Hanging Top Bar Hives ~ Three Sizes

TA DA!!!!

Look what I did yesterday! Been meaning to do this forever and it finally percolated up to the top of the Neverending To Do List. Some friends were over a couple days ago and helped me get the hardware off the old porch swing and drill holes in the board the hive will sit on. Some other friends invited me to dinner and a visit Friday, so I took the hardware with me since I knew the He of the couple would have larger washers I needed. So by Saturday I had everything I needed for the project. Thanks to friends. 

Blue=existing entrances. Red=new ones.

I've been doing projects in stages, small steps every day. Things get done a lot easier that way and I don't wear myself out. I'm getting older, so can't expect to go all day like I used to. After too many disappointing days being a hardhead only to fail AND spend the next day painfully, I finally decided to give that shit up and just deal with the fact that I'm not twenty anymore. What a wonderful thing! Giving myself permission to NOT finish things in one day! Such relief. And, interestingly, I get so much more done now because instead of being disappointed in how little I got done, I'm happy that I reached my daily goal. Disappointment weighs you down while happy gives you energy, so I end up doing more than I thought I would. Bonus!

Awwwwwww. Cute little nuc box.

So yesterday I thought I'd just go hang the board and call it a day. It went so easily and I was so happy with it that I thought I'd clean out the best topbar of the two and just set it on the swing board to look at it. That went so well that I thought I'd screw it down so the wind wouldn't send it flying. That went so well that I thought I'd drag the other top bar to the house so I could clean it out the next day. That went so well that I cleaned it out, took it apart, cut it into two, cut new ends for the second nuc box one, screwed them all back together, drilled new entrances, and hung 'em on the swing, too! 

So now I have a 44" top bar hive, a 30" top bar  hive, and a 14" 8-bar nuc box. Ain't it kayewt?! I've always wanted a cute little top bar nuc box.  Only thing left to do is fashion a top. Not sure what I want to do for one yet, so that'll wait for another day.

Feeder w/follower & divider boards either side.
Spot of melted wax, too - hot out already. UGH.

I also cut some divider boards - three of them. I already had some follower boards, but those don't fit snugly enough to keep bees from going around them. I wanted to be able to divide a top bar completely in two to have two colonies in it if need be. I always thought that would be handy in case I saw some SURPRISE! swarm cells and wanted to make a split on the fly. 

I'll keep the follower boards that bees can get around so I can feed them in the empty cavity part of the top bar. But now I have options, man. Options are nice. And are all easily stored at one end 'til you need them. You can always make one divider board, then drill a couple holes in it and add a swing-cover of sorts - then you'll have both in one board. I'll probably do that next time I build one from scratch instead of redo an existing one. 

I'd bought some extra-long bars when I bought the extra regular sized  ones. The long ones fit perfectly into a Lang box. Handy. I know there's an idea in there somewhere. Maybe I'll build a top bar to use those bars on so I can switch the frames from topbar to Lang. Wouldn't THAT be handy when a top bar gets too packed and I'm not ready to harvest or split the colony. Or maybe I'll use them on the Long Lang I've always thought about building. Who knows. But that really WILL have to wait for another day.

How to Make an Emergency Robbing Screen for Your Bees

Supplies: staple gun and 1/8" hardware cloth, or window screen if you can't
get the hardware cloth in time.  1/8" is the largest size that bees can't get
through, so max air flow while still keeping robber bees out. I put more
suggestions for things that would work near the end of the article. Cut pieces
as shown (one longer piece can be used instead of the two long ones.)

It's almost robbing season here in Spicewood (Central Texas, just northwest of Austin), and I don't just mean me robbing the bees.  I mean bees robbing bees.  Yes, bees robbing bees.  They really do that, the little assholes.  When the rain quits and the flowers die off, nectar is hard to come by.  In the beekeeping world that's called a dearth, and that's a depressing and dangerous time to be a bee.

As I'm writing this, it's raining.
   YAAASSSSS!!! 
So hopefully that will keep things flowering for a while yet.  The mesquites are still blooming, have been for a while now, and this bit of manna from heaven might kick start the gallardias again.  With forty acres of each here, the bees are plenty busy putting all that up.  But if we don't get more rain, and it's not likely that we will since this one was quite the pleasant surprise, it won't be long before all those wither and die with nothing to replace them.  That's the summer dearth, and that can spell real trouble if you're not ready.

Wintertime is a dearth as well, but that's a different sort of dearth than the summer one.  It's less dangerous because in winter there may be just a few thousand bees in each hive and they're busy keeping the queen warm enough to survive through the cold.  They huddle up inside, clustering together to produce warmth, using the stores of honey gathered last year for food.  The only time they come out is on a warm day, above fifty degrees or so, and that's only to take cleansing flights (that's a nicely delicate way of saying "take a shit". *giggle*).

Staple the small pieces to the sides of the hive, one on each side.

