The Beekeeper's Car and the Parking Attendant

A friend of mine and I eat lunch every other Wednesday. Today we met at a restaurant where you have to valet park. We had a delicious lunch and at the end of lunch, we walked down to the valet stand and each handed the attendant our claim tickets.

Moments later David's car arrived; he got in it and rode away. The people behind me got their car; the people standing in back of them got their car. Mine had yet to appear.

Finally my car arrived from the parking deck. The attendant jumped out out of the car, and two bees flew out with him.

"M'am," he said, "There are bees in your car!"

My guess is that he arrived to get my car and saw bees on the driver's side window. He waited, hoping they would move, but when they didn't, he screwed his courage to the sticking place and finally got in anyway. Of course, he arrived with my car and without any stings, but he probably felt insecure for the whole fifty feet of the drive!

I told him that I was a beekeeper and that there are almost always bees in my car at this time of year. He and the other attendants, listening in, looked shocked and then laughed.

I haven't mentioned yet that last night my friend Gina gave me a swarm that she collected. I drove over to her house to get it at 7:15 last night and took it straight to the Stonehurst Inn where the I-Beam swarm had absconded. I have been desperate to get bees for them and was delighted to get the swarm.

I installed the swarm in the hive at Stonehurst, but as usual when one installs a swarm, some of the bees remained in the original cardboard nuc box in which Gina had dumped them.

Hive box ready for the dumping of the cardboard nuc box.

The bees are in this cardboard nuc box.

I'm ready to put the cover over the hive when I realized two things: there were bees clustered on the outside of the top box just beneath the edge of the inner cover on both the front and back of the hive.

I had put the nuc from which they came in front of the hive, but nobody was using the front door. 

Often when you install a swarm, the rest of the bees will just file in the entrance to join the queen. Not these bees.

So I shook and brushed the excess bees onto the inner cover. I used my bee brush to gently roll the bees on the upper edges of the top box up and onto the inner cover.

I noticed bees with their bottoms in the air, signaling to their sisters that the queen was in the hive. That felt comforting but the lack of use of the front door was distressing to me, since the I-Beam swarm hadn't taken to these quarters. 

The bees began to treat the hole in the inner cover as their entry and started moving into it. I love to watch the process - it's like a slow moving river of bees.

To me this view from farther back gives you the feel of the move to the center hole. To get this moving flow of bees, I had shaken the cardboard box, shaken the empty box I had used as a pouring funnel, and brushed the bees off of the hive sides to the top. 

Although typically I would have left the cardboard nuc until the next day, I wanted to return it to Gina because the restaurant where I ate lunch was close to her house. Also it was supposed to pour rain today and I didn't want the box to get ruined. I took the cardboard box (with the few remaining fifteen or so bees) to my car. 

Thus the adventure was created for the parking attendant! 

I was so concerned after the I-Beam swarm absconded. I returned to Stonehurst tonight to check and indeed, the bees had found the front entrance and were using it well. Typically I put in an entrance reducer, but decided to leave this one wide open for now. I can reduce the entrance in the next week's visit.

A Thorny Third Atlanta Swarm

And so for my third act, I went into Buckhead to get a swarm out of a holly bush. It was about the size of a basketball and on the side of a very slanted backyard. It was a little hard to get to, but the homeowner said it was fine to clip back the holly. I took him at his word and cut off the branches that were anxious to prick my hands as I worked with the swarm.

You can see the challenge the holly imposes in its thorns. Before dealing with this swarm, I clipped all the branches between myself and the bees (or why it's a good idea to carry pruning snips in your bee bag).

I spread out a sheet on the hillside, sprayed the swarm with sugar syrup and tried to cut the branches to get the swarm into the banker's box (my standard for carrying a swarm home). I couldn't get photos and keep my balance, but it went rather smoothly.

In this photo above you can see the bees with their rear ends raised to send the nasonov signal that the queen is here!

