Tag Archives: Beekeeping

Some swarms I caught a few weeks ago

September 10, 2015Awesome, Bees, Nature, WVBeekeeping, Dumb stuff I do, Swarms are awesome!warren

It’s late in the season for swarms to strike out from a honeybee colony. Typically, April through June are prime swarm months when the bees are building up to work the bountiful nectar sources during that time of year. As they get crowded from both the increase in bees as well as the stored honey and pollen, some of the bees along with the old queen strike out on their own and forma new colony. It’s natural and kind of cool, unless you are a beekeeper wanting to keep strong hives and make honey. It’s even less cool when you don’t see the swarm leave so you can’t capture them and at least keep the new colony.

Anyhow, swarming is a natural thing but it usually happens in the Spring and early Summer…and very rarely at the end of August or beginning of September. Still, somehow I got calls for two swarms recently and was happy to gather the new colonies for my apiary! The first swarm was at the local hospice house. A business across the road saw the swarm fly into a tree so called me. I hurried down and went into the hospice house. They didn’t know they had a massive swarm on their property but were happy to have me remove it. The receptionist announced over the intercom that everyone should stay inside while I did my work. Of course, that meant a huge number of employees ran outside to see what was going on. Among them was the media relations guy who saw an opportunity and called the local media. Two news crews came and before I knew it, I was being interviewed for the evening news! That was cool of course and I was happy to help hospice get some publicity as well.

Touching a swarm of bees — Don’t try this at home

A good number of the people who had gathered had never seen a swarm of bees so it took a good bit if time for everyone to see what there was to see and to get pictures with the bee guy sticking his hand into the swarm (don’t try that at home). I love catching swarms and love an audience so it was a lot of fun and the swarm was huge and should definitely survive the winter, unlike many late season swarms that don’t have time to build up in number, collect nectar and pollen, etc.

I always touch my swarms before I collect them...not sure why — I always touch my swarms before I collect them…not sure why

Just a week or so later, Larry Groce of Mountain Stage fame called me with a swarm of bees in his front yard. Larry is a super nice guy and it was a swarm of bees so of course I gathered them as well. The funny thing is that I went to his place after a Rotary meeting where he was the featured speaker! We got to chat a bit about bees which is always fun! I collected his swarm easily and merged them with another colony so they should survive as well, though not independently.

And now this isn’t exactly a swarm, and I didn’t exactly catch them, but these buggers are still hanging out by my back door. They are sort of swarm-like, right? I mean, it’s a mass of stinging insects…I think they are beautiful so they shall remain until they move on…

Laying workers

April 23, 2015Awesome, Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Bees, Honeybees, Too many eggs not enough sperm!warren

Quite a title, I know, but that’s what it’s called in the beekeeping world. This weekend, I looked into my colonies and added honey supers as necessary in preparation for the honey flow which starts soon in WV. I mostly found good colonies with healthy queens, good worker build-up, plenty of eggs and larvae, etc. In one hive, I found a problem though.

Sometimes, when a hive loses its queen, the infertile female worker bees sort of change into queen-wannabees. Every hive needs a queen to survive as she is the one which controls the mood of the hive, ensures future bees and generally runs the show. When a colony goes queen-less, all of that falls apart. Something in a number of worker bees triggers and they begin to sort of convert into queen bees. These infertile bees are called laying workers. Their bodies begin producing eggs. Since the aren’t really queens though, they cannot fertilize the eggs and something is just not right about how they roll…they don’t know how to properly lay eggs like a real queen would.

A healthy brood pattern…can you find the queen in this pic? She’s there!

Instead of laying a single fertile egg in the center of each honeycomb, laying workers lay multiple eggs in the honeycomb, on the honeycomb walls, heck, sort of everywhere. If the eggs develop into anything, they would turn into male drone bees but in most cases, they are just junk and signal the end of a hive.

Multiple eggs in the honeycomb cells from laying workers..there should be single little white eggs in each cell

Some beekeepers used to say that they could save the non-laying workers by shaking all of the bees out of the hive at some distance, say 500 yards, from the original location. The idea was that, like a typical real laying queen, laying workers would not really fly and so would die where they were shaken out (queens can fly…when they breed in their first week or so after emerging from a queen cell and when they swarm…in both ). Non-laying bees would return to the hive where the beekeeper could install a new fertile queen.

