Winter Time

I think its still technically fall but we did get our first few snow falls this season. I read at beemaster.com about using roofing felt to wrap the hives up to help keep them warm. The hives I'm using are supposed to be better than the standard wood hives for winter conditions so in combination with the wrap I'm hoping for a high survival rate come spring.

I didn't post any pictures of the apiary area since we moved in; at least not during the day so you'll have to wait until spring when I unwrap them to see them up and about. I'll try and get some good shots of them flying. A few weeks back before it got real cold we would come home and just sit and watch them do their thing for a while. Really relaxing!

I went to the store to buy the roofing felt and when I got home with it we realized that the original home owners had left a nearly full roll in the garage! So I used that first and there was enough to where I don't need the one I bought - return time! Dade, our Hound-mix, helped hold down the edges while I used the tape.


I used some of the excess wrap for the logged-hive to try and close up the entrance against the winds. I blew some air in there today and I heard them buzzing so that has to be a good sign. I noticed a few dead bees near the entrance and after some tapping I wasn't really able to hear much from Thing 1, so I'm a little concerned there.. I don't wanna open it though because it'll ruin all the nice insulation the bees have worked on over the summer. Thing 2 sounded fine after a tap. Enjoy the pix!

Sarver Hive Removal

+1 for Craigslist! On a whim in between classes yesterday I decided to check Craigslist for honey bees and boy did I get lucky. 10 Mins before I searched a nice gentleman from Sarver, PA made a post looking for a beekeeper to come to his house and remove a fallen tree with a hive of honey bees built in. After my email he got 3 other calls from other beekeepers - he told me I could get the first crack at them.

I thought he might have been exaturating when he told me the segment was 10 feet long and 20" in diameter but he was right on the money. This sucker was huge! He did however have a nice chainsaw which we put to good use cutting it into a 5foot segment that we were able to lift and place in the back of my SUV. I put a screen over the main entrance and let the bees settle for a few mins then I was off!

These bees looked very unique; they were very brightly colored yellow - the swarms I had been collecting were very dark. These guys looked like chubby little yellow jackets. Beautiful! Right now I'm leaving them near the other hives in the log; the plan is to keep them there over the Winter and maybe hive them in the Spring. Its on its side currently, but a friend at beemaster.com said it would be a good idea to tilt it upright so that they don't abscend. I also plan on giving them a few shots of warm sugar syrup to help get them going these next few weeks.

New Home!

Hooray! We finally made it into our new house and things are going great - especially for the bees! We moved them from my mentors place to one side of our yard and I put both hives about 6-8 feet apart facing south west. They are blocked on 3 sides by trees so that helps with any wind issues and they get sunlight (when its out :p) a good 60-80% of the day.

When I first decided to move them I went to try and do it myself which was a pretty big mistake. Luckily I stopped before too much damage was caused and when we came back the next day together we strapped them in good and tight and with the help of my mentor's brother and his truck we tugged them up the hill and transferred them into our SUV. Even with both hives securely strapped and very tightly fit into the backseat I was still pretty nervous - when I tried to move them the previous day I took a few stings on my foot and it swelled up pretty bad.

Its been a few weeks now since they've been home and I added another super full of empty frames for them to build up on and expand. When we were moving them they both seemed a little crowded. Its a little late in the year for them to build up too much but I wanted to give them space if they needed it. I'm anxious to see how they do now that its getting closer to winter, we'll see
in the spring!

Summer Dearth

Last night I got a call from my mentor who reminded me about the summer dearth. Around this time of year the nectar flow is really low and to compensate you are supposed to feed the bees. This allows them to continue building strong for the fall. So it was off to the store to buy some sugar . I had to use a 1:1 ratio which ended up being 2 gallons of water and 20 lbs of sugar. Which made 4 gallons of syrup. 2 gallons for each feeder which should last a little over a week. The plan is to feed them one more time and then we should get our next nectar flow.

While I was there I snapped some pictures of a swarm that my mentor recently removed with his bee vac. Some shots of his solar wax melter in action. I noticed some bees drinking from his bird feeder and I got some nice close up shots of them drinking. I'm looking forward to being able to move them soon to a final location at our own house or at a public apiary I'm trying to set up locally. I'd like to get more swarm calls but I think that season has past, but I still might get calls for hive removals.