I left an opening in between the ventilated cover and the box to allow the bees to join their queen. Hundreds of them did. I then, as in the last swarm, covered the whole box up with the sheet, draping it over the bees who had not entered the box, and carried them to the Morningside community garden.

I had a waiting eight frame hive there. I used a third box as a funnel to help me pour the bees into the hive. It works well this way with no frames in it.

Then I added the eight frames back into the box.

I closed up the box and left the bees to adjust to their new life as community garden bees. Pickings should be bountiful!

I stopped by yesterday to check on how they are doing and they are flying well. 

A Chastain Quick-Stop

This morning I had to drive to the north part of Atlanta to pick up my tax data from my accountant.  Easy to go by the Chastain hive as I drove back to my office, so I did.  I was in business clothes, no camera, but helpfully, all of my beekeeping equipment was in my car from the mountains this past weekend.

I had an apron to put under my jacket to protect my nice pants.  I lit the smoker, put on my jacket and veil and went up to the hive.

When last I was at Chastain (about a week ago), the hive looked anticipatory.  They were not making a queenless roar, but they definitely did not have a laying queen.  The hive was full of queen cells that had been opened.  The brood cells were not back-filled with nectar but instead were polished and waiting at the ready for the advent of a new queen.

I thought I had read somewhere that it is not unusual for a swarm to requeen once it is settled into its new hive, but I now can't find a reference for that, so I'm not stating that as a fact.  This swarm hive has definitely made that decision.  Clearly the hive had requeened itself and was in no distress except for the fact that I was disturbing their peaceful anticipation.

The top two boxes were all honey - not completely filled.  As a matter of fact, no more honey had been put up than before I left for Memorial Day.

When I got to Box 2 (second from the bottom), there were open brood cells, polished.  So I held the frame with the sun over my shoulder and there they were:  EGGS - tiny new beautiful evidence that these bees have successfully requeened.

I closed the hive back up, took off my bee gear, tried to wipe the campfire smell off of my hands with wipes, and headed back for work.

It was a good day in my bee world.

Indeed it is SWARM season!

On Monday, my house is going to be all topsy-turvy as my kitchen renovation begins and for about six to eight weeks, I will be without the ability to cook at home - at least not as I am used to.  I have spent the last few days organizing and re-organizing to make ready for the big event.

I was walking out to take some recycling to the curb (result of all my cleaning/organizing) when a neighbor and great gardener, Hal, walked up.  "Fortunate that you are here," he said.  He sounds like the perfect Southern novel when he speaks.  He told me that there was a bee swarm just down the street and he wondered if I could come see it.

I was delighted and walked with him to the corner where there was a huge swarm on a branch about seven feet up in my neighbor's tree.  Scott, the neighbor, said the bees had just landed there about 10 minutes before.  I have all of my windows open and would have heard a swarm gathering in my yard if they were my bees, so I am pretty sure they came from somewhere else.

About two cats, I'd say.  I went home to get all my swarm catching gear:  sheet, spray container of sugar syrup, ladder, banker's box, ventilated hive cover, straps, bee brush, veil, jacket, old comb, my swarm catcher and mop handle.  I came back and up walked George Andl, a neighbor, beekeeper, and fellow blogger.  George wanted to help and went home to get his gear.

When he came back, I climbed the ladder and held the branch in one hand and the plastic banker's box in the other.  I shook the branch and most of the bees fell into the banker's box.  I used the water cooler bottle of my swarm catcher to gather most of the remaining bees.

I set the banker's box on the ground and the bees began nasanov emissions.  I assume that means I got the queen but a number of bees stayed on the tree branch, drawn, I suppose, to her pheromone.  I forgot to bring anything to cover the ventilated cover and make it dark in the box, so I just sort of wrapped the sheet up over the box.  Bees continued to go into it.

Since I literally live three houses away.  I didn't strap the top onto the box, but instead completely surrounded the box with sheet and gently lifted it into my car.  

