Our Beautiful Bees! Uh, oh... Now what?

Our Beautiful Bees!

OH YES THEY DID!! SWARM!

We have had our new bees about a month and this happened.  They swarmed.  The boys were playing in the woods (winter and spring is the only good time to play in the woods when the weeds and bugs are less) and Isaac very excitedly announced that "I found a wild bee hive!"  After a quick glance at each other we knew exactly what he had found.  One of the hives had been very active with bees all over the place.  You couldn't even get close.  Now we know why, they were preparing for a little trip.

Honey bee swarms are common in spring and early summer.  Half or more of the colony typically leave the hive when they swarm.  Bees swarm when the colony starts to get too large for the hive.  The hive starts making a new queen (more on that later) and the old queen knows it is time to leave.  And when she leaves, some of her loyal workers go with her.  The swarm forms a ball around the queen and concentrate on keeping her safe.  Scout bees go looking for a new home.  Despite this menacing looking ball of bees, a swarm is quite calm.  They are REALLY concentrating on keeping the queen safe.  After all if Momma ain't happy ain't no one happy!

OH YES WE DID!

After a few frantic phone calls to some bee mentors we decided to catch the swarm.  So with video tape rolling and camera snapping pictures George went for it.  A five gallon bucket and a stick.  Oh, and an empty hive nearby to put the bees in.  Keep in mind we have been bee keepers for about a month and have NEVER done this before.  Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. 

Notice no bee hat!  Brave man.  Actually we knew the swarm should be gentle and there is nothing worse that a bee under your hood and you have that thing strapped to you.  With the bucket surrounding the hive, George hit the branch (not near hard enough) and some bees fell into the bucket.  Then he poured them in to the new hive.

However..... we didn't get the queen the first time and the bees started to go back the the swarm.  So George clipped the branch.

And introduced the bees to the front door.

Welcome home!  Notice the stick for the "walkers" to walk up instead of flying.  Even after dealing with a swarm, George is still adoring of the bees.

After some further reading (thank goodness for Beekeeping for Dummies), the tree got smoke to mask any warning scent left behind by the swarm.  We really didn't want them to do that again.

Later that eve, it appeared the bees were happy in their new home.  The mason jar has sugar water in it for the bees to use.  We were hoping to bribe them in to wanting to stay put.  It was a beautiful spring day that day...


All seemed well.  We were quite proud of ourselves!  We were now beekeepers who had also captured a swarm.  Made that sound easy didn't I!  Well, the next day the bees swarmed again.  It was cold, rainy and not good conditions.  That night was going to get cold and we were afraid the bees would die.  This time they went to the top of a thin cedar tree.  Just a little out of reach.  And this time George was alone with me at work.  To make a long story short, he bent the tree, it broke, he got stung, bees spilled everywhere, George scooped them up by the handful and placed them back into the hive.  Thankfully, George is not allergic to honey bee stings, and they stayed put the second time.

Welcome Home.

Newly constructed bases in place waiting for the bees to arrive...

They are here!!!!  Now to gently place the heavy hive boxes on the stands.  There is mesh over the opening of the hives to prevent the bees from filling the back of the truck in transport.

You may ask... What does smoke do for the bees?  It actually calms them, making inspection and caring for them easier on them and us.  There are two theories of how this works.  1.  Historically bees made homes in trees.  When the inevitable forest fire would move through, the bees would get busy with fanning the hive (to keep it cool) and engorge on honey so if they had to move quickly to a new home they had precious honey to take with them.  2.  The smoke hides the scent of the alarm pheromones that the worker bees produce to alert the hive that there is an intruder.  With the scent hidden in the smoke, no alarm can be sent. 

Another way to keep the bees calm as we are checking out their home, or in this case relocating their home, is sugar water.  When you spray them with the sugar water they become incredibly preoccupied with cleaning the sugar up they loose intest in the intruder.  Kinda like the free food samples at places like Sam's Club or BJ's keep you distracted from your actual shopping.

The move is complete.  Now we leave the bees alone and let them get used to their new home.

If you don't pinch a bee, it is really rather harmless.  Here is George holding a sweet little girl bee.  Our new friend, Connie, who we adopted the bees from, said they were docile, nice bees.  We were a little skeptical of that statement, but moving day went well and it took no time for the bees to get used to their new home.  We are so thankful to give these bees a new home.  You may wonder why Connie was needing to find a new place for  her bees...  Well, she was moving to Indiana and that is a far way to transport bees.  I wouldn't want to do it.

Bee-frastructure

Getting bees meant they needed a home.  Many boxes of bee hive parts arrived by mail.  George with little help from Jacob set about to assemble the bees new home.

Jacob got some good building and bonding time in with his Dad.  He helped keep George reminded in the fact that this was suppose to be fun.

Oh, Mr. serious.  He has spent many peaceful evenings in the garage tinkering with hives.  He apologized once for spending so much time out there.  I assured him it was just fine!  I have had many evenings of peaceful reading in bed...

Bee School

2011 Chatham County Beekeeping School

An 8 week course sponsored by
the Chatham County Beekeepers' Association
and the Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension

 

 

The next stop on the road was Bee School.  George has been to Beer School, why not Bee School.  We are so fortunate to live in a rural county with an interest in taking care of bees and teaching others.  For 8 weeks me and the boys watched movies and ate mac n cheese on Monday nights while George went off to Bee School.  The book, Beekeeping for Dummies, was a good start into gaining the written knowledge we needed to start this whole event.  But the practical knowledge was absent.  Luckily in Bee School, George got alot of education and a field day of looking into hives and really learning the practical skills needed.  The networking and talking to folks really got him even more excited about getting his own bees.  For those who know George, he really likes talking to folks.  I have always said about him that he could talk to anyone, anywhere about anything, anytime.   Much to our delight, that networking led to a new friend and an adoption... 

The Bee Tree

It all started in 2009 when we noticed a feral honey bee colony living in the huge old sweet gum tree on the edge of our yard.  We spent hours watching the coming and goings on of these honey bees.  You could just stick your hand and camera in the big hole in the base of the tree and take pictures.  We were delighted, excited, fascinated and had a great garden that year. 
A year later they were gone... 
That got us thinking... 
Maybe we should just get some more bees.
(see the honey comb inside the tree, just out of reach)