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.