When I got home, the bees were mostly clinging to the underside of the ventilated hive cover.  I poured the bees into a waiting hive box.

When I brought the bees home, there was a small clump still up in the tree.  I went back to Scott's house and put an old nuc box under the cluster.  I put in the nuc box the old comb that I had baited the banker's box with when I shook the swarm.  I thought that might smell like "mommy" to them.  I left the nuc box with the lid ajar and went to dinner.

As dark fell,  I returned to Scott's where all the bees had pretty much gone into the nuc box.  I brought it home and set it on the banker's box so that the entry to the nuc box faced the entry to the hive in which I had put the swarm.  In the morning perhaps the nuc bees will go home to mommy in the new hive box!

Bee-Accountable

Yesterday after the Chastain inspection (I'll upload photos in another post), I came home to check on my own hives.

What a great year this is so far!  My first hive that I checked was from Sebastian's - a major hive, doing well.  In every hive at home my goals were to make sure there was evidence of a laying queen and to see if they needed new boxes for honey.

Sebastian's hive was putting up honey with great enthusiasm.  Most of it looked dark.  I'll be interested to see how their honey changes over time and with the new blooms.  Currently holly is coming to the end of its bloom and there are lots of flowering trees of all types blooming in Atlanta.

They were also doing a lot of wet capping (see photo above).  I don't know how bees decide:  "Wet?  Dry?"  What sort of reasoning (if any) is involved in whether the honey has wet (you can see the honey dampening the back of the wax cappings) or dry (bright white cappings not touching the honey).

This hive needed an extra box as they had completely filled the top box.  So I did the work of the extra box addition before I went on the the lower boxes to look for queen evidence.

I always turn the telescoping cover upside down, set the inner cover on top of it, and do the inspection, stacking each box on the inner cover.

To checkerboard the honey box and to help me with weight, I got the new 8 frame box full of empty frames and set it on the inner cover.  I took frame #2 from the box on the hive and hung it on the frame rack on the side of the hive.

Then I reached into the new box and got frame #2 (empty).  I put it in the old box on top of the hive in position #2.  Then I took original frame #2 on the rack filled with honey and bees and put it in the now empty #2 slot in the new box on the inner cover. 

I moved on to frame #4.  Removed full #4 from the original box and hung it on the frame rack.  Pulled #4 from the new box on the inner cover and put it in the original #4 slot in the box on the hive and put the frame rack #4 full of honey and bees into the empty slot in the new box on the inner cover.  And so on through frame #8.  So #2, #4, #6 and #8 were all moved into the new box.  

Then I lifted the original box off of the hive (now half as heavy) and set it on the new box on the inner cover and continued with my inspection.  I found eggs in the third box (the hive was stacked five high) so I ended my inspection.  Lifting now boxes four and five back onto the hive was much easier and the bees have lots of open storage available to them.

Moving on to the first swarm from Tom's (been here since March 30 - so about 11 days), I checked it for eggs and honey.  They were doing great, building out frames, etc. but didn't need a new box yet.  I saw eggs and not the queen.

The next box I checked was the Northlake swarm that overwintered so well.  Bees are really buzzing around this hive and I have wondered if it had swarmed.  It's top box (#5) was full with honey and busy bees.  I added a new box (the sixth) to this one the same way I did with the Sebastian hive.

My inspection of this hive was a little disturbing in that I found the third box down (first brood box) was full of drone brood, as was most of the next box.  I did find a little worker brood and when I saw eggs they were laid in worker cells, so I'm hopeful all is well.  They certainly are bringing in the honey, even if their queen is laying drones.  I didn't see any queen cells and only a couple of queen cups, but I didn't go all the way through the hive.

