Swarm Could've Used Mapquest

So, you're a fresh swarm of bees newly thrown off a crowded hive, and you're out trying to find a nice location to rest while your scouts seek out a new home. You pass parks with nice tall trees, you pass houses and barns with inviting eaves, and instead... your fearless leader (whomever that might be) decides that this is the perfect place to hang out...



Easy enough swarm to catch. I just held the chair over an open cardboard box, did a quick downward snap, and they all fell into the box. Tape up the box, head home, dump them in a hive body (with bottom board, inner and outer cover, and done.

I put them in one of my remote yards, at a nearby ranch. I'll check in a week to see if they decided to stay or if they took off, which sometimes happens with newly hived swarms.

Thanks to Patty in Moorpark for the call, and for her desire to keep the bees alive after they decided to use her patio furniture for a temporary home.

Swarms and Supers

A very bee-zy day today, starting early by taking a look at a swarm that I was called on the night before in Moorpark. the Fire Dept said a swarm was hanging out next to a Walgreen's, and they taped the area off. I decided to swing by early in the morning to see if I could get them before my day got started, but the sun had already hit them and they were too active... not to mention, there was no way to get them into a box, as you can see:



They were literally wrapped around the trunk of this immature little tree, so I wouldn't be able to sweep them all at once or shake them into a box.



I figured I could come back in the late afternoon and vacuum them. In the meantime, I spent the morning supering 8 out of my 10 hives, because the sage flow has started, the hollyleaf cherry is starting to bloom, and the hive populations are VERY high.

In fact, they're so highly populated that one of them swarmed right before my eyes, and headed into an inextricable location high in a scrub oak on a slope. To make it even more challenging, they mimicked the Moorpark swarm, clinging to a thick bough instead of hanging cooperatively where I could shake them into a box.



Interestingly, this swarm didn't stick around for more than a few hours. I checked later in the day as I was brush clearing, and they were already gone. I put a phone call in to the Walgreen's, and that swarm had taken off as well. So... no free bees today.

First Swarm of 2011--- Early and Weird!

Had President's Day off from work, and a good thing--- because lo and behold, I got my first swarm call of the year! Very early, and in the midst of a cold, rainy spate of weather. We get a clear day and this hive was pouring out of a hole in the ground (next to one of those water company meter/access compartments; I suspect they were tired of being wet with all this rain) and attaching to... well, take a look:



I decided the best way to handle this swarm would be to vacuum them with my homemade bee-vac,



but for some reason I wasn't able to get enough suction with it. No idea why, it worked fine last time I used it. At any rate, I ended up sticking a small box down by the tire (fortunately I'd stopped to buy a box just in case) and swept the mass down into the box.



The challenge, as always, was to get the box closed up before too many could escape.




Now, here's what I don't know. I don't know if this group had a queen, because there wasn't the customary ball that most swarms form around their queen. I'm concerned the hive was in the midst of absconding, and the queen hadn't left yet... but time will tell. Here's what was left on the car once I did my sweep...



I put the captured swarm in a deep hive body with ten new frames/foundation, and placed an entrance reducer in front so they can more easily defend their new turf (if they decide to stay, and IF they have a queen).

We'll see...

September Swarm Capture; Deadout and More

Been getting a number of calls over the past couple weeks about swarms or newly formed hives. The odds are stacked against a hive swarming right now; food sources are drying up, especially in the hills where there's virtually a total dearth. Obviously, suburban neighborhoods offer more options for bees, but still--- not much blooms in SoCal in September. It'll be a few more weeks until some of the eucalpytus kicks in, and I have seen some rosemary and red sage showing some early fall blooms... but it may be too little to sustain a newly established hive from a swarm.

That said, I got a call from Britney in Camarillo, a very nice woman who had an eye-hight swarm in her tree. I decided to go get it since I've had some deadouts recently (more on that later) and it sounded simple enough.

It was, thanks to Britney and her husband supplying a few random tools I neglected to bring along. I've noticed that my swarms do better if I immediately get them into a hive box, as opposed to bringing them home in a cardboard box and then shaking them into a hive box. So that's what I decided to do this time.