I bought some honey straws from my mentor for a presentation I'll be doing next week in my English class. I want to highlight beekeeping and Colony Collapse Disorder. Always nice to leave them with a small treat and it probably won't hurt my grade either!

Garden City BBQ

We've really slowed down with the calls the past month or so. Yesterday we were on the road about 30mins out going to Butler and I get a call on my cell phone from the Monroeville police department with a bee emergency! Its so fun to get these calls - makes me feel soooo important. The policeman put me in touch with the fire department on the scene and because I was going to be unavailable until later in the evening I had to just walk them through what to do over the phone.

A neighbor had a big tree cut down and in the base of that tree, near the trunk, there was a hive of bees built up in a hollow cavity. When they got down to cutting into the hive the bees panicked and took to the air. Some attached themselves to the side of the neighbors house and others made their way back to the hive (from what the fireman told me). I suggested to them that they mist/spray them with water to subdue them and told them that I would come by in the evening to inspect and take care of them.

When I got there I guess they decided gasoline and fire was a better route to take and I pulled out the comb in the stump to survey the damage. The fumes from the gas were still in the air and the straglers were twitching. Blackened honey comb and dead bees all over the place. Needless to say a sad scene indeed. I couldn't do anything with it and I assured the neighbors that 99% of the bees were now dead/dieing and the remaining ones would soon follow.

Just bad timing had he called 30-45mins earlier I may have been able to make changes and help save these guys. It would have been great to seal the top off an cut the stump off/take it home with me! It looked like it was a beautiful hive with lots and lots of beautiful bees.

Cranberry

Its been a while since I received a swarm call and this one I've been sitting on for two weeks. The reason? Well, from the initial phone call it was made clear that the evil "spray" was in play. That is she had used some insecticide hastily and that is usually the kiss of death for the fragile honeybee. My thinking was that even if the bees could overcome the spray chances are the queen would not and they would all end up kicking the bucket. After two weeks I finally got up the nerve to make the hour long trip to see for myself. Most of the pictures I took turned out blurry but you can get the general idea of how it was set up.

The bees were under her deck about 10-12feet up. There is a gas line that ran through a hole in the deck that wasn't blocked off, which is where she told me she had sprayed. Initially I thought this was going to be a full out hive removal but when I got there I tore off the paneling on the overhang and peeked inside to find nothing. So what this really was simply a swarm; they were most likely getting ready to go inside that hole when the spray entered the picture and that stopped them in their tracks. Instead of setting up shop inside the hole they started right where they had landed. In the middle of that swarm ball was a good fist sized set of comb.

Now after I had cut off the comb and brushed the majority of the bees in the swarm box I was surprised to see a good bit of fanning. This is usually an indication that the queen is inside. I wasn't able to find her however and after inspecting the comb I found no evidence of brood; which is usually an indication of problems with the queen, or lack of a queen. Either way this swarm is acting very strangely. For temporary purposes I set them up with a nice hive box on the porch and the morning after I dumped them in I found them all up under MY overhang, just like they were an hour away.

I will have to remove them and just dump them in the forest somewhere. Hope for the best but I don't think these survivors are going to last much longer. I can't risk combining them with one of my newer swarms due to the poison factor. I don't have any frames of brood to give them to make a new queen either. It wasn't a complete waste tho, I was able to help this very nice lady out and she contributed a very nice donation for my times. Great experience!

First visit

It was about two weeks since we moved the bees from our porch to my mentors bee yard. Dingo had been bugging me for a while to plan a trip and I really wanted to see how they were doing too. I put the call in to let my mentor know we were planing on coming over in the evening hours before it got dark, so most the bees would be home and not as busy as they would have in the middle of the day. Its been really hot out so I wanted a bit of night time so it wouldn't be too stressful on the bees. We brought our camera, smoker and jacket but forgot our hive tool. Gotta remember to have that every time!

Bad news first; one of the swarms just up and left. The ones from penn hills unfortunately. I read somewhere that if the bees are relocated too close to their swarm point that there is a good chance they would just swarm again to a new location so thats probably what happened. Its disappointing but that kind of stuff happens and I still got to enjoy the experience of removing the swarm from that neighborhood.

