Category Archives: Bees

A weekend of swarms! – Part II

I mentioned last time that there was more swarm news over a very busy weekend.  Of course, the first swarm settled itself in a tree and I captured it in the usual fashion.  During a part of the process of catching the first swarm, I witnessed two other swarms leaving two of my other hives simultaneously!

A swarm in a pine tree
The pine tree swarm. It grew quite a bit as the bees settled later on

Rats!  I failed in preventing uncontrolled swarms!  I had looked in on each of the colonies several times in the weeks prior to the fateful weekend and saw no clear evidence of crowding, queen cells, lack of new eggs…the stuff that sort of signals that a swarm is eminent.  I supered up the hives with extra honey supers and went on my way without splitting the hives that eventually swarmed.  You see, a split is a sort of controlled swarm where I take a number of the bees, brood, honey and pollen and start another colony.  Typically, a split will open up some room and avoid wild swarming.  I usually have pretty good luck in catching the right conditions and avoid swarms…but not his year.

So, as I trudged across the yard, I watched as two hives poured forth bees in great number.  A swarm coming out of a hive is pretty impressive.  Imagine 10-20 thousand bees per colony in what appears to be flying chaos!  I watched as the swarms buzzed around and settled nearby and low.

Swarm Movie
Click to see a video I took of the swarm starting to collect on the pine tree

The first swarm settled in a pine tree 20 feet from the apiary in a pine tree about 4 feet off the ground…easy-peasy.  The second swarm was just a few feet from that swarm, but they were far more gravity-challenged.  It’s fairly weird, but the second swarm plopped right down on the ground under a bush.

Now I have talked about getting swarms out of trees by shaking them into a hive box and that’s how I handled the pine tree swarm, but how does one shake a colony off of the ground?  Well, I didn’t…luckily I had a screened bottom board with large screen in place such that the queen and bees could crawl up through the bottom board (floor of the hive) and into the typical white box.   I just set the empty hive right over the swarm-on-the-ground and let them be for a week.  When I returned, the swarm, queen and all had migrated upward into the hive body!

So, while I am not thrilled that three colonies swarmed, I am always delighted when I get a chance to catch swarms and I would rather catch one of my swarms than let it get away.  Assuming they do well, I will have more colonies than I have ever had before which may make things interesting…and may make a lot of honey…next year!

Other bee stuff

A weekend of swarms!

We were all out at the deluxe deer stand working on drywall last weekend when a few of the neighbors came by on atvs.  One neighbor asked if I was busy  and if not, whether I could help him with something.  It was clear it was something urgent so I jumped on the back of his atv.  He drove me over to his brother-in-law’s place…another neighbor, to see a huge swarm of bees!

A huge swarm of bees!
A huge swarm of bees!

Dang it!  It was a huge swarm, undoubtedly out of one of my hives.  A number of people asked me why bees swarm and why I was mad they were my bees.  Bees swarm usually when their hive location becomes unsuitable…usually when they run out of room.  In those cases, the worker bees prepare a number of new queens by feeding royal jelly to fertilized larvae.  When the time comes, the old queen and half (or so) of the original bees strike out on their own to find a new place.  That is how bees naturally propagate and it is not unusual.  I don’t like when my bees swarm, however, because that leaves me with two colonies, neither of which is probably big enough to make much honey.  I like having more colonies, but I prefer when they make me honey too.

My hand in a huge swarm of bees!
My hand in a huge swarm of bees! Look Ma…no gloves!

I usually try to intervene before the bees decide to swarm.  I usually make a split…basically, I take a number of bees out and sort of make my own controlled swarm.  By controlling the size and the timing, I can usually prevent swarming and end up with plenty of honey.

Some of the swarm on my hands
Some of the ladies held on…

So, the neighbors called around and a bunch of folks gathered to see me hive this colony that was 7 or so feet up in a tree…that’s a perfect height.  I showed off some of course.  I stuck my hand up into the swarm.  I got super close and took pics.  I sang the song of the bee people…well, not that part.  Anyhow, I brought my new hive box in and shook the bees into the new box…easy-peasy…except not.

Swarm in the hive box
Swarm in the hive box

The next day, the bees had decided the new box was not acceptable.  This time, they decided to swarm again about 20 feet up in the same tree.  I didn’t have much of a way to get them up that high so I did what any young (?) strapping(?) American (check) boy (check) would do…I tied a rope around a hammer and threw the hammer up in the tree so I could use the rope to shake the swarm out.  That worked well and I re-hived this swarm again.  We’ll see what happens.  It occurs to me as I ponder the process, that throwing a hammer over my head into a tree might not have been all that smart, so don’t try that at home.  Still, it worked and hopefully I still have my bees!