The last thing I did was to add a box to the nuc split that Jeff and I made at Tom's also on the 30th.  They are bringing in pollen like mad and I wonder if their new queen has already emerged.  It was a beautiful queen cell and perhaps was a week old, so conceivably, she could have.  Anyway, I didn't inspect since the rule of thumb is to leave a split like that for three weeks, but I did give them a new box in case they needed storage room.  I didn't do it the same way, since it's just a five frame nuc and because the last thing I'd want to do is destroy/injure the queen cell or the new queen.  Instead in the new box, I put a fully drawn frame of comb in the center of the box.

So the bee news here is good.  Next weekend, I go with Joe of "Growing a Greener World" to install his nucs at his house.

ANOTHER Swarm at Tom's

This morning I got a call from Tom - the second hive had swarmed!  He sent me these photos:

See it on the right, hanging from the cherry laurel.  About two cats, I'd say.  Here it is up close:

It was hanging on the same cherry laurel that the first swarm had chosen only this one picked a branch lower to the ground and about a foot closer to the hives!

Jeff met me and we put a sheet under the swarm.  I brought a plastic banker's box,

 a ventilated hive top cover and straps.

First I sprayed the swarm with sugar syrup.

It was close enough to the ground that we didn't need a ladder.  We just shook the branch and the bees fell into the banker's box.  We put the ventilated hive cover on it but the bees were accumulating on top of the screen.  Then we covered the screen with two hive drapes to give some closure to the feel of the box.

Over about 20 minutes, during which Gail, Tom's wife and a graduate of the short course, made us tea and brought it to us outside - how luscious - and what luxury - who gets tea during a swarm capture!!!

The bees were emitting nasanov at the entry to the box.

We strapped the banker's box and the ventilated cover together and I drove home.  I had to be at my office at 12:15 to meet an appointment and when I arrived at my house, it was 12:00.  I never even went into the house.  I went to the backyard, grabbed a bottom board, a slatted rack and a box of frames.  I put two drawn comb frames in the center and put the box together on stacked stones (had no cinder blocks).

I took an empty super to be a funnel and poured the bees into the hive.  Then I put the frames into the hive box.  I got a third box with frames in it and gradually put the frames from it into the empty hive box.  I threw an inner cover on the box and the telescoping cover.

I jumped into the car and drove to my office and got there at 12:20.  (My office is 5 minutes from my house).  Fastest install I have ever done.  I hope the bees do well.

I don't think I can put any more bees in my backyard.  I think six, even though one is weak and pitiful, is enough for a neighborhood where there are at least five beekeepers each within a block of my house.  The next two hives go into Jeff's yard.  I'm picking up two nucs from Buster's Bees on Friday night and we'll put them over there.  I have two more nucs coming that will go to the Morningside Community Garden.  

Then I have three nucs coming that I have not a clue where I will put them!  (I was pretty pessimistic at bee ordering time that I would have any hives survive the winter.)  Maybe I'll buy an electric fence ($$$$$$$$$) and put them in the mountains.

When I came home at 2:30, my yard was aswarm with bees.  All of the hives were sending out hoards of bees to gather and forage on the warm mid-April afternoon.  The new hive was orienting and working hard to claim their location.  It's going to be a good bee year!

A Tale of Two PrePackaged Swarms

Lately I've gotten two swarms without having to do the capture!

On Tuesday, I got a call from the MABA Swarm Call Lady (my co-editor for Spilling the Honey, Gina G.).  She knows we only have one hive at Chastain where we do our teaching inspections, so she had a swarm that had been donated to MABA for us to put there.

The man who caught the swarm, Chris, had already put the swarm in a medium box and was holding it for us to pick up.  I arranged to come very early the next morning to get the bees before time to go foraging.  I drove to his house and easy peasy, the swarm was ready to go.  I moved the bees on his frames into my medium hive, wrapped the hive with a strap, closed the entrance with his staple gun (yes, I did the stapling!) and went home.

I had a Skype appointment from 9 - 10, so I left the bees in the car with the moon roof open and returned to the car an hour later to drive the bees to Chastain.  The drive was uneventful, but I thought there were a rather large number of bees loose in the car.  When I arrived at Chastain and opened the trunk, the strap had slipped (where was Jeff when I needed him???) and the box had slid a little, leaving an opening large enough for a lot of bees to have left the hive to wander in the way-back of my car.

