generally calms the bees.  Truthfully they smell smoke, think FIRE!  Then eat up honey so their bellies protrude.  Once the belly is full, they can't get their stingers out all the way...and it's better for us and for them.  More bees live!   SMOKE!

It was around this point that Paul asked if I had my smoker with me.  I did not.  He said, I think we could use two smokers.  Huh.....a two smoker job.  

"How do you want to do this?" I asked Paul.  His plan was easy.  "We'll take the brood first, then the honeycombs, then we'll put as many as we can in the hive box.  Then we'll sweep a box full, then we'll vac up the left overs,"  he was rather calm.

Look at those combs.  Huge combs.  They had brood combs "On Top" or facing outward towards us.  They had honey combs further back. 
So up on the ladder with a comb knife and rubber gloves.  He cut the brood combs first, and would hand them down to me.


 

 I tied them to frames as best I could with those bulky crazy bee gloves.  NO WAY was I taking them off.  I'd just have to work slow.  We tied up 5 brood frames and put them in the hive box.

Now we added 5 empty frames and popped a lid on top.  It was loaded with bees already.    Normally calls about bees, would be this.  Some bees, a box and some sweat.

Then we had an entire wall of bees.  Paul guessed 6 pounds of bees.  I guessed 12 pounds of bees.  It was a lot.   More bees than I've seen on a bee call.  We sprayed them down with sugar water so they couldn't fly well then bee brushed them into the bee box.  We got about 75% of the wall of bees by doing this.

Now to the stubborn bees.  We used the Paul Woodworth custom bee vacuum method.  We started sucking up bees and it worked great.  But I noticed we didn't seem to be getting the bees out of there.  What the heck?  The bees that were out foraging were coming back to deliver their pollen.  Oh mercy.  We're never going to get these bees. They just kept coming.

Finally we duct taped the vacuum to the hottest fly in place and let it sit.  It constantly sucked in bees about 50 per minute.  We sucked bees for at least 45 minutes.  That's a lot of bees.  I could not believe how many bees were just flying back to this house.  It was a huge colony of bees.

LeAnn Vac'n  LOVE it!

I wanted to vac!  So I got to vac while Paul cooled off.  loved doing that.  Watching them fly over the hose end and just WHOOSH right into the hose. They just kept going to their old entrance hole and they I'd suck em up!


The owners were very interested in the entire project.  They had lots of questions.  I think it's the bee humor effecting me, but when they asked if I knew what type of bees these were, I told them, "Well, there's Minnesota bees and Italians,'  I couldn't make out their dialect for sure.  They fell for it.  Can't help it, it was fun.

They wanted to know what we'd do with the honey.  It was all mixed in with brood comb.  There was one good chunk of solid honeycomb so we put it on a board and shooed the bees away for them.  Their grand kids were there watching as well so everyone got a good taste of fresh from the hive honey. It was very sweet and warm. 

We thanked them and went on our way.  We put the bees in a hive in my yard.  I think secretly Paul is out of room for bees.  That or his wife doesn't want him having more hives near their home so he let me keep them here.  I'm happy, I'll take the bees!

It took two boxes to get them all in there.  We put the hive box out, then the cardboard box dumped into that.  We slapped an inner cover on fast as we could so they wouldn't fly.  Then the second brood box, two frames of comb and dumped in the vac full of bees.  It was at least 2 new package sized load of bees.

I'm going on record saying it was closer to 12 lbs of bees than 6!