If you look inside the hive during this time, it's a scary sight.  At the winter solstice there is no brood and it looks all the world like your hive is dying out.  If you've ever lost a hive so have seen this before, it'll strike terror in you for sure.  But if you just grit your teeth and wait it out (bourbon helps), it won't be long before the queen begins laying again.  It's just a small patch at first, small enough that the few bees in the hive can care for it, feeding the larvae once the eggs hatch, capping them once they begin to pupate.  After those few hatch, the queen can lay more because now there are more bees to care for more eggs and brood.  When those hatch, she can lay more still.  And those hatch, and she lays more.  And on and on, exponentially making more and more bees as spring approaches, and then summer. This is called the "spring build up" and it's timed so the colony has a large enough population to do all the work of collecting all that nectar and pollen once warm weather arrives.

By now, just past the summer solstice, they are at their peak population.  There are literally tens of thousands of bees out there in my bee yard.  Come to think of it, with six colonies at the moment, there are probably over a hundred thousand.  And there are likely tens of thousands more in the wild.  At the moment they're all busy collecting nectar and pollen, but imagine what's about to happen when all that dries up and ALL THOSE BEES are now out of a job.  They're going to get cranky and desperate, looking everywhere for anything to bring back home.

Bend them back to make room for the front screen pieces.

It's a biological imperative for a worker bee to fly out of the house and collect something.  It's their very reason for being.  They CAN'T NOT do it since they know their colony's survival depends on gathering as much food as possible in the warm weather to withoutadoubt have enough to make it through winter and build up a healthy population again next year.  So now you have a hundred-thousand-plus bees roaming around feeling desperate, but nothing for them to collect since there are painfully few flowers.

It's only a matter of time before they find other colonies in the area.  They can smell those colonies' stores, and with nothing flowering, that's just flat irresistible, so they'll attempt to get inside that hive and take it for themselves.  If your colony is strong, they will likely be able to put up enough of a fight that the robbers will go elsewhere for easier pickings.  But if there are enough robbers to overwhelm the guards, if an extra strong colony is in the neighborhood or even in your own beeyard, the smaller colony is doomed.  The robbers will make their way inside through brute force, fighting and killing as they go, their prize being the stores they know are there.  Once they find them, they rip open the wax cappings and grab all they can, then head back to their own hive, offloading and returning for another round.

Robbing screens stop that.  They are screens attached to the front entrance of the hive, rerouting the actual entrance to another spot higher or to the side of the real hive opening.  They work because the robbers will try to get in where the scent is coming from, so will keep trying to get straight in, but find the way blocked and give up.  Your bees, the ones who live there, will know the secret key.  It'll take them a bit to figure it out when you first put them on, but they will eventually.  They don't give up because that is home, so they'll keep trying to figure out how to get in much longer than robbers will.

Staple the long pieces across the front, bending them as needed to make a
"runway" for the bees. This is shown better in the next photo.  If you have to
use two pieces of screen, like I did, be sure to overlap them well so
that there are no holes robbers can get through.

If you notice a lot of activity at your hive's entrance, especially during a dearth, stop and watch for a while.  Don't be alarmed initially though.  Orientation flights look a lot like robbing at first glance, but if you watch closely and see bees flying in figure eight patterns just a little ways out from the hive and doubling back to it, coming and going relatively peacefully, that's orientation - new foragers flying out just a bit to find landmarks, learning where home is so they can find their way back.  If you listen, you can hear a peaceful hum that just sounds busy, not bad.

But if you see a frenzy, fighting at the entrance, bees walking back and forth along the cracks between your boxes looking for a hole, bees dipping a bit immediately after takeoff (because they are heavy from being so full of honey), and hear an angry roar like you heard when you dropped that brood box that time, you better do something FAST.  It can take just a few short hours for robbers to completely decimate a hive, leaving nothing but a bunch of wax dust from ripping open the cells, a few dejected live bees, and lots of dead ones.  It's really sad.

If you ever see this going on and panic because you still aren't ready even after reading this post, just remember this: grab a sheet off the bed and a sprinkler, throw the sheet over the hive being robbed, and turn that sprinkler on so it hits the sheet and the hive.  That will buy you some time to calm down enough to think and round up your shit to make that screen.  As soon as you uncover that hive though, the robbers will be back, so use that time wisely.  And don't dilly dally - leaving them too long like this can make them overheat this time of year from all their ventilation being blocked.  The longest I've ever left them like this was a little more than half a day (mad dash to the hardware store takes a while when you live in BFE), and I left the sprinkler on to help keep them cool, so do that.  But hurry every chance you get.

Bend the small piece you put on first so that
it forms a tunnel for the bees to go through.
Robbers will try to come straight in the front,
but your bees will know the secret key
to get in.

