Swarm, Buzz and Basketball

Today is April 4th and we have had 3 more swarms since I posted about our first one about a week and a half ago. Today is also the day for the final game of the NCAA tournament between Butler and UConn. Anyway, here's what happened.

On April 2, Craig was home alone when he watched a whirlwind looking swarm moving up into the wax myrtle between our house and the next door neighbor's house. He rescued those with a bucket on a pole and when I returned, he had them safe in a hive box where they remain - we think. The next day was Sunday, April 3 and about 10:00 that morning, he called me with an urgent message - another swarm. They flew up into a tree and a short time later, they moved over to the neighbor's yard, under a wooden bench. Craig used a wide shovel and buckets to gather up this bundle of buzzing maniacs. Let me say, he was none too pleased when I returned and promptly left for an important meeting as soon as my bee gear was donned. My job, and Emily helped, was to get them out of the mess of sticks, leaves, yard mulch, etc and into their hive box. Bees were everywhere but we managed to get the queen and enough of her supporters into the box where they are living until we get them transferred over to a hive. The box where they are staying temporarily is a nuc box with frames so we hope the transition will be a smoothe one.

So today, another swarm. We had zero equipment to house another swarm so Craig and I went over to Busy Bee Apiaries in Chapel Hill to purchase enough equipment to get us through the recent rash of swarms. Is the moon full or are they just being difficult? They landed in Cindy's yard next door in a tree above the home of her chickens. Cindy is a fabulous neighbor and supports the bumbling around of our bees. She has some great chickens (all girls) who are super curious about our bees. The girls closely watched today as we removed swarm number 4 from above their house. I was so busy helping Craig that I didn't get to take many pictures. They seemed to be cheering us on as Craig climbed up the ladder and I held the capture bucket.

We'll see what tomorrow will bring. The weather may be a bit rainy so let's hope the bees will stay put so we can focus on something besides swarm rescue.

Sting report: Craig 5; Debbie 0. Unlike the basketball game tonight, lowest score wins. Yay Debbie.

Swarms galore!

Today is Monday, March 28th, 2011 and we've had two swarms in the past two weeks. The first occurred around March 15th while I was in Ocracoke for a seminar. The weather had been very warm and nice and one afternoon, Craig walked outside and heard a loud buzzing sound which alarmed him - a swarm??? He looked everywhere and did not find it. The neighbor confirmed that she had also heard bees buzzing. The following week, we confirmed that one of our hives had swarmed. Our agricultural extension agent (bee expert) examined all three hives and showed us an empty queen cell. See picture.

Once the new, young queen emerges from the queen cell, she will work on taking over the hive so the older queen makes the exit and takes most of her workers with her. (The new queen may be younger but who do you think is smarter or am I confusing this with a friend of mine who's husband just ran off with a younger woman) This process where the workers grow a new queen is called supersedure. We lost those bees and when it happened, I felt like a bad parent, neglecting my children.

But, today when the hive swarmed, Craig was like a dog on point, spotting them right away. Thank goodness he came home early to find them huddled in a tight ball in the oak leaf hydrangea bush freezing their little stingers off. Right away, he contacted the Wake County Beekeepers call list of people that help with swarms. I think we could have handled it but it was very nice to have Frank Borge come over and offer his assistance. By the way, if you are ever in the presence of a swarm, and have no intentions of keeping them, please protect them as much as possible by getting online and contacting by phone someone who will come and remove the bees for you. http://www.wakecountybeekeepers.org/swarm-list/

Anyway, they were cold, filled with honey and cooperative so we were able to place them into an empty hive. Craig had an empty 8 frame body filled with frames and an additional empty hive box. He put the frame filled body on the bottom board, set it up near the swarm and then put the empty box on top. We did it this way to avoid the problem of getting the bees inside the hive body while frames may have been in the way. Some instructions say to remove half the frames and then shake the bees into the space between the frames. But, then you are challenged with placing the frames back in the hive later when the bees may be in the way. What would be terrible would be to crush the queen when you are trying to return the frames to the box.

After putting the majority of the bees back in the new box, the rest found their way within about an hour. It was getting cooler and the sun was setting so we were happy to see that all had found their way back to their queen. She may be old, but she's still their queen. Let's hope they make it through this night when Greg Fishel predicts the temps will hover around 31 degrees. Stay warm little bees.