Here are a couple pix of the swarm:





Interestingly, they were gathered on the crotch of the trunk and a fairly thick branch on what I think is either a young sycamore or a liquid amber tree, so the first time I tried shaking them into a box not much happened, I didn't really budge them. I decided to get enthusiastic, and gave a really good pull--- and busted the branch right off! Which simplified things a bit--- I just carried the entire branch over to the waiting hive body and shook the bees onto the frames. I did a couple more passes at the glumps that kept reforming on the original swarm spot, brushing them into a box and then dumping that into the hive body. I waited until I saw plenty of fanning behavior, (the Nasonov pheremone I've discussed before), screened off the entrance with hardware cloth, strapped the hive into a single unit (bottom board, hive body, inner cover, telescoping cover), stuck the entire thing in the back of my Honda Element and headed for one of my beeyards.

DEADOUTS

When I got to the beeyard, I saw that one of the nucs which held a previous swarm had failed--- either they bailed out, or they died out. Which makes it nearly a hundred percent failure rate for this locale in terms of going from nuc to hive--- six total nucs, and only one has survived to become a regular hive, and they're going strong. Don't know if the high failure rate is because of yellow jackets, (there was a nest nearby, which I recently eliminated) or they just didn't have enough food stores to prepare for the dearth.

Later, back at one of my two beeyards at home, a rudimentary check showed suspicious activity outside one hive. Looked like robbing, instead of normal hive activity. When I noticed yellow jackets entering without opposition, I figured the hive was a deadout. I opened it up, and I was right. In fact, the wax moths had gone to work. Wax moths infest weak or dead hives, laying eggs in the comb (where there's honey and brood) and the larva tunnel their way through the comb, leaving a kind of webbing behind. Here are several pix of the affected comb. You can clearly see the "trails" caused by the larvae burrowing eating a burrow through the comb...






The hive that died was the one I got from the compost bin (you can see the story and pix on this blog). I had noticed what seemed to be a vastly disproportionate number of drones at that hive a few months ago; so I have a feeling the queen died and a worker became a drone layer. It happens sometimes; and once it happens a hive is doomed, because drones are useless to a hive. They do no work, they don't forage, they don't contribute in any way other than to go out and try to mate with a queen. Whereupon, they inject their sperm and die. What a way to go.

Finally... ALL my honey sold out! I've got nothing for my two wholesale accounts until next harvest, and my goal is to double my output next year by splitting my hives and catching lots of swarms.

Bee-zy Come, Bee-zy Go

Haven't posted in awhile because I've been too damn busy answering swarm and hive cutout calls! After giving my name to the Ventura County Fire Dept. as a resource, I've been getting 2-3 calls a day, which of course I have to handle after work. Many times the swarm leaves before I can get there; sometimes the "swarm" is actually an established hive entailing a complicated cutout (which I turn down).

In the meantime, while I've been capturing swarms, a few of the hive cutouts I did do (one as a favor to a neighbor) immediately absconded after I hived them. A lot of work for nothing. In fact, my experience has been that 50% of the hive cutouts aren't happy with their new home, and take off for parts unknown. That little hive I showed below, the one inside the utility closet? Gone. Same with a HUGE hive I cut out of a neighbors garage cabinet. Three hours of work and one torn veil--- down the drain, they left after one day.

On the other hand, I've been lucky enough to catch several swarms. One in a tree in Newbury Park:


Another from a bush in Simi Valley; another from a tree in Moorpark (a weird swarm, it'd been there for five days and seemed very lethargic; jury's out on whether that one will survive); and this one in a Simi Valley rose bush:



I hived all of these into nucs, and the ol' beeyard was starting to get a bit crowded. Plus, I was desperate for a location for the swarm I trapped with a bait hive (a hive body filled with frames, and "baited" with a little lemongrass oil to catch a wandering swarm). I needed to expand that trapped swarm to a larger hive, and I didn't want to do that up in the treehouse where the bait hive was!

Anyway, GREAT NEWS! A neighbor at a nearby ranch was kind enough to offer an excellent location for a an "outyard," so I moved four of the nucs there on Saturday night. I went back Sunday morning to expand the one hive into a deep hive body, and let me tell you, they were PISSED OFF! Sent all my audience (some of the folks from the ranch) scurrying for cover, and I literally had to go for a walk before the bees would stop head-butting my veil. I then had to sneak up on my truck and take off, because I didn't want them finding me again and getting in the truck with me!

I got the hive transferred into a deep, but had to leave the old nuc body there. It still had a generous number of bees, and I just didn't want to shake them into the already boiling-mad hive. So, I left it in front of their new home, and I'll go back next week to retrieve it and see if the hive has settled in. The other three, by the way, did just fine with the transition.

I'll take some pix of the new location for my next post.