Our first swarm collection

Last Thursday John and I rescued a small swarm of bees a friend of his had spotted in a neighbor’s yard. I say rescued because their ranks appeared decimated by the cold and rain. We found them on the side of an awning over a back porch in two small clusters. The smallest had already succumbed completely to the cold (or so we thought…), but the other (about the size of two softballs) showed some movement and life.

With the help of a timely coincidence – namely John’s wife running into the president of a local beekeeping club who just happened to have a bee vacuum in her car – we collected the swarm with speed and ease. A bee vac is a low powered vacuum designed to suck up bees. This one had been rigged to attach to the top of a small bucket to deposit the bees in and ran off of a car battery jump starter kit. The bees were so chilly that they put up only minimal resistance and only two or three took flight.

And all of this added up to one simple truth: we could not have asked for better circumstances in which two neophyte beekeepers collected their first swarm. We didn’t wear any protective equipment except what we already had on to combat the chilly weather. The neighbors that spotted the hive, friends of John’s from his church and Bible study group, were really excited to see the show and Beth, the renter of the house that harbored the six-legged squatters, was really happy to see them rescued.

The bees have a long trip ahead of them. Assuming the queen is still alive, she’ll need to rebuild a very damaged population – and she’ll have to wait until Saturday to start. While I have most of the top bar hive that we were planning on using to rear captured swarms put together, I still have a bit more to go and won’t have it ready till this weekend. The good news is this: John transferred the swarm from the bee vac bucket to one of the nuc boxes that we had leftover from our bees last year last night and, to paraphrase for gentler ears, they were ticked. However, remember my “or so we thought…” comment? We had sucked up most of the cluster that appeared dead, yet John found no dead bees – not a single one – in the bucket when he made the transfer. Our suspicion is that these bees were so cold they were near death, but not quite there. Once they warmed up they found life again. My hope is that this means the bees still have the vigor to stage a comeback. My fear is that we’ll have another batch of Sicilians on our hands.

Only time will tell!

Posted by Bob Nelson

It's been wet this week

Colorado usually sports well over 300 days of sunshine every year, making us one of the sunniest states in the nation, if not the sunniest (if you're reading this from another state and are thinking about moving here - do realize that it snows even when it's sunny...really! I wouldn't lie to you to keep you out of my birth state. And when they say Denver is a cow town, it's true: traffic can be held up for hours during a cattle drive, really!) However, this week seems to be putting a damper on those numbers. It rained for nearly 48 straight hours earlier in the week, nearly 1" of precipitation, and has rained or drizzled off and on most of the weekend - snow was even predicted for last night but didn't fall here in Aurora.

Weather like this is good and bad for the bees. Good in that they'll get an opportunity to feast on bunches and bunches of flowers that will spring up when the sun gets back to its work. However, imagine getting stuck in the house with your 20,000 to 30,000 sisters for two days - TWICE in one week. Not only would it likely make you a bit surly, but now you have to eat all the honey that you've been working to store away for the season. If weather like this continued for some reason, a decent chance of starvation rears its head - 15 years ago or so we had 40 straight days of drizzle and rain in April and May, which makes me think of how the bees did then.

Weather like this is also messing with this beekeeper's plans. The bees should be ready for getting split from two into four hives. I did a brief inspection last week and both hives were boasting strong populations and lots of new eggs and brood. And the Sicilians were, how shall I say, spunky as always: even after I had bottled them back up a couple of guard bees followed me back to the car some 50' away and harassed a buddy that wanted to see what the bees were like but was more than 20' off on the other side of the Italians. The Italians were mild-mannered as always, so I have to rule out the possible lack of forage making the Sicilians more defensive over their stores. That all said, I do welcome the timing of the rain. The new blooms will help to keep the split hives well-fed so they can get their population ramped back up.