Last year I learned the hard way you've got to get those robbing screens on before the dearth starts.  Watch what's blooming carefully, noting when the flowers start to fade, and remember how long it's been since a good rain.  At the first instant your gut says it's drying up, get those screens on.  Don't wait, or forget to pay attention like I did last year.  I lost seven little colonies I had made from splits earlier that spring.  They were building up nicely, then WHAM, the dearth hit extra early and dumbass me didn't pay attention.

This year I swore I'd be ready!  Last year, my bee buddy Karina and I made a bunch of robbing screens, and I had them staged out there right next to the bee bench so I wouldn't even have to go get them from the bee house when I needed them.  Today was the day.  I was going to install those screens so I didn't have a repeat of last year.  BUT!  But of course there's a but!  As I was trying to put them on all the hives, I realized that the new bottom boards I got from a beekeeping friend aren't standard, so the screens don't fit on a couple of them.  Yeah.

Shit.  Gotta' get creative then.  At least I found out about this now, instead of later as I stand in the midst of a robbing frenzy in the beeyard.  Another round of that and I might just be so disheartened I give up beekeeping.  (Yeah, it's that bad when you experience it.)

If you find yourself in the same boat as me and can't wait for your Mann Lake order to come in, or just can't afford enough screens for all your hives, read through the photos on this page to learn how to make one quickly and easily on the cheap, no saws needed.

Buy 1/8" hardware cloth now because it's usually a special order thing, and most times that Mann Lake order will beat it to the post office.  If you just can't afford that either, then use some window screen - cut one off your house if you have to.  New window screens are about twenty bucks, and you know how much a colony of bees is$$$$$$.  Or are you a crafter?  I've used plastic canvas as a robbing screen before.  Looked funny. Worked great.

About that staple gun - if you have one, look it up and make sure it works now.  If not, get another one.  And make sure it's loaded and you have plenty more staples in reserve.  In an emergency, trim nails, duct tape, or even thumb tacks driven in WELL with a rock would work, but I'd secure it better later, as soon as you can.

Go ahead and cut pieces of whatever you're using so it'll be a cinch to put them on when you need them.  Most window screens can be cut with regular scissors, though they won't be good for cutting anything else after that.  Hardware cloth is a bit tougher, so takes wire cutters plus a lot of time, or sheet metal snips.  Keep those pieces along with a staple gun and staples in a box near the bee yard, threatening anyone else with "NO HONEY FOR YOU!" if they use it and don't put it back.  That's why I have a nuc box on my bee bench right next to The Asshole Hive just for storing things like this - even though I live alone, I have people over occasionally who help me do projects, but my tools will always be right where I left them, in that box, because no one's going near that.  (Speaking of that, you know inside beehive tops is a great place to store important things you don't want stolen, or don't want prying eyes to see, right?  Works great.  Just ask Sherlock.)

Better yet, just go ahead and put those screens on your hives now.  You won't regret it.  But The Voice Of Experience here says you just might regret it, OH how you'll regret it, if you don't.

One of my sweet Italian colonies, all zipped up tight!  No chance of them being robbed out, heart wrenching crisis averted, no extra bourbon needed.  

~*~

I GOT EGGS!!!!!

I GOT EGGS!! I GOT EGGS!!! AND I'M SO EXCITED I'M ABOUT TO POP! SO I GOTTA' TELL SOMEONE SO I DON'T!!!

See?! EGGS!!! Those ickle bitty white things in the cells near the bottom.




Here they are!





Late last month, the same day I brought those Africanized foragers home, I split one of my honeybee colonies into four (five counting the Africanized forager one). A couple weeks before, I'd also taken a little split from another colony, the one in the top bar hive I got from Sarah and Justin (Hi, Sarah and Justin!).

Checked them today and four of them have eggs! That means QUEENS!! The fifth looks like it should any day now, and the sixth - well ... it's made up of those Africanized foragers, and it's all the way across the creek. I should check them, too, but they're all the way across the creek, and they're assholes, so I don't wanna'.

I don't know if I told y'all, but I had health problems early spring last year (all better now!) and didn't notice my hives getting robbed out 'til it was too late. So I started this year with one little colony I cut out of the floor of a storage building in South Austin last fall, and now I have six and possibly eight colonies. Life is SO good! Despite it being 91 degrees right now here in Spicewood. (Why yes, I did get into my beesuit nekkid today.)

I have a young friend who wants to get into bees, and I told her if I'm lucky with the splits, I'll share. I'm going to have so much fun texting her that SHE'S DEFINITELY GETTING BEES!

~*~

Update: I texted her and SHE'S ABOUT TO POP, TOO!! What a good day.

See that black blob? That's a bee who wanted her closeup.

~*~

How to Change an Aggressive Colony of Bees from Demons to Angels.

Well, that was fun.

