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!

Hive Inspection

Yesterday the weather was good, so I had a chance to dig into my hives and make an inspection.  I was very excited to check my bees progress, so I forgot the camera.  I've added some stock photos for you to see.  There are 4 hives on the north side of the property.

Hive One is a full year old, and very busy. The queen has been laying very well.  She was laying in each cell without skipping cells, and it appeared she was laying several per day.  The 10 bottom brood box frames had lots of larva, and she had to be laying well to have so much in the bottom.  I was pretty pleased to see this.  This hive is the one that was knocked over in last June's storm and got wet.  It had been sluggish all the rest of last year.  I filled the feeder with sugar syrup since we were expecting poor weather (cold and rainy) for he next couple of days.

Hive Two is my jumbo package.  I believe that two of my package bees actually merged into one hive.  I guess they did not like their other queen.  This was just a theory until I opened it up.  Wow.  was it busy.  There were as many bees in here as in Hive One.  Lots of new brood, and many new bees coming in the next week.  That makes me excited for all the production I can expect earlier in the spring.  At the rate this hive is perking along, I'll be ready for a shallow in about 2 weeks.  Which I feel is early.  I'll have to ask at the next bee meeting.

Hive Three is struggling. It has drawn out comb well.  Yet only about 3 frames worth of comb.  Yet, it' full of larva.  It could be that some of the package bees did not stay with this hive.  The population is lower than what was put into the hive.  Yet they have enough that in a week or so when their new cells start hatching, we'll have a good bee population by mid June.  The queen here is definitely working hard, she just doesn't have enough bees to build more comb for her to lay more eggs.  Time should fix this problem.  Fed them and moved along.

Hive Four is a gift from Paul Woodworth.  I had lost a hive (which I now think merged with Hive two) so when he got a call about a swarm from someone wanting it removed, he brought it over.  My assessment of swarms is that they are more aggressive bees.  They are unsettled and seem to really PING the face mask more than the calm settled bees. They were in the box about a week before my inspection,  I should have tried to get in there sooner.  Weather kept me out.  When I lifted the inner cover, they had drawn down from the top.  Beautiful comb, but it couldn't stay on the cover, so I had to cut it out.  I tried to attach to some empty frames for them, but I'm not sure they were happy with me.  I pulled their original tree branch out and filled the box with frames.    This hive is strong, has many bees, and they way they all stayed together, I believe the queen is in there, although I did not see her.  I will check it again soon to ensure she is laying.

It was such a nice morning, I ended up just watching the bees flying into the hives all full of pollen.  Their "Fanny packs" were all bright yellow.  I find that fun to watch.  They just continually drop into the hive opening and deliver the goods.  I think the UPS business model must be based on bee operations.  Very efficient.  This photo shows a bee with his packs full.  The bright Yellow. 

Batty Weather

This weather is driving me batty.  I worked yesterday to prepare for a hive inspection this morning.  I have all my additional boxes ready, just in case it's time to add another deep.  I have extra frames nailed together, painted, and filled my sugar water feeders.  What happens?  It's too cold and windy to venture out.

The bees do NOT like cold spring days.  Nor wind.  So I'm in the house anxiously waiting for the warm happy bee weather to return.  My poor bees!  Trapped in their hives with no foraging.  My empathy is in overdrive.

One Flew Away!

I got out to check the bees about a week ago, one of the five new package bees decided they didn't like their new home. They just flew away! I was very disappointed. Yet one hive is doing GREAT. It's almost completely filled the bottom brood box and I went ahead and put my second box on today. The other here at the house is doing OKAY. Those gals have drawn out about 5 full frames, so working half the speed of Hive Glorious.

All hives have been fed so they will not long for food supplements. Next bee meeting is Tuesday night. Hope to see anyone interested in bees at the meeting!

Home Sweet Home

Have you ever noticed that no one ever says, "Can you pass the salt?  Thanks Cornsyrup."  Nor do they say "Love you Saccharin," or "Come home safe Stevia." It's always HONEY!

Back to the big day story!

Ready and waiting-my new hives

Now I've got three more packages to go at home.  These babies will be my obsession for the next few days.  I'll check them constantly!  Yet, I don't need to.  They are bees.  Naturally, they will be fine.  They've been taking care of themselves without me looking in on them every day.

I followed the same install plan as I did at my mom's house.  Shake the bees into the hive, install the queen, and feed a little.  Here are some pics.