Over the winter one of the cinder blocks had been moved.  I replaced it but just couldn't get it level.  I carried the hive to the cinder blocks (a one box medium with a telescoping cover and a slatted rack).  The hive was still strapped together.  As I leaned down to put the hive on the cinder blocks, I lost my balance, fell forward, and the hive also, of course, fell.  What a calamity!

I righted the hive and put it on the blocks.  The bees on the top went straight for the hole in the inner cover and went down into the hive.  I hope that means the queen is OK.  Hope, hope, hope I didn't kill the queen.

I tried and tried but I couldn't get it level which pretty much means they WILL draw crooked comb.  But I had to go back to work.  If we have to rubber band every frame, that's what we will do on Thursday's inspection this week.


















Then while I was in the mountains yesterday, I got a call from a man in Atlanta who had found me on the Internet.  Spencer, the beekeeper, had two hives and one of them had sent out a small swarm the day before.  He had gathered the swarm into a cardboard box.  I encouraged him to cover the box with a screen wire and I would pick it up today.  He said the swarm was very small - about the size of a dinner plate and one inch thick.

Here are Spencer's hives:

I peered into the box when I got to Spencer's house.  I could see the cluster in the corner of the box.  To use our "cat" measure, this swarm was about the size of a squirrel....not close to a cat.  The good news is that they had started emitting wax from their abdomens (see the wax in the corner) so they are eager to put a hive to rights and get started building their home.

I brought them home and put them into the empty nuc hive in my backyard.  They went into the box easily (thank goodness, since it was raining) and I set the nuc on the cinder blocks (without either falling or dropping the hive).  By dinner time the Jack Daniels box was completely empty and the bees had all gone into the nuc.  I don't know how they will do.

He treats his bees and I do not.  Sometimes bees that come from a treated yard do not do well on their own.  I am crossing my fingers and very grateful for these two free hives.  It was such a gift to get them already boxed - even if one of the boxes was a cardboard one.

Installing the Tom Swarm

Jeff went home to his family and I drove home with the split nuc and the swarm nuc in the back of my car.  Bees were everywhere.  I got most of them out of the car,  but when I locked it for the night there were still a few clusters of bees in the car!

I set the split nuc on its on set of cinder blocks, put a little leaf and grass pieces on the landing and left it.  The queen cell looked pretty newly capped (it was light biscuit as per Billy Davis), so it probably has almost its full time left - since the queen has a way to go in her development, it will be a month before the new queen is laying and three more weeks before any new brood emerges to add to the population, so it will be mid May before this will be an active hive, if then.  So the split is a hive to increase hive numbers but not one to expect to provide honey to harvest.

The swarm is a different matter.  The queen is mature and able to lay.  The bees with her have gorged themselves on honey to prepare for the journey and prepared to make wax.  I put this huge swarm in three 8 frame boxes (the equivalent of 2 10 frame boxes plus four).  I had some unharvested honey from another hive that I gave them (2 frames) and a few frames of drawn comb, although they should be ready to make wax right away.

I put frames in the bottom box and used the next box as a funnel.

 The bees on the comb are on a frame filled with honey.
















Once I got most of them into the hive box, I gently added in the frames and then put on box number three and added its frames.  It was a slow process because there were so many bees.  There were still a number of bees in the nuc box and on the lid so I left both facing the new hive.

I don't have the best track record with getting swarms to stay but I employed everything I've learned from previous errors to make this work.

1.  I used old comb in each box and a frame of honey in each box
2.  I put them on a screened bottom board, but closed it up with the sticky board.
3.  I put on an entrance reducer, reduced to the smallest entrance (as per Billy Davis)
4.  I gave them plenty of space (3 8 frame boxes and a slatted rack.)
5.  I put pine needles on the landing to help them re-orient (we are miles from Tom's house - no chance of their returning home).
6.  I used last year's not-yet-painted boxes (they like the smell better than newly painted)

For a while a large group of bees were clustered right outside the entry.  But by nightfall, all were inside and the nuc box was empty.

