Swarm !

Well today was one of those crazy days !  All of last week we were on vacation in Cape May. Life was good. Weather was beautiful. This morning we started our trip back home around lunch time. We had to make a couple of pit stops to pick up two hermit cabs and a back up Squirmy from Five Below. On the way home we hit traffic from exit 63 until around 81 from"construction". Slow moving. Just after the construction, Val got a call on her cell phone. It was my dad telling me that my hive swarmed ! Luckily I had just purchased a bunch of equipment from a beekeeper, so I told my dad to put a deep box under the swarm and sweep it into the box. He asked if they would sting and I said that they shouldn't. Usually honey bees, when swarming, are very docile.  They are full of honey and being homeless, have nothing to defend.  I had a spare veil at my parents for my dad to use and he agreed to give it a try. When I got home I gave him a call and he said that he got 65% into the box. He ran outside to check the status and reported that all the bees in the box flew back to the tree, so he did not get the queen. He also got a few stings in the process. I quickly unpacked the car and then hopped in my car and drove out there. I had just spent about 3 hrs driving and it takes about 1 hr to get to my parents. On the way there, I was thinking about how to catch this swarm. I decided to put a sugar and water mixture in a spray bottle and spray them. Then I would sweep them into the deep box. When I got there, they were still on the plum tree about 6 feet up on a 4 inch diameter limb.   This tree could not be cut. My dad had a step ladder set up. He had propped up on it a hive stand and a deep box just under the swarm.  No bees were in the deep. I had brought an old frame of comb with me. It had some nectar in it. I had seen a Utube video where a guy captured a swarm buy putting a deep over the swarm and the bees marched into it. I had some luck when the bees started moving into the deep from the branch, but they were slow moving. I decided to spray the swarm with sugar water and sweep them into the deep with a bee brush. My dad was inside when I decided to do this. I sprayed the swarm with the sugar water and then slowly swept the bees into the deep. All was going well. I kept spraying and sweeping until only a hand full of honey bees clung to the tree. I decided to spray and sweep one last time to get the last handful. On my last sweep, I accidentally hit the deep which was balancing on the step ladder and it went crashing to the ground. There were bees all over the place. Bees on the ground, in the tree and in the deep box. I had no idea of I had the queen or not !  I put up some saw horses and decided to put the deep onto this set up to make it more secure. Then I tried to scoop the bees on the ground onto a cardboard top. Most flew away. So now there were some bees in the deep and many on the tree. I sprayed the ones on the tree and swept them into a cardboard box then dumped them into the deep a few times. Again, I had not idea where the queen was. Finally may dad came out and I was at my wits end. I said maybe the queen is in the deep or on the tree, but I had to get back home because the kids were having a swim team party. If I caught the swarm cool, if not they could go find a new home. My dad and I hung out for a few minutes.  I noticed dead worker bees all over the place. I must have crushed a bunch during the sweeping. I felt pretty bad and I thought all was lost. Then on the ground near the saw horses I noticed a big bee. At first I thought it was a drone, but then to my amazement it was a QUEEN !!!  I was freaking out trying to grab it. My dad kept an eye on it and then put a broom in front of it to climb on. It climbed onto the broom and then I guided it into the deep !!!!!  Wow - what luck to have found the queen !!!!  After that I had to head home for the party. I'll check in with my dad in the morning to see what happened. Hopefully I got the right queen.  On a side note. I checked my hive near where the swarm came from (I think) and it looked packed. You couldn't tell that a swarm had just come from there, Maybe it didn't?????

I'll check in with my dad tomorrow.

