Keep the calls a comin'

Got another call this am.  I'm nothing but a big ball of sweat!  More bees near the fairgrounds in Mendon IL.  This was a fast call, bees were on a stone wall just sitting in the sun.  I grabbed them and hit the road.  This was a huge box of bees.  I mean HUGE.  I had a hard time getting them in to a hive box.  Only got half in and had to keep sweeping them towards the entrance.  Wow. 

Keep the calls a comin.  If I'm not available, call the guys on the MV beekeepers page.

New Swarm Call

Fantastic!  I was sitting out on the deck enjoying the weather and I got a call from Bernie Andrew.  I'm on the MV Beekeeper's list for wanting swarms  This swarm happened to be in Mendon IL, only 6 miles from my house.  Great!  I jumped up and grabbed my swarm gear.  The heck with the weather.

I asked Avry to ride along, my daughter.  She has never seen the bees like this before, so it was all new to her.    These bees all congregated into a small tree about 5 feet off the ground.   This is call #3 in a week, the first were in a 3rd story apartment building and out of reach, the second (read below) were inside a hallowed out log and we had to cut them out. 

These bees just needed a mist of sugar water so they wouldn't fly around a lot, and a snip of the tree limb.  Bam!  They went in the box.  I grabbed a few stragglers that didn't make the box and sealed it up tight.  Duct tape really can do everything.

Then to my bee yard.  This is hive #7 at my house.  I had the box ready and leveled and I was glad I had thought ahead.  I put in some "borrowed" frames (I was running low) and installed the bees.  These gals were really calm.  They just went right to the frames and box.  I shook the rest in and put the lid on tight.  Next just tap tap tap on the box so the queen can tell the bees where she was located.  They just flew right on in.  Love this swarm!

Thanks for the calls, keep em coming. 

Bees for Lunch

My friend, Jackie Weisenberger seems to know everyone.  Today, she took a call from a tree trimmer in Quincy who got half way through a tree and found bees.  BUNCHES of bees.  So they called me.  Yeah!  A bee call.  Only I know nothing about how to get bees out of a middle of a log, so I called Paul Woodworth (bee mentor) and he agreed to go with me to get bees over lunch.

When we got on site Paul snapped a photo of the tree, it was pretty good sized and the bees had just recently located there.  I'll add the photo when I get it from him later.  There were three combs, but all were just wax drawn, no larve or brood.  So this was just sheer luck we got the call and the bees before they had fully settled in the tree. 

They were tough to reach, the rotten hallowed out tree had lots of places for the bees to hide.  Paul kept telling me to mist them with sugar water, brush them and hold the box flap.  He then pulled up the log and bumped them hard towards the box.  I felt like I needed one more hand.  Or at least a left as good as my right.  But after about an hour, these peaceful bees were all gathered up.

We ended up keeping part of the log, we felt the queen was deep in there so we took a piece and taped it in a box.  Then we had our gathered bees in box #2.  Now just a short drive to the bee yard to install them.

Paul instructed me to keep the log in the bottom box, and frames in the top.  This way the bees will naturally go up and settle where they can easily build comb and the queen can start laying eggs.

OI emptied a bottom box, and made room for the log.  Guess what?  No picture, again, not enough hands. 

Then misted them really well so they would not fly when I opened up the box to place the log.  Very quickly added box #2 to the top with the frames.  I also misted the frames with sugar water, they seem to like them better that way.

Next I emptied all the bees from box 2.  That was a chore, it was full of bees.  I misted, brushed, misted brushed.  You get the idea. 

Can you see the log way down in the bottom?

When I got as many in as I could, I put the inner cover, then cover on.  Only this hive was new to these wild bees, so they couldn't find the door.  I tapped the bottom box so queenie would send them message "To Me!" 





Check them out moving into the opening. It was fun to watch. They just wiggled along to the opening.  I had to brush some off the top edges of the hive towards the opening.  It would have taken them hours to get there. 





So then I filled the feeder and just watched for fun. 

This is one of the neighbors.  I had put some comb out that was old, they keep coming out and dragging it in pieces.  Who would have thought that small piece was so valuable to them. 


What a fun day, and it took about 2 hours. Okay, long lunch, but still better than left overs I had planned. 

Thanks to Paul for helping, I would have never gotten the log split to get these lovelies out.  Sincere thanks!