Since I brought my bees over Jim (aforementioned mentor) told me he was getting swamped with swarm calls at least another 7 calls in the two weeks; which was odd cause I have not gotten any. Maybe Ian (bee control) thinks I'm too busy with school. I guess I should be thankful because I don't have the space for bees just yet but Jim said he didn't mind if I brought over more swarms and hives. I know he's running low on equipment and he is planning on harvesting some honey in early July.

Thing 1 and 2 are doing fantastic, both built up into the top box twords the right so during the inspection I flipped the boxes to encourage them to build in the bottom (now top) box as well. We had a good 3-4 frames with capped brood, honey in the corners, and nice solid brood pattern. I didn't see either of the queens but I wasn't really looking for them. We poked some of the caps from the honey in the corners and had our first sample. It was really light tasting and sweet. It looked clear as opposed to the orange/gold tint that honey from the stores have. Jim says its from the wild lotus flowers located somewhere in the near by forest. There were also some really bright colored pollen. Reds, oranges, and yellows that the bees used in some of the more empty frames.

All is well! I'm excited to sometime soon get our own property so that I can visit the yard more often, if only to watch them fly as they go about their day. So relaxing.

West End - Hive

This is the first time I've been called via a swarm call and instead of a swarm, I found a hive! It was built into this building near some local business, a school, and a church! Really small tight knit community in the west end of Pittsburgh. Really fun to find this one but I haven't been able to do anything with it yet. From the pictures you can clearly see the bees "bearding" they do this to keep cool on hot days. This is obviously what caused the phone call for help. My guess is the bees overwintered in this building and are coming out strong. They could have been there even longer!

I won't know more until I get some more equipment and the owner of the building gives me the goahead to tear down the boarded up entry way to see what I'm dealing with. I'm planing on there being a good bit of build up inside the walls. So far as I can tell there is only one entrance way, the little hole visible above the grouping. I've never done this before but I'm confident I can do it if I get the tools to work it properly. I'm thinking at least a sawzall and if possible a "beevac" which I'd have to construct myself. I'm looking forward to all of that! I'll update more on this when I can - so far there is not much known.

Moving time

"Fellow Neighbor I regret to inform you that my roommate is allergic to bees. If you would kindly remove the killer bees. Thank-you"

That was the note I got taped to my front door. I had mentioned to my neighbor that I started keeping bees and asked him if he was allergic just a few days earlier. He said he wasn't and that he didn't have a problem with it; I guess his roommate does. I'm not mad though, we were planning on moving them Memorial Day anyway because there were just too many hives on the porch, after we combined thing 1 we had 4 hives..2 in polystyrene boxes and 2 in the swarm boxes.

I had asked my girlfriends parents and grandparents if they would mind but I really didn't feel comfortable with either option. Her grandparents have a bear problem and her young niece lives with her parents. So before I bugged her parents again I called my mentor, who lives just a few miles down the road, and asked if he would mind a few extra hives for a while; he said yes! So on Memorial Day the first thing we did was pack up our porch and head over to his house.

He wasn't there but his brother was and he helped direct things while Dingo and I set up shop. We combined the smaller swarm box with one of his hives and the larger swarm box with the bees in it from Penn Hills we put into a spare Wooden Deep with drawn comb. The other two hives were doing well by themselves but I'm anxious for our feeders to get here so we can put them on top to help with build up. My mentors bee yard is down a pretty steep hill and it took allot of effort dragging down the cement bricks to use as stands and the hives themselves. I always seem to do things the hard way! I hope to have some space in a local park for my apiary within a few weeks or once we put an offer in on a house to be able to move them to our own property.

Penn Hills Swarm

So many swarms! I could never have anticipated when I signed up for that swarm list a few weeks ago that I would have taken over 7 phone calls and removed 5 swarms. This latest one was one right on the border line of walking away from. Luckily it was close to our apartment and it was actually really close to my mentors house. 15 feet up in a tree and 8 feet out on a limb. Dingo came with me on this one and when we got there it took a good 30 mins of just thinking it over before we actually started on the removal. Bigger than a basketball. I'm a bit disappointed in myself - after all the thinking and assessing the risk I still went forward with it and even though it worked out, it was still too risky.