Our concern with splitting the hives is this: two of the four hives will initially have no queens and will have to create their own.  The new blooms we're hoping for should assist in keeping their spirits up, so to speak, and help push them into creating new queens. Worst case scenario, if one or both don't requeen themselves, we'll just recombine them with their "mother" hive and try again next year. If it works like we expect it to, we'll have lots more honey at the end of the season and be ready to grow evenmore next season!

Posted by Bob Nelson

Full inspection



One of MANY Sicilians very annoyed at me - notice how she's

drilling straight in for my eye!




When a bee finds its way up a beekeeper's pant leg, it will end badly for the bee, the keeper or both. I found that out the hard way yesterday. As I was ticking off her sisters (see above), one found the chink in my armor. The problem with a bee in your pants is that the only way to get her out alive is taking them off. I don't think the residents of Katy's farm would have appreciated that. Another problem is that if you don't slap the interloper dead the first time, she'll likely make the suicide sting. Yeah, that's what happened. She got me after I didn't quite get her. So I have a good sized swelling on the inside of my right knee. But enough about me.

Despite their annoyance, I'm quite happy about both hives and their progress this year. Unfortunately, John wasn't able to make the inspection and he missed out. The Sicilians' population is booming and they are finding plenty of nectar. The first Italians likewise are doing well. I did discover that we were overly optimistic putting the supers on. While several girls were exploring them, they had not yet built any new comb on them. The first Italians had smartly focused on the frame that I had broken at the end of last year and had about half of it rebuilt.

My big concern is that I didn't see much bee bread. While the bees are finding plenty of nectar, it seems that pollen is a bit more scarce. This could have quite an impact on their growth and health. Imagine a diet of nothing but sugar. That sugar high will wear off...



On to other things: expansion! While I didn't find any queen cells in either hive (I was hoping for sucha discovery and dreading it at the same time - I got a bit of anxiety about how and when to split the hives), their population growth leaves me smiling! A note on population: one of John's theories about bees was heartily shot down. He suspected that bees would reject darker frames and wax (as the wax ages and gets walked on by thousands of bees it gets darker and darker - some of the frames we have are a rich, dark brown, though it's not really asthetic compared to beautiful creamy white of new wax). In the first Italians' hive we have a very dark frame and it had the most larvae and brood of any of the frames I inspected. Admittedly, location means a lot to the bees and this frame was in the center of the upper hive body, perfect for a brood frame.

The reason I mention this comes from one of our goals. We want to start swapping out these darker frames with new ones as we get the feeling that, first, they probably harbor miticides from the dealer (something wax does unfortunately well with pesticides) we got the bees from and that they may have the same capacity for harboring diseases and malignant fungi. At least the girls are getting their use out of it in the meantime!



And I was a busy boy before the inspection, too...these pics are a modification of a design for a Top Bar Hive that I found online (which was a modification of the Kenyan TBH). I spent about $100 on supplies intending to build two. However, I accidentally bought 95% of what I need for three hives. It took me about two hours to build what you see here. So, about than the cost of one two-bodied Langstroth hives I can build three. I am totally digging the business sense of the TBH!



My version of the Top Bar Hive



Another view



To get the same amount of honey as from a Langstroth we'll need to visit the hives more often to harvest, but the advantages more than make up for it. I already mentioned the lesser initial cost, but the maintenance costs will also be much lower. The frame consisits of one bar and a strip of something on the bottom for the bees to build comb on. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this but I have a good idea for it. It's quite a bit cheaper replacing a 15" piece of 1x2 than it is replacing all four pieces of custom cut Langstroth frame. All of the cuts I need to do and assembly are easy enough for someone with the same basic carpentry skills as me - and that ain't a whole bunch! Also, since the hives are smaller, moving them will be easier and less strain to the back. Plus they can last years and years with minimal maintenance, unlike the Langstroth which might last 5 years without major renovation.

Consider this low cost, easy way to start a new hobby that will benefit you with the fun (minus the stings!)and the honey as well as benefit your garden or the world in general!