A friend of mine "inherited" a honeybee colony when she bought her property a few years ago and they came with it.  They'd always been gentle little things, causing no more trouble than drinking from her birdbath and drowning in it occasionally.  She'd enjoyed watching them flitting around her butterfly garden and pollinating her squash.  She's not (yet) a beekeeper, but felt strongly that her property benefited from them being there, so she called other beekeepers out to check them every now and then to make sure they were healthy.  Life was good.

After my inspection. Man, that's a lot of bees!

That changed this spring.  They started buzzing her up at the house a couple hundred feet away, fifty or so at a time, getting caught in her hair and stinging the dogs.  Something was wrong.  So she hired me to come check them, to see if the little jerks at her house were from her hive or a feral colony.  I suited up, lit my smoker, and dug in.  It didn't take long to find out that yep, it was her hive.  I got bumped by a couple bees twenty feet from the hive, and man did they boil out as soon as I took the top off!  Ever seen three hundred tiny little faces lined up along the edge of a beehive box, glaring at you with much malice in their beady little eyes, vibrating with malevolence while five hundred of their sisters dive bomb your face?  I have.

Thanking the Lord for xanax, I gritted my teeth and went through the whole thing anyway, checking for swarm cells so I could squash them and forestall these genetics from escaping into our local area more than they already have, giving us time to figure out how to deal with them.  The five boxes took me well over an hour to look through, and I got stung through my suit fourteen times that I could count.  Three of those were on my face, so I spent the rest of that day looking like I'd had a bad collagen injection from a cut-rate plastic surgeon.  (Not to worry - I was all better that evening, after a swig of liquid benadryl and a nap.)

They were scary mean, so I knew and she knew they had to be dealt with.  How they got this way we'll never know for sure, but it's likely her old gentle queen was superseded, and the new one bred with some drones from a mean queen in another colony.  I told her we should requeen with a more gentle one, and we set about finding her.  BeeWeaver was all out for the season, so she called Tanya Phillips of Bee Friendly Austin to see if she had any available.  After describing to her what I told my friend I'd gone through, Tanya strongly recommended she get Les Crowder to do the requeening.  Of course I jumped at the chance to tag along!  So I called him and we made a plan.  I installed queen excluders between all the boxes so he could find the queen easier the following week, and we met up at my friend's house five days later to do the deed.

How to haul bees with a Miata.  Who needs a truck anyway?

Les is a soft spoken man who just feels good to be around.  He worked the bees so gently, taking care not to squash any if at all possible, taking his time easing each frame out, working slowly and methodically, waiting for the bees to get out of the way before doing the next thing.  I like that.  I'm the same way.  Part of it is self-serving - the more bees you kill, the madder and more likely to sting they get - but a bigger part of it is the guilt I feel for killing them just so I can hurry up and get things done.  Yeah, yeah, there's over twenty or forty thousand of them in the hive so what does it matter to kill a few.  Well, there's over half a million minutes in a year, so what does it matter to kill a few of those instead?

I was ready with my little bottle of alcohol when Les found the queen (I bet she makes a great swarm lure!).  We talked a bit about what an amazing animal she was, such a strong queen to make such a productive and healthy colony, how Mother Nature sure knows how to breed things better than we can.  Of course we both knew what had to be done, and into the alcohol she went.

Beeswax makes a great entrance plug.

Les proceeded to move the hive to a new spot further from my friend's house as I gathered up tools and set a box on the original spot to catch the foragers so I could take them away that night.  On Les's suggestion, I'd brought a frame of open brood with eggs from my Sweetheart Hive, a darling little feral colony I'd cut out of the floor of a storage shed in South Austin last fall.  We put it in a box with a few frames of capped brood from the aggressive hive, and I set it in place.  Taking some of the capped brood and the majority of the foragers would lessen the numbers of aggressive bees my friend had to deal with while waiting the month and a half for the new queen's more docile daughters to take over, and if all goes well I'll end up with a new colony headed by a daughter of my Sweetheart queen.  Nice trade for being willing to deal with the jerkiest of the jerks for a month or two.

Les told me where the queen cage was so I can find it easily when I come back in a week to let her go, and we left, glad to be away from that colony.  Man, they were not fun.

And the vibrating begins.

I'm so glad my friend called Les to do this.  Not only was it fun to work with him (yes, him - not those bees), but I learned things, AND he saved me from making a big mistake.  If it had been me, I'd have let them release the queen in a few days, or released her myself in three.  Les said with Africanized bees, which these very well may have been, that's too early.  They'll likely kill her unless you leave her in the cage for at least five days, or better yet a week.  So yeah, my inexperience with Africanized bees would have at best cost my friend more money and frustration having to find a new queen and having this done all over again, or at worst doomed her colony.  Crisis averted!  I'm so glad I got to avoid screwing up and dealing with the guilt that would come along with it, especially because I'd told her, before I found out how mean they were, that between the two of us we could absolutely handle caring for this hive without having to call anyone else in to help.  Ooof.