Package #1 into the hive

The Queen comes in a special little cage.  This protects her in transport from the other bees.  Once she is settled, and the other bees accept her as queen (they will only keep 1 queen in any hive) I'll let her into the hive to start laying. She's bigger than all the other bees. And Fast!  I had a hard time getting her all in one shot.

Here you can see her, she's almost twice the size of the other bees.

 

Can you see them flying into the top of the hive through the "Inner Cover" hole?  They can tell their queen is in the hive and they are going to her.

 I'm sure if I had the world's best mini cam, I could see them in there cleaning and drawing out comb.  Love those busy bees.  Not a lazy one in the bunch.

Hive #3

 After about an hour of fussing over them and just enjoying then finding a new home I packed he lids on and hit the deck for some relaxation.  After a quick refreshment and dinner, I decided to go back out for one more look.  After two hours, about 90 percent of the bees have made their way into their new homes.

Now time for a back massage and good nights sleep before I go out and start spying on them tomorrow.  What a great day of beekeeping.

The Install at Mom's

So now that I've made the trip to Mom's house, it's time to install two of the packages.  The hives are stocked with 10 frames in a "Deep" box.  The box is the longest in the hive so that the queen can fill up all the cells with eggs.  There will be some honey in the bottom box but mostly, brood.  Or we hope LOTS of brood.  The brood is an egg that has progressed or is developing into a bee. 

To help the bees, I've purchased plasticell foundation for them.  Those are man made plastic sheets with perfect little hexagon sized raised starter blocks for the bees.  I guess the "Engineer" bees can take a day off.  This is just to help them get drawing out their comb faster.  The bees will build out the comb with every bit of space between the frames with these wax hexagon shaped cells.  They end up being about a centimeter deep.  I'm always astonished at how good the bees are at building perfect-not near perfect-but perfect cells.

I'm only placing one deep with frames as the bees are inserted into the box.  Bees like to Build up.  So if I were to give them room to travel up, they would .  Forgetting to go left or right and fill the entire box.  So I'll wait to add a second deep box after they have filled this first one.  That will take around 3 weeks or more.




Here they are!  I've dumped them into the hives, but kept my queen safe in her little cage until Sunday.  I want to give the hive plenty of time to sense her and know she is their queen before letting her out.  You'll see some of the bees could not be dumped into the hive.  So I put the package near the hive.  They will follow their hive and move into the hive by nightfall.  Easier for me.



After I've shook as many into the boxes as I could without really upsetting them, or putting them at risk, I placed the package up against the hive to let the remaining bees find their own way home.  They will do this naturally.  You would too.  Who wants to sleep outside when you can take shelter with your family inside!

What a day!

Today was a big one in the world of bees.  Our package bees are scheduled to arrive at 3pm.  So it's up early to make sure everything is ready.  The first thing I needed to do, was make sure my current hive is healthy and starting to grow this spring.  That meant a full hive inspection.

Freshly painted hive parts.

To inspect my hive, I pulled each frame to see if my queen was laying good eggs, and that I had a good amount of brood in progress.  Luckily, she seems to be ready for spring and making more bees for me.  The bees were very calm.  Maybe that was because it was still cool this morning when I opened up the hive.  My frames looked good, but my honey stores were just about gone.  We need fresh blossoms quick so my bees have something to eat.

Then I made sure all my hives were packed up for my mom's house.  I'm putting 2 hives in there this year.  Well, I should say, one is Mom's and one is mine but both residing at her house.  So I packed up a freshly painted starter hive.  A starter set is consists of a base board, a Deep, a screen top or inner cover, and a cover.  They looked so cute all ready to go.

My tool bag

Finally, I restocked my bee tool kit.  This is my second year with bees, so I learned to keep my tools in a nice handy kit whenever I'm working the bees.  Some of the things I seem to always forget are matches to light the smoker, and scissors to "mow" the grass by the hive.  I put them into my handy dandy took kit and I'm ready to pick up those bees.  Other items in my kit are Hive tool, Gloves, spray bottle of sugar water, smoker fuel (gunk from the yard), bee brush, scraper too, and a ball of string.

Whoa!  Did we look like something picking up the bees.  I was wondering what people who were not in the parking lot for bees had to have thought.  Can you imagine?  you see a horse trailer with some bees flying around and about 40 people walking willingly towards it.  Ha!  We had to have been a site.

Packages are wooden & screen boxes.

I picked up 5 packages of bees this year.  Last year I had 2.  One made it, one starved early this spring.  So I'm replacing one, adding two and putting two hives in at mom's.  That means a full afternoon of fun for me and the bees.