I put frames of honey in the swarm and put a frame of honey and pollen in the nuc.  I will however, make bee tea and feed it to both of these new hives - one recipe's worth until they get "on their bee feet."

I realize as I write this that I forgot to date the frames, most of which were foundationless.  I'll do it on my first inspection in about a week.

I did bring all the hive drapes into the house to wash as well as my car quilt (which protects my car from bee stuff), my swarm sheet, etc.  So my washing machine is on bee duty tonight.

Jeff and I need to install a Billy Davis robber screen on this and the hive we moved from Sebastian's.  I say Jeff and I because I really need him to operate the staple gun which I HATE doing.

Well, they are in the hive for the night, but I don't take anything for granted so I am crossing my fingers as hard as I can and hope they stay in the new home I have provided for them.  I am exhausted and am now going to bed after a long and very productive day.

Crisis of Confidence with Apologies to Mo Willems

My bees and I are not having a great year.

Today I had electricians at my house so I was home more than usual during the work day.  I came home at 2 to see what progress was being made (turns out my whole house needed to be appropriately grounding so they put copper posts into the ground and ran wire to water pipes and put a surge protector on the whole house).

I glanced out into the bee yard and this is what I saw:

What's going on?  It couldn't be a beard - the other hives weren't bearding and rain was threatening.  Maybe they were absconding?   This is my best hive - the swarm hive from Patty.  It has done great this year and now it looks like they were leaving.

At 2:45 when I had to be back at my office at 3, I donned my bee veil and jacket, lit my smoker and took a quick look in to see if there were any bees or honey in the hive.

You can see the wet concrete from the rain.  And you can see that there are no bees to speak of in the hive.  I panicked.  Why are they going?  

I love the Mo Willems books and one of them is called I am Going.    I felt so like Gerald (the elephant in the story) today.

Piggie is leaving.

Gerald does not understand why Piggie is leaving and he says,  

"WAIT!  

Go later!  

Go tomorrow! 

Go next week!  

Go next month! 

GO NEXT YEAR!!!"

But Piggie replies, "I am going now."

"NOW!?!" says Gerald, "Why, Piggie?"

"Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?....."

That's exactly how I felt....thank you, Mo.  So I opened up the hive and looked deeper into it.  It was full of honey I haven't harvested yet because the year has been so bad and I don't want them to be without stores.  Usually when bees abscond, they take whatever stores are in the hive with them, so this doesn't make sense - lots of honey, no bees.

When I put it back together, the bees were still outside.  I wanted to cry.  Instead as the thunder and rain began, I covered the hive, bees and all with the wet sheet I used on another hive being robbed yesterday and went back to the office.

When I returned at the end of the day, amidst more thunder, this is what I found under the sheet:

When I put the Billy Davis robber screen on this particular hive, the bees pooled on the ground outside the hive.  The next day they were all back in the hive, but I think they don't like the robber screen one little bit.  So one thing I did today was to pull the robber screen off (see photo two above).  

At 8:30 when the hive looked like it does in the last photo, I started thinking the queen was outside the hive in this huge cluster.  So I treated it like a swarm and put them into a box and shook them back into the hive.  They'll probably leave tomorrow.  I feel totally disheartened and want to scream.  

At 9 PM, this is what they look like:

And as per Mo Willems, now I want to say:

"You are going?!  

You are going away?!"

Bees:  Yes.

"You cannot go!  

You must not go!  

I WILL NOT LET YOU GO!!!"

But what I know is that I am not in charge.  

I will feel defeated if they fly off tomorrow.  As I usually do, I will probably lick my wounds and keep on keeping on, but it won't feel good.  

It just won't.