Swarm Stories May 2013

West Sound Beekeepers Association, WSBA, George Purkett, Swarms, Beekeeper, Bees

George Purkett WSBA

On Friday a swarm came down from the sky and went into a top bar hive I was going to put a package into on Saturday. Kiva started drumming on the deck railing when she saw it swirling in the air. It quickly went into the hive. Not sure if it was already headed there or not. I spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday looking through my hives looking to see where it came from. It didn’t come from any of them.

Sunday afternoon another swarm showed up in my driveway and settled as a double clump in a fir tree. I checked all the entrances, and it also did not come from my hives. I then took the field glasses and looked at the neighbors tree. Lots of activity at that bee tree. I wonder if both swarms came from that tree?

Last year in June, I was about to set up a large colony with a cloak board for rearing queens. Unfortunately, the hive was more eager to grow queens than I. It swarmed and landed high in a tree above the apiary. The next day I watched the swarm leave and move into a hollow in a very large tree in the neighbors yard. I was saddened that the swarm left, but then realized that a WSU daughter queen just went feral in my neighborhood.

I wonder if one of the swarm queen will be marked when I check in a few days. I am also going to keep checking the sky and the trees. Maybe more previous year wayward swarms will return home.

The double clump swarm landed as two clumps and stayed as two clumps.

Usually a swarm will gather into a single clump after initially landing in a tree in multiple clumps. this one did not. Knocking two clumps of bees into buckets 15 feet straight up did not work so well. One clump went into a bucket, the other clump came raining down, oops, minor setback. All in a days fun.

Keep looking up for swarms.

George

Note: George Purkett is a key member of our bee club, West Sound Beekeepers Association. He teaches several classes and has designed this years hands on beekeeping class that over 40 beekeepers have signed up for. He posted this story on our clubs bulletin board and with his permission I’m reposting it here.

Frank

 

Bees going into their new beehive

A quiet bee installation

April 20th was bee day at Stedman Bee Supplies in Silverdale. The members of our bee club, West Sound Beekeepers Association, were out in force, helping to carry bee packages, answering questions and doing live bee installation demonstrations throughout the day…..a bunch of busy bees.

This year I ordered 1 package of bees to bring me back up to two hives. The Italians came in the earliest so I got those. With our short season even two or three weeks can make a big difference.

We decided to do what I call “a quiet installation”. Instead of turning the bee package upside down and dumping the bees into their new home, we instead gently turned the package upside down on top of the hive bars after having placed the queen cage between two frames in the middle of the hive. We added two boxes over the travel cage and then put the top on. It starts out looking really tall but once the travel cage is removed we are back to two boxes deep.

After 24 hours all of the bees had migrated out of their travel container and into the hive. Another 24 hours later I checked the queen cage and the marshmallow had been eaten and the queen had been released.

I think this method would work well in bad weather too……Granted, this method is not as dramatic as having a cloud of a thousand bees buzzing around you, but it worked just fine.

Bees going into their new beehive

The new package of bees

queen bee, Italian queen bee

Queen in her travel cage

queen cage, putting marshmallow in queen cage

Marshmallow in the end of the queen cage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place queen cage in center

Place queen cage in center

Queen bee in her cage

Placing the queen cage between two frames

Turn travel cage over

Turn travel cage over

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

installing a package of bees into hive

Gently turning the travel cage over, hole down

Place an empty over travel cage

Place an empty over travel cage

feeding your bees, sugar water for bees, beehives

They need plenty of sugar water for now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

place jar off to the side

place jar off to the side

Use up the rest from travel feeder

Use up the rest from travel feeder

Place the top on

Place the top on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Langstroth western beehive

All done for now

 

The Distance a Bee Travels

It is truly amazing how far a bee will travel to find pollen, nectar, water and propolis. They will travel 3 to 5 miles in search of sustenance for their hive. When you have a bee hive you can’t think of what is blooming in your yard….rather you need to think what is in bloom in your part of the countryside. I live in Seabeck WA and as you can see my bees travel quite a bit of our zip code.