Swarm video
Click for a video of the swarm in progress…with audio!

Well, this is long enough…I have more swarm stories to tell so I will put them off until Part II

Two swarms so far

It’s swarm season and swarm season is my favorite time/part of beekeeping!  Swarming is a natural part of a bee colony but one that is pretty unsettling to folks who see it happening.  In the last 10 days or so, I have gotten two good calls about swarms of bees in Charleston.

An easy swarm on a bush in Kanawha City
An easy swarm on a bush in Kanawha City

The first call was from a postal carrier who was walking in a neighborhood delivering mail.  He came upon a swarm hanging low in a bush.  The homeowner initially wanted to call an exterminator, but the postal worker pulled out his phone and found my contact info.  I was delighted to come and take care of the “problem”.  Most people are terrified and also fascinated/curious about swarms so I try to describe what happened, what I am going to do and why it is so important to save bees rather than kill them.

Shaken, not stirred
Shaken, not stirred
Traffic jam...
Traffic jam…

So this swarm was easy.  I placed my sheet on the ground and my nucleus hive box on top.  With a quick shake and a giggle, most of the bees dropped into the box and my work was done.  It’s unusual, but I actually saw the queen on the top of the pile of bees.  I watched as she marched into the box whereupon I put the lid in place and waited for the rest of the colony to catch up with her!

Large swarm on a concrete wall
Large swarm on a concrete wall

A few days later, Charleston’s 911 dispatch called me about a large swarm in the middle of the city in a fairly public area.  When I arrived, the fire department was in place keeping people away.  They had taped off a large area and were waiting nearby patiently.  I whipped in and saw a very large swarm stuck to a solid concrete retaining wall.  Luckily, I brought along my handy-dandy-bee-swarm-retrieving dustpan.  I am pretty tough but I cannot shake bees off of a concrete wall so I just used the dustpan to gently scoop the bees into my hive box.  Easy-peasy!

I wish I had a banana for reference
I wish I had a banana for reference
Full house!
Full house!

I am pretty vain so I figure that is most of the reason why I love catching swarms so much.  I always get an audience and lots of oohhhs and aahhhs.  It’s usually relatively safe and pretty simple to catch a swarm, but I look brave and tough.  It’s a vain man’s dream!  And on top of that, I get free bees which will (hopefully) make me lots of wonderful sweet honey.  Heck, the world needs more bees as well as more sweet honey so it’s a win all the way around!

More bee stuff

Honeybee eggs

I was helping my friend Larry with his bees the other day.  He’s our neighbor up at the deluxe shed and the husband of Granny Sue.  So he has bees and asked me to come take a look at his bees, offer some advice, and generally act like men.  It was a good time and we had a lot of fun poking around in his bees to make sure things were ship-shape.

Bees hanging on a beehive
Bees hanging on a beehive

We looked over the bees and found some brand new wax that was the most beautiful yellow color!  Fresh wax often ranges in color from white to bright yellow depending on what is blooming when they build it and what they drag in on their little feet as they walk across it .  Eventually, all wax turns black or brown from traffic so it a real joy to see fresh yellow wax I think.

Fresh Yellow beeswax!
Fresh Yellow beeswax!

The best part though, is that the sun was just right and the color was just right and I was able to get some really cool pictures of honeybee eggs.  Each hive has exactly one queen and she lays between 1000 and 2000 eggs per day during peak season.  These eggs are not much bigger than a comma on a page and are very hard for many beekeepers to see.

Honeybee eggs...the small white lines in the bottom of the comb
Honeybee eggs…the small white lines in the bottom of the comb

A good queen will lay only one egg per cell and always in the bottom of the cell…close to the middle and never on the sides.  A few times, I have seen a good queen lay multiple eggs in a single cell, but only when she is brand new and when first introduced to a colony.  I suppose, with her typical laying rate, she gets backed up a little and has to get some eggs moving.  Anyhow, a queen will always settle down and lay one egg per cell and rarely skips cells across an entire frame of honeycomb.

Honeybee eggs
Honeybee eggs…another view

In a hive where the queen has died, one or more workers will take on the role of a queen, but because they were not raised properly as a queen, they never become fertile.  Still, they will produce and lay eggs but their eggs are usually all over the place…often many to a cell and all over the sides.  Their eggs will develop into male drone bees and signal the end of a hive if a new queen is not introduced.