A cold front blew in last night, so I decided it'd be best to wait 'til just before dawn this morning to go get them.  It was perfect - almost all of them were in the boxes, and it was so cold that the few left outside couldn't put up much of a fuss.  I plugged the entrance with a wad of beeswax,

I wonder if Joe knows what's in the boxes.

ratchet strapped the whole thing together, carried it to my car, ratchet strapped it to the trunk, and away we went.  With thoughts of what would happen if they slipped on the way, or worse yet I got into a wreck, I used two one-ton-test straps to hold the boxes together and five to strap it to the trunk, then oh-so-carefully and oh-so-slowly putted all the way home.  Yep.  Seven tons of ratchet straps.  I probably would have used more had I had them. *snicker*

As if riding four miles on the back of the Miata wasn't enough to piss them off, they got loaded into the tractor bucket when I got home and, as daylight broke, we slowly vibrated our way across the creek to the spot I'd carefully picked out for them, Joe Dog following behind.  Their new home is a few hundred feet from my house, a hundred more than that from my beeyard, across the creek and through a bunch of brush and trees.  I would have put it even further away, but wanted to keep it a good distance from the county road back there.  Bicyclists ride by there fairly often and I didn't think they'd appreciate SURPRISE BEES!!!1!!  Though I guess it would have made them pedal faster ... more cardio, yes?

Before I opened them up, I turned the tractor around and headed it towards home, still running, so I could make a quick getaway, or at least as quick of a getaway as one can make on a tractor. Man, they were

Opened up and all done! Yes, I took that photo while hiding on the tractor.
Mama didn't raise no fool.

mad. Good thing it was still cold or me and Joe would probably have gotten nailed a few times again.

It feels good to have accomplished this.  I'd always wondered if I could take working a really aggressive colony.  Living in an area Africanized honeybees have definitely infiltrated, that's a very real possibility.  My friend said Les told her this was one of the most scary-aggressive colonies he's encountered in this area.  With his decades of bee experience, that's saying something.  So now I know.  I'll be fine.  So long as I have xanax.
;)

~*~

I'm Too Sexy for my Beesuit

Too sexy for my beesuit, so sexy it huuuuurts.

Caught a swarm today.  My first one since I was a kid, catching them with my dad.  And MAN, was it fun!

Saturday, a woman posted in the neighborhood group on TimeSuck.com (Facebook) that she had a swarm in her tree above her garden and they flew after her husband when he was mowing the area where her grandkids play, so did anyone know who would come get it?  Well, sure!

Many of y'all reading know we've been having some hellacious storms since then, so I was hesitant.  She said it was twelve or fifteen feet up off the ground.  The thought of knocking the hell out of a branch full of bees with a four-tined hoe and hoping they fell into the bucket I was holding while standing on a ladder that was standing in a truck IN THE RAIN didn't sound that appealing.  I'm a brave Aries, which really means sometimes I'm too stupid to realize things aren't a good idea.  Luckily this time I wasn't so dumb and thought that didn't sound smart, so we waited.

Hey! My diet's working!

Swarms are a fascinating thing.  They're honeybee reproduction.  It's so funny that we call it "the birds and the bees" when their reproduction is really nothing like ours.  When a colony of bees grows too big for the home they're in, they start making a bunch of new queens.  When those queens are nearing hatching time, the old queen takes off with a bunch of the population.  When the first queen hatches, sometimes she takes off with a bunch more of the bees and sometimes she does the thing we've usually heard of - either stings the unhatched queens to death or fights them, again to the death.  Then she makes her mating flight (the only time bee reproduction is even close to our reproduction) and comes back to reign supreme in the current home.

Meanwhile, the old queen and her followers (which is funny - she's the follower - it's the colony that decides all this) fly around looking for a new home.  Sometimes it doesn't take long.  Scouts will have been scoping out new digs since before they even left the old place, so many times they'll fly right to it.  But sometimes they run out of time and have to get out of their old home before they've found a new one, so they all light somewhere, cluster around the queen to protect her, and wait, sending out scouts to look around the neighborhood.

Once the scouts have all found prospective accommodations, they come back and each do a waggle dance for the rest of the group.  They're communicating about what they've found so everyone can decide whether they'll like this new place.  Can you imagine?  Wagging their
butts seven times to the right and twelve times to the left means "It's a 4K bedroom with a POOL!"  Three times to the left, eight to the right, and two back to the left says "But the one I found is in a great neighborhood two blocks from a supermarket (veggie garden)!"  Those are some talented derriers!  And when one of those derriers convinces the rest that they want that pool more than convenient shopping, they all take off to the new place at once, queen in tow.

While all this is happening they're quite gentle really, and don't at all fit the stereotype.  A swarm is just a ball of bees with a queen in the middle, so she's the only thing they have to protect.  Bees are usually only aggressive when guarding something.  A fat hive full of brood (babies) and honey is really something to protect. That's when they're the meanest.  Just protecting one little queen isn't that big of a deal, so they're quite calm about it all, lots calmer than I am when I'M moving.

