"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." ~Wendell Berry
Showing posts with label feral honeybee hive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feral honeybee hive. Show all posts
Usually I have the luxury of time when I'm deciding whether I'll engage in a new hobby or not. But the honeybees that showed up in my wood duck box have forced me to take a very different and, for me, an uncomfortable path with this new beekeeping hobby.
I've had to engage in a lot of retro-active-learning; reading, watching You-Tube videos and spending a bit of time performing real-time observations. Not that I'm opposed to any of the activities above, but the point is, I've had to rush through it all. Everything I decide to undertake, I prefer to make sure I know the majority of what I need to do before I'm actually doing it - evaluate at least most of the risks and
then I will charge full-steam ahead. But not when it comes to the lives of the animals for which I'm charged here. The stakes are too high if you fail in that 'hobby'.
Knowing that I needed to check my honeybee hive soon, I finally decided that yesterday (August 4th) was THE day. I had been meaning to call my mentor, Calvin, and ask him if he could come and advise me along the way, but life kept getting in the way, and before I knew it, Saturday was here and I still hadn't called him. "Suck it up, buttercup", I said to myself, "put on your big-girl panties and go do it". So, I did.
I had been observing the hive and trying to determine how far along they were in their comb-building. On July 8th, I had grabbed some video of the front landing area of the hive and then I had quickly peeked inside the top brood box to see what was happening. I had only pulled one frame and, after seeing nothing much was going on, I quickly closed the hive and retreated.
But yesterday, on Aug. 4th, I was about to get my first lesson in how quickly things can change in 27 days, however. I setup the video camera on a tri-pod next to the hive (Mr. Freeze still doesn't have a bee suit), to get a video of my first full-fledged bee hive inspection. I think I made some small missteps along the way (ie, I think I may have over-smoked them), but over all, I didn't wreck anything. I was able to check frames 2 through 5 and after watching the video below, I realized I forgot to check frame #1. By the time I got through the 4 frames, in the 93+ degree heat though, I was ready to pass out anyway, so it was good that I stopped when I did. It's so hot & dry here, even the danged ragweed is turning a crispy, golden brown.
I was really glad that Calvin had convinced me to only have 9 frames in these 10-frame bodies - it leaves a lot of extra space for pulling frames out without rolling / crushing the bees. All the frames I checked had capped brood (I incorrectly called it "capped honey" in the video) and/or larva, and honey dripped out of a few cells when I tilted them! Whoa - they have been BUSY.
I only found 2 hive beetles on Aug. 4th on my old sticky board and today, Aug. 5th, I found one, and only one varroa mite. From my amateur assessment, it's apparent, my girls are doing pretty well so far.
By the way, just in case you're looking for the perfect cloth wrap for thoroughly cooking your enemy in the sun, a Harvest Lane beekeeper suit is perfect
for that. Just sayin'.
After viewing the video below, I also realized that I really need someone with me to take close up pictures. It's hard to convey the thrill of seeing the capped brood, an emerging baby bee and glistening honey in the sun, via words alone. And I was terrified of moving the frames away from the hive to get closer to the video camera for fear of dropping my queen off on the rocks or in the grass (maybe that's not really something that happens often...fellow beeks?).
Here's my 17 minute- long video, in which I managed to NOT pass out. Maybe next time, I need to strap some ice packs to my body before I go down there. I swear, my core temp today still feels like it's at 150 deg. Hehe!
Frames 2 & 3 are pictured below.
You can click on the pictures below for a bigger view also.
W. C. Fields once said, "Never work with animals or children. Sometimes, those little monkeys just don't behave the way that you were hoping for." We were about to discover the wisdom in this quote.
After weeks of trying to schedule the "perfect" day (it seemed like the Universe kept working against us), Calvin and I finally decided Thursday, June 28th was going to be the *perfect* day - no clouds & no rain - to move them from the wood duck box to their new deep brood box.
Mr. Freeze and I had dutifully done our homework. I had purchased the "Beekeeping for Dummies" book and started reading. I had bought a nice beekeeper's suit, with gloves and veil - always with an eye on the most important requirements - that is, prevention of bee stings. I was peppering Calvin and others with questions, such as, "can I move them about 200' away from their current location"? The response to which turned out to be a big, fat, "no", by the way. Apparently, due to lots of reasons, you can only move them "3 feet or 3 miles". So, 3 feet it was.