More bee stuff

Pupae are people too

Well, they aren’t really people but pupae are interesting anyhow.  As I mentioned before, it is bee season so lots of exciting things are going on.  I suppose that you probably know that many critters, bees included, start as eggs.  Eggs hatch into larva or little white wormy/caterpillar-looking things.  After those larva eat and eat, they grow a lot and finally spin a cocoon after being sealed into their own little honeycomb.  Inside that cocoon, they undergo a metamorphosis where they change from ugly, fat worm of a larva into a regular old-fashioned honeybee…been doing it like this for brazillions of years (or maybe 100 million years or so in a form related to current honeybees).

Drone pupae and worker bees
Drone pupae and worker bees

Bees are funny critters.  They have serious OCD issues and cannot handle too much open space within their hive.  “Bee space” is generally regarded as about 3/8 of an inch.  That’s the optimum space for bees to walk around, make more bees, tend to the honey, etc.  Leave a space larger than that and they will build comb to fill the void.  Space much less than that and they will plug it with propolis, a tar-like substance that is super sticky and will stain anything and everything.  Actually, old fashioned violins and furniture were often stained with propolis. Generally, there are gaps larger than the bee space between the tops of bee frames and the lid, between the top and bottom box where the bees live, and other places that just crop up.  So, bees do what they do and build honeycomb.  The comb is usually drone comb…that is, comb that is a little larger in diameter to accommodate the larger developing drones.

Drone pupae and worker bees
Drone pupae and worker bees

When a beekeeper works within a hive, sometimes that drone comb necessarily gets torn apart as one lifts the lid or pulls out frames.  Any drone larvae/pupae/eggs are ruined of course, but it leaves a neat opportunity to see pupae in various stages of development.  Early on, they are all white but look very much like a bee…a zombie bee, but still a bee.  One of the first things to change during pupation is the color of their  eyes.  The entirety of the bee might be stark (Winter is coming) white, but their eyes turn pink and then a 3-day-old-bruise shade of purple.

Purple eyes on developing drone bee pupa
Purple eyes on developing drone bee pupa

Additionally, drones have a longer development cycle so varroa mites, the pesky parasite bugs that basically killed most wild honeybees in the 1980s, have a greater opportunity to hook onto the pupae.  In fact, they even prefer the drones for that reason and, based on smell, selectively choose drone pupae over worker pupae.  In fact, there is a school of thought that one should “plant” larger diameter foundation comb on which bees will build drone comb, to entice varroa to attach to drones in a beekeeper-selected area which can be culled.

Varroa mite on a drone pupa
Varroa mite on a drone pupa
Varroa mite on a drone pupa
Varroa mite on a drone pupa…up close so your skin can crawl

So, as I was checking out my drone pupae, I noted a small but non-zero number of varroa mites.  The level is, in my opinion, still manageable, but I will take measures to cut their number this season after I harvest honey.  So, while pupae are people too, varroa mites are not and must die!

A beautiful queen bee!

I was poking around in the beehives the other day and was able to get a few cool pics.  Mainly, I wanted to check on the new packages of bees I got awhile back.  I just took the opportunity to look in on all of the bees as a beekeeper typically does in Spring.

Some beekeepers rarely see their queens, but I think that is usually due to inexperience and sometimes laziness.  I don’t always find my queen but I always look for evidence she is healthy (that is, I look for freshly laid eggs).  I can find her any time I want though.  All beekeepers should spend the time to figure out how to scan frames of bees to find a queen.  She moves differently than the other bees and the other bees usually give her some room as well.

I sometimes get my queens marked.  The beekeeper who sells queens can mark an ink dot on the thorax of the queen to make her easier to see.  The color of the dot coincides with the year she was born.  In my experience, the mark tends to wear off pretty quickly but it only costs a buck or two.  I think this marking is cool since it is heart shaped!

A queen bee
The queen and her attendants

So, here are some pics I got of one of my beautiful queens, new last Fall.   You can see her abdomen is significantly larger than the female worker bees around her.  Notice how the workers sort of make a circle around her, all facing her ready to serve at her beck and call…or something like that.

A queen bee and her attendants...with varroa mite
Notice the rust colored spot on the worker at 11 o’clock above the queen…that’s a varroa mite that will eventually kill that worker bee…and the hive if allowed to multiply

There is a lot of other stuff to see in the hive too (click the pics to enlarge if you want to see better). The bright yellow stuff is fresh pollen. There is a lot this year and the hive is full of different colors. The brown coverings on some of the honeycomb are covering brood…baby bees pupating into worker bees. Towards the top, you can see white horseshoe shaped larva.  There are several sizes representing various stages of development.  Female worker bees are in the larval stage for around 5 days.  After that, they pupate and turn into normal looking bees over the course of 13 or so days.  All told, a bee starts as an egg and 21 days later hatches into a worker bee, ready to begin duties in the hive.