A healthy queen…look for the longer body…this queen is darker than the surrounding workers

Research has shown that it doesn’t really work that way though…or not consistently. I prefer to shake the bees out and remove the actual hive from the location where it once stood. Any bees that return have to either transition into a nearby hive that will not tolerate laying workers or die where their old hive stood. It’s a harsh reality I suppose but the only viable solution in my yard. Sometimes it happens which is a drag, but I am pleased that I have a good number of healthy hives that will hopefully produce a lot of good honey…if the predicted frost tomorrow doesn’t kill all of the nectar-producing blooms!

More bee stuff

A midwinter break

January 23, 2015Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Everything poops!, Honeybees, Winterwarren

For many creatures out in the great wild, winter is a potentially life-threatening period. Heck, for me it sometimes feels that way. Anyhow, many mammals hibernate and some creatures otherwise adapt their behavior to just make it through. Honeybees are like that. Winter is a time to just survive. Honeybees are cold blooded so cannot self-regulate their temperature. Individually, they would freeze to death quickly if exposed to the cold of winter. Luckily bees live in community and work together to keep the inside of their hive warm through the winter.

Honeybees progress through various job functions between hatching and becoming field workers that collect pollen and nectar. Some bees clean honeycomb cells, others guard the hive from intruders and others take care of the queen. Researchers have discovered a previously unknown job in the hive. There are “heater bees” whose job it is to keep the hive warm in fall, winter and spring when temperatures are low. Basically, they can vibrate their abdomen or…get this…decouple their wings from their wing muscles so they can vibrate those muscles without having fluttering wings flying around all over the place in a cramped hive. Muscular vibrations cause friction which causes heat. Beekeepers have always known that bees somehow vibrate in a hive to keep warm, but the discovery that there is a class of workers who can detach their wing muscles to manage heat is new.

So, last week we had a few nice days. As I have mentioned before, bees don’t poop inside the hive (as long as it is a healthy hive and they don’t have nosema…bee dysentery). They still eat honey through the winter as they need the energy to keep warm…food in means they still make waste…but they hold it…until nice days like last week. I wandered down to the apiary to see how the bees were faring….to see if they were surviving the winter. If things aren’t just right, bees can starve to death, freeze to death, or otherwise disease to death. On nice days, I like to take a look to see how many colonies are flying…warm sunny days guarantee the bees will head out to poop! I love to see them out on these kinds of days as they are generally pretty docile and seem to enjoy landing on me to gain a little warmth. Sure, they can sting, but they rarely do.

So, friends, the bees look pretty good so far this winter. We are nowhere done with winter and many hard days are yet ahead, but this is a good sign for the midpoint of winter in the apiary!

More bee stuff

Honeybees…the hunt for food

October 24, 2014BeesBeekeeping, Honeybees, Sweet Stuff here!warren

I am always amazed at what creatures do to prepare for the winter…and for that matter, just survive each day. A few weeks ago, someone had thrown some watermelons outside. I think their intent was to feed deer as there were apples and other deer-friendly things about as well. I don’t think deer would have enjoyed the melons as I found them:

Anyhow, during the Fall, things can get pretty tight for any nectar-eating insects. There are limited things blooming. Goldenrod and asters and mums and a few other Fall flowers do produce a lot of nectar, but many people view those plants as weeds and cut them down or otherwise try to minimize their presence.

I often see yellow jackets attack my beehives trying to get any bits of honey or nectar that they can get…the yellow jackets always lose but it is a lot of effort for the bees to fend off attacks all day long. If I am around, I sort of help the bees. I have literally mashed a dozen yellow jackets at a time as they land on the hives. Yellow jackets on a bee hive seem to be wary of the honeybees but apparently never see me coming. Anyhow, you may have noticed that anything left outside…pop cans, watermelon, and hummingbird feeders all attract yellow jackets and honeybees as they make a final push to survive the Fall and stockpile for the Winter.

Bees and yellow jacket on watermelon — Honeybees and a yellow jacket

When I saw these pieces of watermelon, it was most interesting the number and variety of insects that were all sharing time filling up on as much sugar as they could. I saw hornets and yellow jackets and wasps and honeybees…all working side-by-side. They were desperate I suppose though they didn’t act desperately. It’s juts a matter of life for them I guess, and outside of their home nests, there was no fighting for food. I think there is a lesson there but I will leave that for you to determine (and fill me in if you want!)

Other bee stuff

A late season swarm

September 3, 2014BeesBeekeeping, Honeybees, Probably a poop-eating fly at that, Swarms are cool!warren

There is an old saying in beekeeping…”A swarm in May is worth a load of hay. A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon. A swarm in July isn’t worth a fly.” I am not sure what a swarm in September is worth but I am pretty sure I owe somebody something.