A 3 mile travel distance creates a 6 mile in diameter circle around your hives. A 3 mile radius covers 18,110 acres of ground. A farmer would be proud to be able to cover that many acres and as you know the honey bee is the fraction of the size of a human.

Warre bee hive in Seabeck WA

Keeping the Beekeeper alive through the winter

We are in the middle of winter and have been in a cold spell. Dry days and clear nights have lead to temperatures in the teens and 20’s. I’ve used a flash light to look in the windows of the two warre hives to check on the bees. Green roof hive is looking good but I’m afraid flowers hive might be dead. I can see the bees all clustered together but no movement at all. Also seeing quite a bit of furry mold on the comb. The nuc is still a mystery as I don’t want to open it up to check….I hate this part of beekeeping.

At our bee club meeting last night we had the discussion about overwintering our bees. One lady suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea to move the hives into a warmer, protected area like a carport or shed. While this sounds good it was pointed out that what is really better for the bees in general is to let the stronger ones survive the winter then try to graft some queens from this stock. In this way we are promoting bees that are stronger and that can deal with winter in the Northwest.

Three things affect our bees in this area

  1. Food
  2. Moisture
  3. Wind

If each of these are kept in check the bees should make it.

My goals for this year:

Have at least 2 of my 3 hives survive.

If my nuc survives move it into an 8 frame western

Capture one swarm

Graft a queen from my healthiest hive

End the season with 3 or 4 full hives and 1 or 2 nucs

I do have quite a bit of work to do on equipment. I need to build the nuc boxes I bought from Brushy Mountain when they had their sale and I also need to build a lot of frames so that I’m ready to stock the western, and I hope to build a jig that will help me to glue and nail straight frames……Can’t wait for the next day that is in the 40’s so I can take a closer look at the hives….Til then all I can do is worry.

Honey bees in the snow

Beehive, beekeeping, seabeck, bees, honeybees, overwintering bees

Bee hives like snow

It is December in Seabeck Washington. While our winters are very moderate compared to much of the country we do get snow from time to time. We just had two days of snow and our neck of the woods had over 10 inches. The days now are upper 30s and might get into the mid 40s this next week, the nights are in the lower 30s….in any case the snow will not last long.

A friend asked me today about the bees. What do they do when it snows? Do they hibernate?

This is the 6 million dollar discussion. How do you get the bees through the winter. This is the crux of what so many beekeepers struggle with each year. It is not unusual to have a 30 to 50% loss each year.

The bees do not hibernate. I consider hibernation like a sleep state. Bees remain active throughout the winter. They generate heat with the same muscles they use to fly. They flex or pump their mucsels in such a way that they maintain a core temperature of about 89 to 97 degrees F.

During warm weather bees come and go from the hive. Collecting and returning with pollen, nectar  water or sap. They also leave for cleansing flights as they do not defecate in their hive.

At about 64 degrees F the bees begin to cluster, that is collect closely together to preserve heat. There are two basic parts of the cluster; the core which uses its muscles to create the heat and the outer layer that acts as insulation for the core. As temperatures drop the cluster tightens. The bees rotate from the inner part of the cluster to the outer, taking turns generating the heat. The energy they use is fueled by the honey they eat or the sugar the beekeeper has given them if they do not have sufficient honey stored.

The queen slows down egg laying and stops all together for a short time all to preserve energy and make it through the winter. Some think that the winter solstice is what keys the queen to begin to slowly build up the brood again.

Beekeepers in areas with harsher winters may actually wrap their hives to better insulate them, making it easier on the bees. The typical advice when it snows is to leave the snow on the top of the hives, it acts as an insulator.

My goal now is to just check them on warmer days and ensure they have plenty of sugar….and hope I don’t suffer the 30 to 50% loss that others have.