I took some more pics that turned out pretty great so I’ll share some more in the next few days…it’s bee season after all!

Picking up new bees

So I drove to NC a few weeks ago.  When I lived in PA, that would have sounded like an impossible trip.  Heck, from Charleston, it is only 4 hours or so.  I know you are wondering why I drove to NC…I mean, it is a lovely place, but so is WV.

Beautiful scenery on the way to NC
Beautiful scenery on the way to NC
Welcome to Brushy Mountain
Welcome to Brushy Mountain

I ordered a few packages of bees from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and it was delivery day!  So, I drove down in the morning in full anticipation of getting bees.  This is not my first time to get bees and not even my first time to Brushy Mountain, but it is just so darn exciting contemplating a few boxes of buzzing honeybees awaiting my arrival to take them home to their new hives.  I drove through some pretty wild snow which made me ponder whether this was the proper time to be getting bees.  Of course, like spring across the country, wait a day and the weather will change.

At the Brushy Mountain living room...I mean store
At the Brushy Mountain living room…I mean store

The bee farm has a small retail outlet not much bigger than my living room.  I wandered about it for 15 minutes or so.  I bought a few supplies and stuff , but I felt like I ought to stay longer.  I know once you walk to the bee pick-up location, they grab your bees and send you on your way.  It’s sort of anti-climactic, you know?  I mean, I drove all that way, full of excitement, to spend 20 minutes actually getting the bees…20 minutes if I stretch it out.

My package of bees
My package of bees

I could linger no longer so I got my bees, which looked very healthy this year.  Sometimes bees have a hard trip from wherever in Georgia they originate.  This year they were great.  I made sure they were braced into my back seat well and I headed back home.  I tend not to stop much when I drive by myself.  It’s funny but I can drive all day by myself, but put another person in the car and I sometimes get groggy.  Weird.

Under the mountain and then onward to home
Under the mountain and then onward to home

Anyhow, we made it back home in one piece after another exciting trip to the bee farm!  The buzz of my new bees kept me entertained and seeing the occasional escapee always makes me laugh.  I especially wonder what would ever happen if an officer of the law pulled me over and saw that…I think I will try to avoid that situation…but it makes me sort of laugh!  Yeah bees!

Pollen!

It’s finally Spring as far as the bees are concerned!  Typically, maples are among the first things to bloom…usually in March sometime.  When the maple blooms pop, I usually sigh a sigh of relief.  There are no guarantees with honeybees, but once the maples bloom, bees generally can find sufficient pollen and nectar to start their spring build up and ultimately, survive.

Honeybee laden with pollen
Honeybee laden with pollen

This weekend I peeked in on the colonies and saw lots of activity!  Maple pollen is a sort of greenish, grayish color and it was what I expected to see.  Instead, I saw tons of bright yellow pollen!  I have no idea what pollen source the bees had found but I suppose we might as well call it daffodil pollen…it was the right color and daffodils are my favorite flowers ever.  Does anything smell better than a daffodil bloom in spring?  No, I think not.

Honeybee laden with pollen
Check out the wings of the bee with pollen

As I often do, I sat in front of the hives and watched the bees come and go.  Spring is a wonderful time for bees…they are so focused on chasing blooms and nectar and pollen that they hardly even notice my presence.  I love the opportunity to just sit and listen to their buzz and watch as they weave and bumble into the hive entrance, loaded with pollen.  In addition to the pollen baskets on their legs, the honeybees seemed to be completely covered in pollen, head to stinger.  I love spring in the apiary (and everywhere else too) and I can’t wait to taste this year’s honey crop!  Yeah yellow pollen!

More bee stuff…

Early bee check

Like many folks across the country, this has been a weird winter.  Honestly, it may not be so weird compared to when I was a kid, but lately, winters have been so mild.  Anyhow, we had a this-year-rare nice weekend so I tromped out to my bee yard to see how my girls had fared.

Bees in winter

Did I ever mention that there are only female bees in the hive at this time of year?  You see, the males are only useful for breeding in the spring and summer when the colony may need a new queen.  Queens only breed during a week or so period when they first hatch and never again.  So, males (aka drones) are only good for breeding during that period when a new queen is hatched.  Otherwise they just eat up resources which are precious through the winter.  The females kick out all the males in the mid-Fall and make new in the spring.  Males are made when the queen lays unfertilized eggs, a process she controls since all breeding happened during that one week of glory when she was first hatched.