Being cold and wet makes them calm, too.  I don't know why.  That usually makes me pissed off.  But I'm not a bee.  So today, after watching the early-morning weather forecast and seeing that the big storm headed our way was going to be gone by noon, I texted Terri and we made a plan.  A little after noon, sure enough, the rain quit and the sky cleared so I gathered my gear and took off for Terri's.

My little truck wasn't quite tall enough, so Terri's husband Melvin backed theirs up under the branch.  But I'm short.  Too short.  He already had a stepladder out, so while I was getting my beesuit on, he was kind enough to put it up in the back of his truck.  He put it in the perfect place and it was actually quite stable!  I was so glad of that.  (He helped me so much that this whole thing was an absolute breeze.  He's also responsible for the lovely photos you're seeing here.  Thanks, Melvin!)

The actual collection story is rather boring really.  Not for me, but for you.  I climbed the ladder, held up the bucket, and knocked the hell out of the branch. The cold wet lump of bees fell straight in the bucket and somewhat on me, and that was that.  I set the bucket down in Melvin's truck bed so all the rest could fly in and went to sit on the porch with Terri to wait.

We had a good visit!  I like her.  It's so nice to meet good people.  Melvin joined us and I got to find out that he's pretty cool, too.  We talked about kids and bees and grandkids and organic gardening.  They told me they didn't want to spray the swarm, that they didn't believe in that, but in helping them instead.  Man, I love living in the country where people are smart enough to not scream "KILLER BEESAAAAHHHHHH!" and grab the Raid.  They had an adorable little veggie garden in the back where the bees were, so that was a good part of what we talked about.  I'd go check on the bees every so often, knocking the branch again because some wanted to cluster back up there where the queen's scent still was, then scoop up more and put them in the bucket.  Then back to talk of gardening.

I finally figured I'd gotten the queen for sure when almost all the bees were in the bucket.  I loaded everything up, taped the top on with Melvin's butterfly-covered duct tape, said my thank yous and goodbyes, and off I went, one happy beekeeper.

When I got home, I thought it would be a good idea to give the newbees a frame of eggs and brood just in case the queen was injured in all this - with recently laid eggs, they can make another.  I tore apart the Lilith hive, the one that nailed me last year, and man did that piss them off.  Rain was coming so I didn't have time to light the smoker, plus bees don't fly in the rain so everyone was home.  Yeah.  Big old box full of mean bees.  Oh, joy.  They got angrier and angrier as I opened both boxes and looked through them frame by frame for that perfect one.  They stung me a couple times, but not badly.  I don't blame them really.  Luckily it was on my arthritic wrist.  Bonus!  I couldn't find a frame with eggs I liked, so I just took one full of honey thinking that would make a nice housewarming gift, and closed the mean little bitches back up.

The rest of the story is just me unceremoniously dumping the bucket o' bees into the new hive box with the frame of honey.  I think they liked it.  Even if they don't, they don't have much choice since it's still really stormy and they can't go anywhere.  I hope the forecast for more clouds and rain tomorrow holds true.  The longer they're in that box, the more likely they'll be to stay.  They've been away from a working hive for at least two days now.  Add another one tomorrow and into Wednesday and methinks that's long enough to get them jonesin' for some comb-makin', so they'll just do it.  The drive is strong.  Once they get started on that, they won't want to leave.  I hope.

So thank you, Terri, and thank you, Melvin.  I hope to come down to visit again some day with jars of honey in tow.  Wish me luck!

~*~

Next day update: 

They're still in there!  I just checked late this morning and saw a bunch of little faces staring at me when I looked into the top entrance with a flashlight.  So far, so good.

Stop, Thief!

I inspected my hive Saturday, adding more pollen sub and sugar syrup.  I've been feeding them since, as a new colony, they need a little help since we've been in a dearth (no nectar or pollen) almost since I got them.  Since sugar syrup turns bad in as little as three days in hummingbird feeders, I was concerned about it in the hive as well, even though I don't add that much at one time.  I'd read about adding a tablespoon or two of vinegar to a gallon of syrup to help it keep longer, so thought I'd try it.  I'd also read Michael Bush's admonitions on the BeeSource.com forums that doing that can set off a robbing frenzy, so I watched the hive closely.

Sure enough ... a few hours later I saw what looked like a swarm all around the hive.  TONS of bees flying all over.  Probably from the bee tree across the creek, or from the one over on the Krause's place (not sure exactly where it is, but I beelined it to their fenceline last year so I know it's somewhere over in their east pasture, probably just a quarter mile from my house).

Man, it happened FAST!  I had been looking out there every ten or fifteen minutes, and between one check and the next fifteen minutes later, there was a bee cloud.  Amazing.