I like to think I've learned something from each swarm removal, this one I learned that its okay to say NO and walk-away (even though I didn't). Also that its better to do the removals at the end of the day, near night. This way the scouting bees and the ones flying are more likely to be with the original swarm. I got a call today (two days after the removal) telling me that a "jr football" sized swarm has accumulated on a branch near the other one. I'm going to call or check it out tomorrow hopefully they are just very clingy remnants and not another swarm.

Normally its not a good idea to sign up for multiple visits - especially with gas prices these days. One of the neighbors (who also kindly donated) is alergic and there are allot of young kids in the nieghborhood. So if there is still a concern I really want to address it. We'll see tomorrow!

Ventilation = Important

Some bad news I'm afraid. The swarm we got from the removal in Greensburg didn't do so good. The box we put them in was way too small and didn't provide enough ventilation for the trip home. It was really hot outside and although I didn't check them the first day I'm pretty sure they all died before we got home. When I did my day after inspection I first started to use my hive tool and scrape out some of the dead bees that were blocking the entrance - after about a fist full of dead bees I decided to open it up and found the majority..95% dead on the bottom.

I cleaned up as best I could then closed the box and put it in the dumpster. Its sad that I had to learn this way but I know I'll do my best to make sure it'll never happen again. That removal was really fun and we got to bring our friend along to share the experience but due to my lack of knowledge we lost it.

While I was cleaning up we had a few other situations to deal with. The bees from Thing 1 were "bearding" which means they were too hot on the inside and started to accumulate on the outside of the hive, I fixed that by propping the top of the hive open. I think the queen from Thing 1 came back because there was a pile of bees on the ground (alive) so I decided to scoop them up and put them in another mannlake swarm box temporarily. Everything was back to normal after that.

Resupply!

We have ordered more beekeeping supplies! Since we already used up all our hives and there is no end in site to the swarm calls, we figured we needed to restock. We placed an order for:

• 5 tops/5 bottoms to go with the rest of our medium boxes
  
• 5 top feeders
  

I'm excited to see how the top feeders work out. So far the bees do not seem to like my paper plate feeding method, though they do go for the jar Shark put together.

Week 1 Inspections

After about a week of having Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the porch, we decided to do our first hive inspection.

Thing 1

The bees had built only a minimal amount of comb and were hardly moving around. In addition, there were barely any bees on the frames. The majority of them seemed to be in the big clump where they feel when they were shaken into the hive. This pretty much confirmed our suspicion that Thing 1 was not doing too hot.

Shark managed to find the queen (I couldn't pick her out to save my life.) and catch here in the queen catcher. Unfortunately, when we tried to transfer her to the tube to be marked she squirmed her way out and flew away =x We are not exactly sure where she ended up. After that mishap, we were pretty much convinced that Thing 1 was now queen-less.

Thing 2

Overall, the bees looked great and were moving all over the place. They had already started to build up comb on multiple frames and a few of the cells were actually filled with something! Based on how much we had seen Thing 2 flying this past week, we we're not really concerned about the hive, but we were still impressed with how much work they had already done! We decided not to look for the queen based on our previous Thing 1 experience.

Horton / The Fuzz

Although this hive had only been setup for a few days we decided to bust it open... after all, we were checking the other hives out and couldn't resist. Let me tell you, these are what they are talking about when they say "busy bees". After only being in the swarm box for about two days, they had already built up more comb than Thing 1. These bees seemed to be in good shape, even though they were confined to the swarm box.

After all the inspections were complete, we decided to go ahead and combine Thing 1 and Horton for a couple of reasons...

• The Thing 1 queen was MIA
• Thing 1 had built hardly any comb in over a week
• Horton had a lot of bees to be confined to the swarm box

To pull off this stunt we shook all the Horton bees into the Thing 1 hive... presto complete!

...And then there were two!