Thank you Lee for this great question.

 

Resource for information in this post came from here: http://www.capabees.com/main/files/pdf/winteringpdf.pdf

The Annual Driving of the Drones

Driving of the drones, the movie

Each year the drone bees are driven from the beehive in preparation of winter. Since the males serve no purpose to the hive other than mating services, as winter approaches they are quickly identified as consumers and are driven away to preserve the food set aside for winter.

Some specifics of a drone bee:

The drones are male

They are larger than the female

The drone typically has a dark or black abdomen

Only about 2 to 4% of the total hive population is male

The drones have large eyes

The main function of a drone bee is to mate with a queen bee. Since mating happens “on the wing” the large eyes allow a better chance for the male to spot the queen in the air so that he might mate with her. This is his only function. The drone bee does nothing in the hive, no house keeping, rearing of the young or foraging. In fact the male does not even have a stinger. A honeybee hive is a female dominated society.

What you will see in the video:

Bees coming and going

Some of the bees will be carrying pollen in the pollen baskets on their rear legs.

The largest bees are the male or drone bees.

You will see the females chasing drones out of the hive or over the edge of the landing platform.

You will see females riding the drones, though they typically do not sting the drones they are known to damage the drones wings and inflict damage on them that will disable them.

It is not uncommon to see females drag undeveloped male larvae out of the nest as fall approaches.

The driven drone will usually only last a few days outside of the hive. The cooler temperatures, predatory birds and other insects will typically aid in the final chapter of a drones life. It is not until next spring that the queen will once again begin laying male eggs to begin the cycle anew.

Watch carefully as the large male bees are escorted, driven, herded and cajoled out of the hive by the females.

 

Boardman feeder that feeds sugar water to beehive

Drama in the bee yard because of rookie mistakes

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the Italian queen in one of our hives, that we call flowers hive, was not very agressive in producing brood or encouraging her troops to build out comb. So we made the decision to replace her. I contacted Pendall Apiary and ordered a new queen.

Italian Queen Bee in the mail

Queen Bee in the mail.

When she arrived I took the queen from flowers hive and moved her into a nuc box that I ordered from Brushy Mountain. I like this model because it has 1) screen bottom board 2) telescoping cover 3) inner cover with notch to provide a top entrance 4) western size.

I took two frames from the flowers hive and brushed another frame of bees into the nuc. I then took the new queen and placed her into the flowers hive with a marshmellow in the queen cage. I popped a boardman feeder on the nuc and hey…..we are off to the races. I’m feeling all warm inside that I’ve just overcome my first apiary challange….I’m the king of the world….wouldn’t you think????

The Aftermath:

I noticed a lot of activity around the nuc hive. Wow, I thought, these bees are doing great! As time went by and I actually spent some time

Boardman feeder that feeds sugar water to beehive

Boardman Feeder..dinner bell to the masses

watching the entrance to the nuc, I saw far more activity than I would expect from this little colony…soon a different story began to emerge. I noticed what I would call “guarding” agressive behavior at the entrance. Each bee was frisked down by a sentry bee and in many cases I saw the guardian chase off another bee. I saw more bees coming and going than was appropriate for this small nest. I really got the picture when I saw two bees fight to the death. I knew that I had to open this box up and see what was happening.

The next weekend I pulled the nuc appart and what I saw was very telling of my mistakes. I saw fewer bees than I put in, I saw zero comb fill. Nothing in two hanging frames of comb…no honey, no brood, no pollen. I also saw lots of dead bees on the bottom screen. These poor bees were literally being robbed to death.

My immediate actions:

1) Remove the boardman feeder

2) Set up a winter type feeder, mason jar full of 2 to 1 sugar water feeding through the inner cover hole with another box around that with the telescoping cover on top

3) Blocked down the main entrance to zero, opened a top entrance on the back of the hive. Small and easy to defend. (I love this feature on Brushy Mountain inner covers, a notch that can be opened or closed to form an upper entrance.)