I ran out there and watched closely to make sure it wasn't just them still a bit upset from the inspection, saw fighting and lots of bees going in with empty pollen baskets and coming out with full ones.  Yep, robbing.  I knew because of reading everything bee-related I could get my hands on that I had to do something NOW.  I remembered something I'd read - I ran to get a sheet, covered the hive, poured water over it, watched for a while to make sure nobody found any holes I might have left open, and went back inside to think some more.  By this time it was almost dark, so that and the sheet stopped it.  For now.

I uncovered it in the morning and kept a close watch, knowing, again because of what I'd read, that there was a very good chance it would start again.  Sure enough, once the sun got up a bit it started again.  But I was ready.  I robbed a piece of 1/8 hardware cloth off a top feeder I'd just bought, made a Billy Davis robbing screen (thank goodness I'd read about THAT one, too) to cover the top entrance that was getting the most action, and reduced the bottom one.

It did just what I'd read - the robbers kept trying to get through the robbing screen directly in front of the entrance, not even finding the open ends.  In just a few minutes, there was a mob of them right there at the hole.  I watched for quite some time, grinning and laughing at them (yeah, schadenfreude - I had it), seeing that some robbers who were coming out of the hive got lucky and found the end exits to get out, but none that I saw figured out how to get back in.  I watched for a bit 'til not many more were coming out, and covered the bottom entrance with wet towels, as well as the ends of the robbing screen, leaving the area over the top entrance open for ventilation (didn't know how long I'd have to leave them like that and was nervous about them overheating).

I went back inside, but kept a close watch on them still.  By nine or ten the bee cloud was gone.  I left it covered for a couple or three more hours, then uncovered it and kept watch closely, thinking I may have to cover it up again.

But it didn't start again!  WOOT!!  Started about 7:30 the night before and was over by noon the next day.  Now, two days later, still no robbing and the girls are still in there, happily working away (yeah, didn't want to disturb them even MORE, but I just had to peek a little).  I'm still looking out there every fifteen minutes, and likely will be every day for the next week or more.  But I'm cautiously optimistic.  Excitedly, but cautiously.

Because I'd read all that, I didn't panic because I knew there was a solution and it was in my brain because of all the reading I've done on forums, on Michael Bush's site, in LoneStarFarms.net's books, and elsewhere.  I just had to stay calm, think for a minute, and find that solution.  And I did.

Some pictures of the hive today with my handy dandy robbing screen.  I've got some more hardware cloth on order and will make one of these screens for every entrance on every hive I ever have.  Billy Davis, you are one smart man.

The bees now have a condo

Worked the bees for the first time today and HOW MUCH FUN WAS IT!!!  I had a BLAST!  Yeah, I really think I'm going to like this beekeeping thing.  I remember liking it when I was a kid helping Daddy, but you know about childhood memories - they rarely live up to the hype when you revisit them.  But this time ... this time they sure did.

I woke up late, about 7:30.  I'd asked Rhonda to come over early so I could get this done while it was still cool out, and she got here about fifteen minutes after I woke up.  We had a little tea and coffee together then got to work.  I rounded up all my tools, handed her the camera and my big hat with the homemade veil, and out we went to the hive.

I got the smoker lit and got into my suit.  It would turn out that I really didn't need to be covered that much.  These bees are so gentle!  They didn't bump me at all, and I only got stung once on the thumb, and that was after I was putting the frames back together and you always squish some.  I don't blame them for being pissed.  And my smoker went out about then, so I couldn't calm them with it.  Despite all that, just one sting.  Nice. 

They tried to sting me a few other times, but not nearly as much as I thought they might.  I'm confident now that I can work them with just a veil, gloves, and long-sleeved shirt.  One of these days I just might be one of those crusty old beekeepers who works them without anything on.  ... I mean bee gear.  (Au natural beekeeping. Now that would be something.) 

I was able to carry out all my plans - get the frame feeder out, inspect all the frames, put more empty frames in the box, and put another box on top.  It went so smoothly and only took about half an hour.  And I was right - they were so out of room.  I should have done this last week.  Bad Beekeeper Linda. But now they have lots of room, an entire box full and then some.

I would have loved to see the queen, but it's not uncommon to not see her, so you look for eggs.  If there are eggs in there, there's a queen.  I couldn't see any eggs, but that's probably because I forgot my glasses in the house, so had to use Rhonda's and they're not as strong as mine.  I was also having a hard time seeing how much brood was in the frames, but thank goodness for Cameraman Rhonda.  She got some really good pictures that, once downloaded, really show how much brood is there.  Relief.  MUCH relief.  The queen is either still in there or at least was last week for sure.  I'll check on them again next week and remember my glasses this time.  If no eggs then, that means no queen and I'll have to get another, but that's not likely.  I think she's in there.  I just missed her.  I need to practice finding her. 

I went out there later in the day and they were back to being their so-calm-I-can-walk-right-up-to-the-hive selves.  So I did.  And took some more pictures.