The burg.. well, Greensburg

We received a call last night for a swarm down in Greensburg. We decided to go pick it up this morning, but first we had some shopping to do. Off to Lowest we went! According to the people with the swarm, it was located ~10 to 12 feet up in a tree, so we picked up a 6 foot A-frame ladder. We also bought a tarp in case some bees ended up on the ground again. Our friend Ben came along for some bee capturing fun!

This was by far the biggest swarm yet. It seems like I keep saying that, but so far it has been true every time! The swarm was located about ~12 feet up on a pine tree limb no where near the base of the tree. Unfortunately, our ladder was not tall enough (guess we need an 8 foot one) so we had to borrow one from the house we were at. The ladder we borrowed was the leaning type so that made the operation a bit more difficult, especially since the swarm was far away from the center of the tree. We decided to spend a lot of time planning this one out due to the obvious difficultly of the removal.

First, we placed the tarp underneath the swarm. Since we were stuck with the leaning ladder, we had to cut the branch near the trunk of the tree. This made the branch a lot longer and heavier then if we were able to cut right near the swarm. This was the first time we needed to use the saw due to the thickness of the limb. I slowly cut the branch, while Shark stabilized the limb. Since the limb was so long and heavy, it was likely going to fall and bring the bees down with it. Shark did a great job guiding the limb to the ground and got all the bees into the box or on the tarp. Once they were on the tarp Shark skillfully slid them into the box. I can tell you that tarp was the best $4 investment we have made yet!

We waited around for about 20 minutes and most of the bees made their way into the box. It was getting pretty crowded in there. I was a little worried about the size of the box, but somehow the bees managed to fit. After a couple of scoops with our handy KFC cup, we capped the box and were on our way! Overall, it was a very successful swarm removal! Plus, Ben warmed up to the bees after a while! He even wore the bee suit!

The fuzz

There was much excitement with this recent swarm removal. This one was the 7th call and the 3rd successful removal. I got to try out our new swarm boxes from Mannlake which worked out pretty good for this one. The box is a little small but it has some nice features. It keeps everything nice a ventilated and has a plug for the bee entrance once I get it home. It even has places I can hang 5 frames to make it a temporary hive. On to the removal!

I get a call from bee control again and he puts me in touch with Sergeant Tom from the Carnegie police department. These bees had landed on a road barrier in the middle of a small neighborhood in front of an apartment complex. This would be the first time the swarm ended up on an object rather than in a tree or bush. The fun thing about this removal was the special police treatment. They blocked off both sides of the road with their cop cars and got their lights blinking. I felt like a super hero! As luck would have it the swarm wasn't that large and they were very easy to work with. The barrier wasn't secured together so I could easily lift it from the legs and lower it to the box. A few shakes and a few brushes with some weeds and we had the majority of the swarm. 15 mins – wham bam thank you mam’m!

This was the furthest I've driven yet and it was during very bad traffic conditions so more than an hour each way. No donations for this one so I had to fit the gas bill, which was a good 15$ or so driving the SUV. From this one I learned that it’s not at all out of the question to ask for a small donation $20-$40 bucks is fine and helps to cover initial hive expenses and most importantly the gas!

As far as a name, we really didn’t think that far ahead. Sticking with the Dr. Seuss theme we thought “Horton” would be fitting. Otherwise “The Fuzz” in honor of the police escort.

*bonk* Food!

Well it would seem obvious but apparently bees, like most organisms, like to have food. Of course I knew this but for some reason I didn't implement it. Both hives have me concerned but for two different reasons. Thing 1 is smaller and they really haven't started to build up or do much flying. Thing 2 however has been flying like crazy and has started building up into both supers, though only on one side.

So yesterday I really started to get concerned about Thing 2. When I cleaned up the balcony on Monday I found at least 10-15 dead bees near the ground of the hive.. I chalked that up to my clumsy inspections. The next day..more dead bees. Today - even more! So obviously there is a problem. I've seen the "break-dance" before and instead of laughing at it I decided to record a video and post it up on the bee forums. It turns out that dance is an indication to where the bees can find food. Now looking at all the bee corpses that are amassing in front of the hive they actually look "thin" their mid section just looks skinny. Finally tonight I get a response on my post confirming this... They NEED Food! When they swarm they don't feed so by the time I got them theres a good chance they haven't eaten anything in 1-2 days or more Add on 3-5 days since we put them in the hive, thats a long time to go without food.