4) Brought over more frames of brood and honey and brushed in another two frames of bees.

My mistakes were killing my bees and I felt bad about it. My mistakes:

A – I did not give my nuc enough resources to make it. I learned later in an advanced beekeeping class that our club, West Sound Beekeepers Association puts on that when making up a split or nuc you should provide; 3 frames of brood and 2 frames of honey and pollen plus brush in 2 to 3 more frames of bees.

B – Never use a boardman feeder. Other bees see it as an easy source of nectar and quickly move from that into the hives resources, before you know it you have a cavern instead of a beehive.

C – Block down the entrance of a nuc or new hive. They need to be able to easily defend themselves as they get built back up otherwise stronger hives around them might take advantage of the situation.

D- Even though I may have gotten away with it this time, I need to make a hive go queen less for 24 to 48 hours before introducing a new queen.

Last weekend I made an inspection of the nuc. I’m happy to report things have turned around.

Honey comb, Warre beehive, Langstroth bee hives

Bees have filled in the space around the warre topbar

I see new comb being built, honey being stored, brood in all stages and a calm group of bees. Will this be enough to make it over the winter???? Who is to say, but they are sure better off now that I’ve fixed my original mistakes.

They say bess die because of; weather, pests, poison, starvation and bad beekeepers. Hopefully it is early enough in the season for these bees to recover from my rookie mistakes.

Adapter to allow inserting a warre frame into a langstroth hive

Easy way to shift Warre top bars to a Langstroth Nuc

Though there are many positive aspects to Abbé Émile Warré (1867-1951) beehive design, one of the drawbacks is the incompatibility between it and other hive systems. As I’m learning more and more about starting splits, queen rearing and using nucs in the classes offered by West Sound Beekeepers Association I’m seeing how much of a hassle it is to work between Warre and Langstroth hives.

In this particular case I wanted to start a split using several frames of brood and pollen and several frames of honey. Typically you would take these from one or more strong hives and just move the frames into a nuc, however the Warre bars are quite a bit shorter than the Langstroth nuc…so what to do….what to do?

Adapter to allow inserting a warre frame into a langstroth hive

Warre frame adapter

One option is to build an adaptor. This will allow you to slide the smaller Warre bar with its comb into a frame that will then fit into a Langstroth nuc. Fortunately for me I have a friend/fellow beekeeper who is a master wood worker. Darren, House of Bees.com, built a slick frame that allows just that. You can see to the side what it looks like.

Another option is one I devised on the fly before Darren proposed his Warre adapter. Simply take the top bar of aLangstroth frame and

Zip ties to connect warre top bar to a langstroth beehive frame

Zip ties used to attach larger langstroth bar to a warre topbar

beekeeping warre bee hives
zip tie connecting the two bars

lay it along the top of the Warre bar. Run two zip ties through the comb and around cinching the two top bars together. Then simply hang the combination into your nuc or other Langstroth hive. As you can see in the photo the bees are more than happy to fill in the space.

The big difference between the two approaches is that Darrens adaptor can easily be undone if you wanted to move the Warre bar back into a Warre box. My zip tie method would be a little messier.

Honey comb, Warre beehive, Langstroth bee hives

Bees have filled in the space around the warre topbar

 

Honey bees seem to love scotch broom. Beekeepers see this annually in the pacific northwest.

Cheeto Bees

Scotch Broom a plant that flowers in May and covers honey bees to look like Cheetos

Cheeto bees are a common site this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. You do not have to look far to see a field of scotch broom in bloom. Once thought of as a good idea to   plant along our freeways now many people see this as an invasive plant that is not native to our area.

I’ve read several articles that indicate that honey bees do not like scotch broom, yet the ones I see in our neighborhood usually have bees around them and they sure come back to the hive covered in yellow, almost like they had been playing in a bag of Cheetos.

A bee from the beekeepers digest apiary

Cheeto bee