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!

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.

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.

Thing 1

The story of Thing 1! This was our first successful swarm capture. It was late evening by the time we made it to the swarm site about 45mins from our apartment. The call came from a nice older gentleman named Jack. This one was about 4 feet off the ground and in an easily accessible tree - hooked on 2-3 branches about the thickness of pencils. Setup in our bee suits we made the cuts and eased it over to the swarm box. With one good shake we got the majority of the swarm and more importantly the queen. We observed for another 15-20 minutes as the bees inside the box started to shake their abdomens in the air alerting the rest of the swarm that the queen was inside. After taking many pictures and rolling a few videos we closed up the box and started home.

It took us a good amount of time to get back and the box wasn't properly ventilated so I was a bit concerned. When we got home we rushed them onto our balcony into the hive I had set up earlier. By then it was getting pretty late and although we were very excited to have our first bees we thought it best not to inspect them until the next day.

We sent some pictures to friends, family, and to Jack so that he could have them for memoriam. Everyone is always excited to learn when we show up and I'm more than happy to educate what little I've learned. Thing 1 has been staying pretty much where we dropped them in the hive, not really moving around to much or taking to the air. Located on the left side of our porch it doesn't get as much sun as the right. Yesterday we saw them flying a little bit and with similar weather conditions (half rainy, half sunny, windy) they didn't take to the air much today either.

Being our first swarm we are watching it very closely and compared to our second swarm it seems weaker. Things looked fine though and no stings today (yet!).