We purchased the minimum needed equipment (well, plus a few things), in order to get my little back-water hive moved. One deep brood box for my itty-bitty hive of a few bees. I even way over-paid for a smoker. I was very nervous the night of June 27th and called Calvin at 8:20 P.M to let him know he could come much earlier than the originally planned time of 10 A.M. to start the move. I NEVER call people that late in the evening, but when Mr. Freeze informed it was going to be 94+ degrees on Thursday, I thought, "I'm going to die in that beekeeping suit", so I decided we needed to get an earlier start.
Calvin, being an 'early bird', arrived around 8:00 A.M. the next day and after loading up all our gear, and discussing our plan to make sure we all knew what we needed to do and when, we were ready to go by 8:30 A.M. The temps were already climbing into the high 80's, so we waited until we got to the site before we suited up. Mr. Freeze had mentioned setting up a video camera, but as the temps rose, not one of us remembered to set one up, so I didn't get any pictures of the actual move, but there are some of the aftermath below.
Even at 8:30 A.M. though, the box still looked like this - bees hanging on the outside and flying in & out of the box. The original plan was to first get another look inside to see what progress the bees had made since May 17, 2018. Then, we would remove the flip side door (on the right hand side), the front and lastly the top with the hive attached and "just lay it all" right in the new deep brood box I had purchased.
Picture from May 17th.....you know - *THE* picture that made us both think this was going to be really easy.
Calvin got his smoker going and started smoking the bees. As the buzzing got very loud, the hairs on my neck stood straight up and the goosebumps on my arms grew. I was sure Calvin knew what he was doing, but why do they sound so much angrier with smoke? After unlocking the hinged door, Calvin got another look inside.....and he quietly said, "ummm, your bees have been very busy".
Not being able to see inside, I wondered, ok, what does THAT mean? Calvin quickly instructed me to go ahead and remove the screws so we could take the side door off as planned, but I could tell...something made him change his mind about our original plan. As we removed the side door, I realized - I no longer had a little backwater honeybee hive. My little hive was ready to run with the big dogs - most of the combs you see in the above picture had grown to almost the full length of the box and they were swarming & seething with honeybees. Somehow, my little hive had exploded in growth and there were now more than 60,000 honeybees in that wood duck box.
You know that part in Ray Stevens' song "The Streak", where he says, "Don't look, Ethel - but it was too late - she'd already been mooned!"? Well, that's where we were at that point. It was too late to turn back now and we were just going to have to make it up as we went along.
The combs were too big and it was too risky to cut them up and put them in the empty frames that I had prepared the night before....all proud of myself -- even watching all the YouTube videos on how to do it! Too risky as we might accidentally kill the queen. And by the way, my Queen rocks! The combs were huge....8" wide and some were the full length of a brood box - 20" long.
There was capped brood everywhere and honey. As I waited for Calvin to tell me the new plan, the bees - *MY* girls - were raging at the intrusion. Two of them landed right on my veil at eye level and were wiggling, squirming and buzzing, trying to murder me. Your mind can play tricks on you when you're stressed - WAIT....is that a HACKSAW in her little hand?? Such a character-building event, as the old me would have run away screaming and swatting at them. I somehow managed to refocus on Calvin and ignore the guard bees as they worked their way around my veil, intent on killing me, I'm sure.
Finally, Calvin pulled out his putty knife, and we began a full-tilt boogie. He began to cut out the combs and I found a position next to him on the tailgate of the truck where I could help him smoke the bees and hand him the tools he needed. On his first trip down the ladder he stumbled, and I wasn't sure if it was because of the sweat dripping down into his eyes due to the heat or, in my lame effort to help, I was smoking Calvin more than I was smoking the bees. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was smoking Calvin more than the bees. When he took the smoker and added more smoke in the box, I confirmed - I had probably smoked him off the ladder, but he was too sweet to say so. Every time HE smoked the bees, they buzzed louder - every time I smoked the bees, they laughed...and laughed. *Sigh* ....need some adjustments here.