Bees in winter

Anyhow, I like to check on the bees on warm days to make sure they are still alive, haven’t starved and don’t have nosema (like bee dysentery).  Bees “hold it” to keep the hives clean, so on a warmish day, they all need to get out and poop.  Normal poop is fine but “the runs” is a bad thing so I check to make sure they are not abnormal.

So, for the most part, the colonies looked good.  I may have lost one colony but that isn’t unexpected or unusual.  I don’t like it, but some winter loss just happens, even in a well-managed apiary.  I made some feed available in the form of sugar-water so any colony that is a little light on stores can grab a quick bit of food to get through the remaining weeks until the maples bloom and the pollen and nectar flow again.  That is often at the end of February through the beginning on March but with our cold and snow, it may be a bit later.  Well shall see, but for now, it looks like the bees are doing well!

The queen is dead…long live the queen

Just like at my house, the queen in a bee colony runs the show!  The queen bee is the mother to all of the bees in the colony who sort of live to serve her.  They feed her and clean up her waste.  They guard her and, based on the pheromones she releases, swarm with her when it is time to move.  The temperament of the queen has everything to do with the temperament of the colony as well.

Queen honeybee
Can you spot the queen bee?  Click to  enlarge the picture…it makes it easier
Queen honeybee
The pic above, only zoomed in on the queen

Queen bees only breed immediately after they are hatched.  Once a queen leaves her queen cell where she pupated, she takes several mating flights in her first week or so where she hooks up with male drones mid-flight.  Based on boy-bee anatomy, at the completion of the act, the boy parts are ripped from their bodies dooming them almost immediately.  The queen may execute this breeding process 1-10 times in her first week or so and in that process stores all of the sperm with which she will populate her colony.  If Africanized drones are flying near (which is a real possibility with Southern-made queens), the queen will produce bees with Africanized genetics.  If crazy males are flying by, the queen will produce crazy bees.  It’s a bit of a crap-shoot and the temperament of the colony will change as the queen “works her way through” the sperm she gathered during her breeding period.

Requeening a beehive
This is sort of what it looks like when I start the search…but they don’t stand still!

Hey, here’s a fun fact…female bees, which make up the majority (~95%) of the hive, are the workers who make the honey, guard the hive, and raise baby bees.   Only female bees are made from fertilized eggs.  The queen lays a certain number of unfertilized eggs which become male drone bees which only exist to breed with other queens outside the hive.  That is, if a nearby colony makes a new queen or if the queen in the current hives dies, drones will mate with the newly made queen (more on that in another post).  If you thought life required fertilized eggs, you are wrong!  Male bees come from unfertilized eggs!

A queen cell
Two queen cells…where the queen changes from a egg to a full grown mommy bee!

Anyhow, most good beekeepers will, at some point, requeen their hives to ensure that the colony will have a good supply of female workers, to alter the temperament of the colony or to ensure that the queen is young and vigorous.  The typical queen will last 5-7 years maximum and will, over that time, produce a weaker and weaker colony.  In the end, she will run out of stored sperm and will make a colony full of drones which do not make honey and will ultimately die.

Queens in introduction cages
Queens in introduction cages. The candy is the white stuff in the long tube

Last weekend was the weekend for me to requeen my colonies.  Imagine if you will, looking through a colony of 60,000 bees, one of which looks a little different, and all of which are unhappy about having their home inspected.  It’s like finding a slightly longer needle in a needlestack!  Some beekeepers go their entire beekeeping career never seeing their queens.  Those beekeepers often have trouble throughout their careers which is a shame.  Anyhow, I blur my eyes a little and watch for “queen movement”  She just moves differently and I can spot her easily if I look for her special “shimmy”!

Introducing a new queen
Always put the candy “up” so any debris won’t block the hole and trap the queen inside

Once I find her, I mash her and introduce a new queen contained in a special cage that has sugary candy in the end.  The idea is that the bees will eat through the candy because it’s…well..candy.  In that time,  the old queen’s pheromones dissipate and the new queen’s take over.  If that goes well, she is accepted and life goes on.  Of course, if it doesn’t go well, they immediately kill her and I am out $25 and a lot of work.  In that case, I order a new queen and try again!

As a special treat, here is a recording I made of one of my queen bees piping as she waited to be put into a colony.  Piping is a way the queen communicates that she is ready to do battle with other queens and that she rules the roost…many people have never heard this sound so I am pleased to have recorded it.  I only ever heard it one other time when there was a virgin queen still in a queen cell, but nearly ready to hatch.  She and the old queen were throwing it down!  Apparently, queen bees pipe in G#!

I’ll check next weekend to make sure all of the colonies have freed and accepted their new queens…lets’ hope for the best…long live the queen!