I made two different food dispersion devices...you can buy some but half the fun of being a beekeeper is making some of the stuff yourself. The first is an upside down mason jar with holes cut in the lid to allow the syrup to drain into a small potted plant base. The second is a 30gal ziplock baggy with a cut on the top allowing the bees to drink through it. I like the baggy idea allot but its tricky to figure out how much syrup to add - it tends to over flow when I put the top on. The mason jar is in Thing 1. I added an empty super to give it some seclusion from Thing 2 and I tried the baggy in Thing 2 just tonight. In addition to the baggy I used a spray bottle to get the feeding frenzy going.

One of these days I'm going to light a smoker... one more sting today - this time on my neck. Grand total of 4! I wonder when I'm going to start losing count.

Bees @ the appt?

That was the question posed to the management staff at our apartment complex today. I sat down the with the lead manager lady and the sales representative to tell them my tale of swarms and to explain about our honey bee hobby. I was hoping that they would be receptive to the idea and luckily for us...they were! Well kind-of. They don't want it to be forever and of course they reserved the right to tell me to get rid of them at the drop of a hat but I think being up front about them really helped my cause.

As a backup plan I called my Mentor and asked if I had to move the hives, if I could put them at his apiary. He thought it was a good idea and also mentioned to me that now would be a good time to do a blanket treatment for mites. I didn't see any mites on any of the bees, but honestly I haven't really looked that close. It probably is a good idea but he wants me to use a menthol strip and I'm not too sure how much of a chemical that is considered. I was hoping to go the all-natural route, I heard you can sprinkle powdered sugar on them instead of the strips so I'll have to check at the beemaster forums to find out if I can do that on a newly captured swarm.

It was windy/cold today so there wasn't that much action this afternoon but both Thing 1 and Thing 2 had a few flyers out! Thing 1 has the feeder in it and I'm planning on making one for Thing 2 tomorrow. I'll take picks of that for the next posting. I had to break apart some twigs and put them in the bowl so that the bees wouldn't drown when they went for their drink.

The pix in this post are from my very first swarm call. I went there on my lunch break at work and procured a small Styrofoam box from the warehouse. When I got there the swarm had dissipated and all that remain were a few stragglers. I cut the branch they were on - 10 feet up near the roof of this house - and put it in the box. I know the queen wasn't on it but I figured that I'd put them in there and call it a "swarm trap" seeing if they might return and set up shop. It'll be 5 days tomorrow so I'll put a call in and see what happened to it.

After Thing 1 comes Thing 2

Since our capture of Thing 1 went so smoothly, we were both pretty excited when we got another swarm call. This swarm was only about 10 minutes away, so after work we suited up and were on our way! It was about twice the size of Thing 1 and a lot higher off the ground. Without a ladder, we had to improvise. Good thing we brought the SUV!

Shark did a great job cutting the branches. Unfortunately on the way down from the SUV gravity won taking a fair amount of the bees to the ground. The rest ended up in the swarm container as planned (we crossed our fingers the queen made it into the box), but now we had a bunch of bees on the ground to deal with.

First, Shark tried picking them up with his hands. This is not recommend and resulted in multiple stings, but fortunately the gloves did their job. After these stings, Shark had to keep a bit of distance. It seemed that anytime he got too close the pheromone from the bee stings was angering the rest of the swarm. Next, we sat around for awhile and waited for the bees on the ground to follow the queen into the swarm container. The problem with this was we weren't entirely sure the queen was inside and we did not seem to be making much progress getting the bees in the box. In the end, we enlisted the help of Colonel Sanders and used a KFC cup to scoop the rest of the bees into swarm container.

Lessons learned from Thing 2:
1. Bees clinging together can not overcome the force of jumping off an SUV
2. Never scoop up bees with your hands
3. Bee suits really do work
4. Always be ready to improvise

Despite all the excitement, Thing 2 made it back to our porch safe and sound. It seems to be in great shape and tons of bees were out flying around early the next morning--Almost to the point where I began to think keeping colonies of bees on the porch is not such a great idea.

Two swarms in two days. .. I think we may need more hives.