The bees were swarming, the heat was rising, my brain was overheating and I was trying to deal with the angry bees swarming around my veil....but Calvin kept his cool and cut comb after comb from the nest box and gently & calmly delivered them into the waiting brood box. We even had to finally get a chain saw & cut down the post upon which the wood duck box was mounted, as the bees kept swarming back to it.
Things didn't go as we had planned, but in the end, it all worked out just fine, thanks to my bee keeping mentor and friend. Thanks so much, Calvin - I couldn't have done it without you!
After overcoming the shock and heat, that evening I was able to get back to the hive with my camera and get some pictures.
This is a picture of the aftermath...
Day One:
The next day, I suited up and took another trip to visit my girls - they were using the feeder (above) and were calm again. This is a closeup of the top after we removed the combs:
The box top 24 hours later - the bees were cleaning it off and reusing the wax. Such clever girls!
The literature says, "when your first brood box is 85% full, it's time to add a second brood box". After our experiences on 6/28, Calvin and I agreed - with all the comb he had cut out and placed into the box, we had easily reached the 80-85% full mark. So, on Saturday, 7/1, we added a second brood box. It was the first time I had had a chance to see the inside of the first brood box where Calvin had laid combs. The bees had already started 'gluing' stuff up and putting their house back in order - now, how cool is that?
The first video from the Freeze Hive:
This past January, I decided to check my wood duck box and take off the entrance reducer (used to prevent starlings from moving in), so that any investigating wood ducks could move in. Imagine my surprise when I opened the duck house and was confronted with honeybee comb. Luckily for me, it was cold outside and in my ignorance, I had opened a hive that could have immediately attacked me when I opened the door on any other day, but since it was cold, they didn't have the energy. Sometimes, it's a benefit to be totally clueless. Other times, not so much...but on this day it was. I quickly pulled my hooded jacket tightly around my eyes and drew my hands back into my jacket like a turtle as I observed the comb and the 1" of dead honeybees on the floor.
I called my friend and fellow purple martin landlord, Calvin Cobb, in Hartshorn, Missouri who advised me to 'leave them alone until it warms up in Spring - and we'll see what's going on". Leave them alone? Do you NOT know me? So, on Feb. 15, I went to check on my bees. I thought my pictures were kind of cool - hey, I have comb in a wood duck box!
I kinda felt like Sloth from "The Goonies", "Hey, you guys...I got bees..IN a WOOD DUCK box.... and I wasn't even trying!"
But this is 'everyday' stuff to the pros and my 3 or 4 little bees were kinda boring. And, to be frank, I wasn't even sure I WANTED to keep bees - that is, as the beeks call it, "be a beekeeper". I'm ...well, I AM terrified of being stung. I don't NEED one more insect bite on my skin or something else to scratch and I have enough troubles with my dairy allergies.
So, I waited patiently for May to arrive, fully anticipating that this bee adventure was going to be a flop. But the honeybees had their own business to attend to and they kept trucking along....doing what honeybees do.
Finally, on May 17, 2018, we had the 'perfect' weather to open my wood duck box and see what my little backwater, redneck hive was up to. I'm not sure what Calvin was thinking, but I was most certainly impressed! So, this is what bees do with all that stuff they're gathering?
I don't think Calvin had much hope for my little hive and I really didn't know what to expect. Sooooo, a trip to Hirsch Feed store in West Plains, MO and SOMEHOW, I am HOOKED and slowly transitioning to becoming a "beek". My loving husband - my driver for, "you must educate yourself on this", ordered me a book from Amazon - "Beekeeping for Dummies" and dang...the more I read, the more I became hooked. Who knew that bees had such an organized social structure. Wow, this is fascinating stuff!
Then, my sister and I took a 4-wheeler ride to see what the bees were doing on June 16th. They were hot. So was I.
As Calvin and I exchanged emails and phone calls, waiting for the perfect weather to move these bees, I continued to monitor them. "They're hot", Calvin said, "and they're trying to cool off", when I sent him the picture below. We still had no idea what was waiting for us.
Finally, we were able to schedule THE day - today. There would be NO cloudy weather or rain (which apparently makes honeybees VERY cranky) on June 28th. Yes, Thursday, June 28th was going to be the REAL moving day for my girls. Never mind that it was going to be 92 degrees today. Stay tuned for the rest of the story. OMG, @ the expected heat!