You see, I got a call over the holiday weekend about a swarm that had just landed at someone’s house. I sort of had to do a double-take. Honeybees don’t usually swarm this late. I figured the homeowner had seen a hornets’ nest or maybe a bunch of wasps or yellow jackets. Those critters are all pretty common this time of year and I often get calls from people asking me to deal with their “bees”.

I looked at the picture they sent and sure enough, they had a swarm of honeybees swarming on their gutter. Now swarm catching is one of my all-time fav-o-rite things to do in beekeeping so I grabbed my stuff and headed over.

Sure enough, a small swarm had chosen the lucky homeowners and it wasn’t too high off the ground for me to get. I coaxed the bees into the swarm box that is part of the swarm catching gear that makes my excited trip each time I get a call. Into the back of the car they went and we all happily headed home! The bees are currently on my garden wall where they will probably remain through the next few weeks until I can determine if they are worth trying to keep all winter as-is or if I should combine them with another colony.

So, what caused them to swarm this late in the season? Who knows? Maybe their tree-home was cut or fell down. Maybe a bear or other creature messed up their place. I do not know for sure but I think this is my first ever swarm that is worth less than even single fly!

Other bee stuff

Honey harvest 2014

August 27, 2014Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Honey Harvest, Honey I shrunk the harvest, Honeybeeswarren

It’s that time of year again. Each year around tax day, I add honey supers to my hives. It’s no exact science, but I like to keep honey supers on my hives from, roughly, Tax day to Independence day. The bulk of the Spring and Summer blooms occur during that time period so my bees get an opportunity to work the best blooms and store away honey. Usually this process works well and I harvest several hundred pounds of honey. I see some variance as you might expect…some years I get 200 pounds, some years I get 500+ pounds…either way, a good bit of honey

I harvested the honey last weekend with high expectations as the grass around me was green and trees and things seemed healthy. Unlike my friends elsewhere in the country, we have had a good deal of rain so things are growing well here in WV. Imagine my surprise then when I cracked the first hive and found only a frame or two of capped honey. I repeated this same scenario in hive after hive. The bees seemed mostly in pretty good shape but I found very little honey.

A sudden mini-panic set over me as I closed up the last hive….something is wrong! As I pondered it, my only conclusion is that our late frosts, cool spring and abundant rainfall came at the exact wrong time on my ridge top apiary and it left me with a poor honey crop. As confirmation (I need this now…it hurts my heart you know…), none of my fruit trees bore a single piece of fruit. My sorghum crop flopped. In general, it was just bad I think. As I mentioned, the bees look good so I have to blame it on the weather. That line of thought settled me down. I was so frustrated though, that I barely took any pics of the harvest this year. Instead, please enjoy this picture of my cat…the internet loves cats, right?

We processed the honey and all-told, we got around 60 pounds of honey. That’s 10-20% of normal so you can see the problem here. Unfortunately, that means I am already sold out of this year’s honey crop. Not a great way to pay for hive repairs or new queens. Alas, that is the life of a beekeeper I suppose…

Marbled Orb Weaver spider around the hive

The only other thing that is noteworthy is this cool Marbled Orb Weaver spider I found outside one of the hives. He was a pretty thing. I tend not to mess with stuff around the hive. I figure everything has a purpose…well, except mosquitoes and ticks…those things just suck. Anyhow, a pretty spider always goes a long way to brighten my day too! Next year, we’ll hope my new spider friend brings me good luck and a better harvest!

Other beekeeping stuff

A weekend of swarms!

May 30, 2014Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Gosh Warren must be amazing!, Honeybees, Swarms, Swarms are cool!warren

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!

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! 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.

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

May 16, 2014Bees, Nature, WVBeekeeping, Bees are cool!, Honeybees, The bee-man cometh!warren

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.

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.

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!

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 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

April 29, 2014Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Honeybees, Momma to all the bees, That's a busy bee!warren

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.

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.

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.

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

April 25, 2014Bees, NatureBeekeeping, Bees are cool!, Honeybees, I freakin' hate varroa miteswarren

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).

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.

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

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.

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!

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!

Tag Archives: Beekeeping

Some swarms I caught a few weeks ago

Laying workers

A midwinter break

Honeybees…the hunt for food

A late season swarm

Honey harvest 2014

A weekend of swarms!

Two swarms so far

Honeybee eggs

Pupae are people too