Beekeeping Demo July 22, 2010

At 7PM July 22, 2010, the rescheduled Beekeeping Demo was on! I loaded up the mini van with all my gear. Deeps, frames, foundation, NUC box, books, certificates, telescopic lid, insect display, paper wasp nest and the "observation hive" and took the family over to the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, NJ. I was greeted by Jackie upon entering. She was surprised at my age. She imagined some old timer. My beekeeping demo stated at 7:30pm. Most people blew past the tables set up with the deeps and books and went directly to the observation hive. This was a good opportunity for me to describe what was in the hive. Workers, drones, capped brood and the queen cells. My observation hive has five queen cells in it. I answered a lot of questions with some help from Quinn and Evelyn. 

Right here is one of the queen cells.

This was a great experience and I will definitely be volunteering for more of these in the future. One of my main objectives is to educate people about honey bees as well as to teach the differences between honeybees, wasps and yellow jackets. People often think they are one in the same.

Setting up the frame display.

Evelyn explaining the "queen cage".

Queen cells in the observation hive !

This morning I went over to Celeste’s to check on her re-queen. Last week we checked her hive and there was still no queen. So we put a new one into the hive on July 14th. The new Carniolan queen had not been released from the cage. The bees release her by eating a candy plug in the cage, so we removed the screen and released her into the hive. All but one of the nurse bees that came in the cage was dead.

At my house, I checked and found a queen cell in the observation hive! Upon closer inspection I was able to find three queen cells !! A lot of the larvae died Saturday and Sunday, plus it looks like some of the capped brood didn’t make it either because the worker bees have been uncapping and pulling out pupa. But now with the queen cells it looks like the eggs survived. I’m only able to check the side facing the bedroom, so not sure if there are queen cells on the other side. The bees have almost completed cleaning out the capped honey that I put in the top. I have a mason jar full of sugar water to feed them. I put it on on Saturday and it is half full. I think I also found some new born bees, so things are shaping up in the observation hive.

The observation hive is such a great thing. I'm able to watch the bees during the day. Today I saw them seal up one of the queen cells.  Here is a picture of the entrance tube:

I took a quick picture of the cut up comb. I had to sacrifice half of one of my super frames full of honey to support this observation hive, but it was well worth it. I found a bunch of healthy larvae inside the combs while looking at the hive today.  Here is a picture of the cut up comp which I put into the top of the observation hive.

Beekeeping Demo

Well today I was supposed do a beekeeping presentation at a local arboretum followed by a movie. It was "The Bee Movie". I spent all of last week on vacation building and painting two deep boxes, building a NUC box and the hightlight of my presentation, building an observation hive with live bees !

I finished the observation hive on Thurs morning July 15th and then headed out to my parents to pull a few frames. Everything went well on pulling the frames. I was sure to get some eggs, larva, and nurse bees. Hopefully these workers will make a new queen.

I was very excited for the presentation today, it was hot and sunny all day today. 98 degrees, but I got a call around 4pm saying that it had been cancelled because of 100% chance of thunderstorms. I was bumming.

I unpacked the mini van. Then I had to deal with the observation hive. The bees had been locked up since about 2pm on Thurs. I had a jar of sugar water feeding the bees, but knew that they really needed to fly. So I had figure out where to put them. It was decided to put them in my son's room, so I began cutting some wood for the window, drilling holes for the tubes and cutting plastic tubing for an entrance.

While my wife and daughter went shopping, I worked. My son was hanging out with his friend, but was very excited about having an observation hive in his room, so he kept popping in and out. Finally his friend went to dinner and we were all set to assemble the entrance and tubes. I installed a piece of wood with a 1 inch diameter hole in it for the inner window, then slide a clear tube from the hive to a tube with a piece of wood for a platform landing . Then I put down the storm window over the tube and duct taped the storm window crack. My son and I then proceeded to attach the entrance tube. Luckily only one bee escaped into my son's room.

Then we noticed that some honey bees were slipping in through the storm window and duct tape. I decided to remove the duct tape to free the bees, but then noticed that the bees were now entering under the storm window and trapped between the inside window and storm windows. Uggg ! I decided to wait until morning until they settled down to fix the storm window issue. I'll post an update tomorrow.