Well, one year later

Here it is March again and we have had the bees almost one whole year. We've kept them happy and hopefully healthy so that this year in June we can reap the benefits. We are waiting a couple more weeks before we open up the hives to check to see if they have survived the winter without problems with verroa mites or beetles. Those dang little hive beetles are a tough tumble for the bees because of their hard outer shells. I have watched the bees run after the beetles and roll them over trying to get them out of the hive. We can squash them with the hive tool but my fear is that they will grow in numbers, infesting the honey. We will know soon just how they have survived.

The little foragers are returning to the hive with an abundance of pollen attached to their hind legs. If you have never witnessed this, it's amazing how much they can carry. I have not gotten any good pictures of our bees loaded down but here's one that is from www.beepollen4u.com/photobee.htm . Notice the orange fullness. We hope to find the queen still laying and the hive clean. One thing that we have noticed is a lot of drones hanging around the water fountain and the bird bath. They have been having trouble staying out of the water and once they get in, it is still so cold that it is next to impossible for them to recover and get out. I need to find out more about the best means for watering in the early spring when the temperatures go down so low at night but get up in the 60's during the day. Our next door neighbor enjoys having the bees visit her to help with pollenation of her garden. We hope to provide honey for her in return for fresh eggs from her 8 chickens. So long for now and I hope to keep the stories and pictures coming. Ta-da for now.

Hands-on with Bees

Jim helped entertain the kids along with the other wild turkey.

With the weather being so cool this morning, I doubted that the bee instructors would actually be able to open up the hives for hands-on training but it worked out anyway. Craig and I traveled over to the NC State Apiary sight off of Lake Wheeler Road with grandchildren in tow for the lab which began at 9:00 am. By the way, the temperature was a cool 39 when we left home. The plan was to trade off watching the kids and each learn as much as possible. As it worked out, Jessica finished the Raleigh Rocks Half-Marathon in good time and met us at the bee lab to rescue the kids before they overdosed from too much of the great outdoors. Before she came we had a great time walking around the farm to check out the wild (tame) turkey, a kitty, a puppy and lots of bee hives. Sorry Jessica but he liked your mini-van so much he got close up and personal with it. The kids were delighted to hear a real turkey gobble.

The real fun began after the weather warmed up and we were actually able to put on our bee gear and begin the final stage of the hands-on part of the certification. Linda S. volunteered to go first in our group. What a brave woman she was and didn't flinch a single time. She was my hero because I was doubting my ability to handle live bees without doing something stupid in front of all those people. Our instructor actually made me nervous by saying "whatever you do, don't drop that frame" as Linda, with steady hands and calm nerves slid the bee packed frame out of the busy hive without gloves. Notice the smoker? That's the way to move the bees back into the hive so that you can check the frames for any of the many things that beekeepers have to watch out for - my favorite being honey!

While I was still gathering my courage to work on the hive, I slipped over to Dexter's group because they seemed to be having way too much fun. The hive that they worked on was twice as full of bees as the first hive I experienced. The instructor made me feel a lot more confident so I gathered the courage to go for it. Meanwhile back at the first hive with Danny's group, Craig started his test and passed with flying colors. Here he is at the beginning, after smoking the bees, taking off the inner cover. He acted like he had been doing this bee thing for many years.

I started my smoker (first part of the test) and got ready, also without gloves, to buzz into the hive. It went well and I asked Craig to take a picture because I was so proud that I wasn't nervous. The instructor made me take off my veil for the picture. Now we are ready to get our bees which are a little late this year because of the cold weather. Overall we have a productive day and lots of fun with the kids.

The Real Bee-ginning

We've begun our journey of raising bees! It actually officially began on Christmas morning when I opened my huge wrapped present from Craig and found a bee hive. I had been reading about raising bees for over a year and he found my Brushy Mountain Bee Keeper's catalog and decided it was time. Surprise, ready or not, here they come.

Yesterday, we finished our last class in the series, "Getting Started with Beekeeping" and will participate in the hands on lab next week with live bees and real hives. We have to be ready because our order for two nucs of bees should arrive around the middle of April. I know I only received one hive for Christmas but we quickly learned that if you are starting out, you must get two hives. Craig won a bee hive in the Wake County Beekeeper's raffle yesterday. Congratulations Craig but now we have three hives to deal with. We'll figure it out. Our friends Jim and Linda took the classes with us and they are also getting two hives of bees. It will be good to have a team to work with for weekends when we need to travel and the bees need feeding or something else.

Craig and I have been working out in the garden all afternoon preparing the area for the hives. We do know that we have to add a water source near the hives because we don't want them to fly down to the house to get water. We're thinking of a small pond which will need a pump to recirculate the water. Watch out Penny and Ben. You're getting ready to have company out back.

Well back to work, getting the bee balm transplanted. We're excited. I created this blog to document the steps along the way.