I also brought them an "I'm Sorry" gift - two hummingbird feeders full of sugar syrup.  I took the little tray-covers off the bottoms so they can get right down into the syrup.  Nomnomnomnom.  I hope they like it.

Squinty McSquint.

Honey, honey, HONEY!

Pry out another frame ...

... and look at it ...

... closely ...

... and still closer. That's honey up top, brood below. See the little grubs in the black holes? Cute little boogers.

Got three out. Working on the rest.

Lumpy, bumpy drone comb.

FULL.

Pull out another one ...

... and look again.

Putting everything back together and squishing some.  They got pissed ...

... so Rhonda and the dogs backed off, ...

... but not before Nellie got hit a time or two.

:)

~*~

7:30 update: Only a handful hanging around the front door,

not too many more than what's in the pictures here.

I'm glad they're more comfortable now.  

The bees are doing something weird ...

... and I thought you'd like to see.

It's called bearding and I think they're doing it because they're out of room inside.  Bees also do it when they're hot, but I don't think that's the case here - it hasn't been that hot today, and I think they have plenty of top and bottom ventilation.  And bearding because they're hot would mean they'd go back in once the evening cools down.  I first noticed them doing it about five this afternoon.  I just went out to check, an hour after dark, and they're still doing it. 

Also, did you notice the washboarding, the bees "line dancing" on the face of the hive?  They line up and move forwards and backwards.  Nobody seems to know why they do that.  I think it's to make us wonder what they're up to.  (You can see it better if you click on the bottom-right YouTube link so it opens in a bigger window.)

When I first got them home two weeks ago I put out a hummingbird feeder of sugar syrup, but they haven't been much interested in it.  There are a lot of Gallardia (Indian Blankets) and Horsemint (Monarda citriodora) blooming.  Acres and acres of it just across the fence from them.  I think they're working those flowers and packing the existing hive body full. The Horsemint is a cousin of Bee Balm, so I'm not too surprised it's so popular.

When I got them, the box contained eight frames and a frame feeder.  I wanted to leave them alone for a good while before mucking around in their home.  (Okay, okay - that's not really true.  Yeah, I did want to get in there that first day, but learned my lesson then. *snicker*).  It's been twelve days.  I've seen beekeepers recommend waiting at least ten days after moving a hive before you go open it up.  I think it's time.

So I've got my plan ready.  Smoke the entrance and wait a couple minutes.  Lift the lid and set it aside.  Pry out the feeder.  Pry out the frames and inspect them one by one. I'll be looking for a nice brood pattern, along with some pollen and honey.

Then I'll take one frame of comb out of the bottom box and put it in a new box full of empty frames.  I'll put two empty frames back in the middle of the full box - one to replace the feeder and one to replace the frame I remove.  That full frame acts like a ladder for the bees to climb to the top of the new box and it's frames.  They like to work from the top down, and don't like flying up there.  I guess they bump their heads if they try.

Once I get that top box set on just right, I'll put the notched inner cover on and top the whole shebang with a plastic hive lid.  I got it for my birthday a few years ago from Kelly and Billy, friends who gave me their entire old hive.  That's the white one sitting next to my new one. Great birthday present, huh?  I certainly think so.  I've read other beekeepers' posts on forums, those from hot climates, who say the plastic tops keep too much heat in.  I'll keep an eye on it.  I have a backup plan - a piece of corrugated tin and a rock.  Fancy.

So Rhonda's coming over early tomorrow to be moral support and run the camera.  Wish me luck!

I'm a beekeeper now

Got my bees today!  And it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

 

 We got to the apiary about 9:30.  There were quite a few people there.

I waited in a line a bit to check in, but it wasn't bad.  Picked up a couple things I needed, got my ticket, and got in line.

These are the nuc boxes.

And these are the full strength colonies.  

Mine ended up being the one second from the left in the front row.

I had thought it would be really heavy, so asked my buddy George to come help.  We even had a bee suit all ready for him.  Turns out, I didn't need George or the bee suit.  

The lady helping people get their beees loaded them in the back of my truck by herself 

with nary a grunt, so I knew I'd be able to unload them myself when I got home.  I put a 

ratchet strap around them (without a veil or gloves even!) to make sure the top didn't blow off.  

THAT would have been a nightmare.  

And off we went. 

Got them home, I set them in place, and there ya' go.

See the girls coming and going through their front door?! Squeeeee!

I did go out there later to give them some water.  There is tons of it down in the creeks, but I thought it'd be nice to welcome them to the neighborhood with a gift of water right by their front door, 'til they get settled in and can find it on their own.  

They gave me a gift right back: when I lifted the lid to check the feeder and see if I 

needed to refill it, they stung me on the ass.  Yeah.  Right in the freakin' middle.  Just over
onto my right butt cheek.   

Nice to meet you, too, girls.

I dub thee Lilith.

Toddi's coming over later and we're going to do some beewatchin'.

With bourbon.