Tag Archives: swarms

Hive report: a beekeeper’s notebook

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21 May 2018:  I’ve had a new beekeeping experience–dealing with a seriously angry bunch of bees. I do hope it will be a while before I have that experience again.

Yesterday  I planned to inspect Hive A (Dave’s Girls), but I didn’t take into account lawn mowing and trimming activities that had been going on around the hive. I had just removed the telescoping cover and the inner cover when I was in the midst of a serious attack–I now know what seriously PO’d bees sound like. After getting stung on my hands (only thin gloves on) I beat a very hasty retreat, but the girls were angry enough that they followed me–so I had to stand around in my bee jacket until they finally gave up and went home.

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22 May 2018:  This morning  I went back to do what needed to be done. Things were good when I opened the hive–bees all over all of the frames just doing their thing and they let me look around and do my part of the housekeeping.  I’ve put in foundationless frames to see if the girls will cooperate with me for some cut-comb honey this season. Fingers crossed and waiting.

26 May 2018:  There’s obviously been a bit of a hiatus here–the weather has been rather erratic–intermittently cloudy, windy, with less traffic in and out of the hive than usual. I’ve learned (the hard way) that the girls are quite testy (even bitchy, maybe?) when the weather is good.  Of course, that also means that lots of them are out at work so there are fewer to deal with during the inspections–and that is definitely an advantage with a large colony.

I made the mistake of putting work hours before bee time! Silly me.  By the time I was ready to do inspections, the weather wasn’t cooperating–intermittently cloudy with threatening clouds and a little drizzle. Then another bit of sunshine. Then clouds again.  I wussed out and decided to wait until tomorrow morning. I mean, in this area I should know that thunderstorms are likely in the afternoon.

27 May 2018:  This morning I had my priorities straight: to the hives just of soon as I had adequate Sunday morning caffeination.  I started with the Georgia Girls (Hive B) since that was the big job. They had been cooperative, actually doing what I wanted them to do–most of the brood was now in the deep so I could reverse the medium and be back to deep-on-the-bottom then the medium, still with some brood, above. They still had room to store honey above the queen excluder so I didn’t give them any foundationless frames.

Hives C and D each got a quick peek under the cover to see how things were. Both obviously had a queen doing her thing. Hive D (a split with a queen cell from Hive A) had brood in the medium (and the deep), but needed more room for honey.  Add queen excluder and a super for honey–done!  And–just in time for it to start getting a bit more overcast and breezy.

Happiness for a beekeeper is knowing what the girls are doing!

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Hive report: Swarms from Hive A!

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Shortly before I had to go out of town for my indexing convention, Hive A (Dave’s bees) decided to swarm (18 April 2018). I really appreciate the consideration–swarming before I’m out of town–and all the swarms have clustered low and close. But, you notice, I didn’t say that they were convenient or locations where they were easy to retrieve–just close and low.

I thought that these bees might just be “thinking” about swarming as they were coming out of the hive at a brisk pace, but not streaming out as with the other swarm. They clustered on the frame of the hive scales and down into the hollow of the cinder blocks on which the hive sat.

No way was I able to do a nice, neat collection. I got as many of the bees as possible–but I didn’t think I had the queen with the swarm although bees that I put into the 4th hive did stay there so I still don’t know if I captured the queen.

When I saw the brisk movement out of the hive I had put a jury-rigged swarm “trap” on the outside (cut from a plastic queen excluder in hopes of keeping the queen in), even knowing that a queen with the swarm would have slimmed down and might get through it. On inspection of the hive after collecting the bees as best as possible,  I could not find a queen so I suspect she was already out since there were some bees still clustered in this inaccessible place (I drew the line at actually moving the entire hive to get them). They stayed clustered in a way that certainly made me think the queen might well be there–out of my reach unless I took real risk of injuring her, even if I did find her.

In going through that split the day after, I did not find a queen and there were certainly many fewer bees to sort through. I decided to treat that swarm as if it did not have a queen and provided them with a closed queen cell from the ones found in the hive from which they swarmed. So–doin’t know what will happen, but it’s soon time to go take a look again.

Today (Tuesday, 01 May 2018) there was another swarm–I suspect a secondary swarm from Hive A. I captured it (another low and close, and almost convenient) but don’t have space to keep it, so I contacted the “swarm team” from our local beekeeper’s club to donate this one to someone who needed bees. (I did find it a good home.)  This swarm behaved like I had gotten the queen in the box–all the stray bees that I couldn’t capture followed the box (but since it was the second swarm I wonder if it had a virgin queen).

In retrospect, I wish I had checked that first swarm from Hive A again to see if there was a queen, or if the queen cell had been opened. If not, I wonder if I could have combined those two swarms for a stronger hive. Ah, hindsight is such a wonderful thing. Thinking about this in the comfort of my desk chair is entirely different from considering it while putting thousands of bees in a box.

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Hive report: swarm season

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440px-bee_swarmThis is the season for swarming.  There are some things you should know about swarms and what to do if you happen upon one.

Swarming is a natural thing that honey bees do. It’s reproduction on a colony level.  Only a healthy, strong colony can swarm. While we as beekeepers do everything we can to prevent swarming because it decreases the size of the colony and, thus, honey production, it does happen. One of my colonies just swarmed. I was fortunate enough to retrieve the swarm and they are now inhabiting the third hive in my apiary. So, my apiary has grown because the bees swarmed.  This is also good.

A swarm happens when the bees think that they need more room for the queen to lay eggs and to store honey. There is preparation within the colony for the swarm–after all, this is splitting the colony into two.

Each colony must have a queen–i.e. in bee-speak, be queenright. The queen who was with the colony is going to fly away with the swarm.  That would leave the colony remaining in the hive without a queen–and that would spell the death of the colony but before the swarm leaves, the worker bees have started rearing a new queen for themselves: they will build special “queen cups” into which the queen will lay eggs before she starts getting ready to lead the swarm out of the hive.  The workers remaining in the hive will feed those larvae in the queen cells appropriately so that they grow up to be queens.

Honeybee Democracy Cover ImageOnce these preparations are in progress, the queen will lead the swarm out of the hive, Once out of the hive, the bees will make a temporary stop somewhere not too far away while the process of selecting a new home goes on.  That’s when you see the bunches of bees in some truly strange places. There’s a complicated process going on with the swarm: scout bees are going out and looking for potential new homes. Scouts return and report, other scouts check out the possibilities, and finally, there is agreement on a suitable site.  At that point, the swarm leaves their temporary resting place and moves to the new home–with their queen, to establish a new colony and begin drawing comb for the queen to lay eggs in, and in which to store honey.  It’s a fascinating and complicated process, wonderfully described by Thomas Seeley in Honeybee Democracy. It’s a collective, democratic process by this swarm bees.

Things that you should know about swarms: first and most importantly, they are not dangerous. The honey bees making up the swarm are very docile. They have gorged on honey before leaving the hive so that they can survive the search for a new home. They don’t have a home to protect–they out looking for a new home. They are not going to attack. Extermination is not necessary (except in very rare circumstances). What you want to do is to contact your local beekeepers’ association–or a local beekeeper. Someone will come with appropriate gear and take the swarm away to a new home; they are highly prized as a way to get started in beekeeping or to increase the size of an apiary.

Should the swarm not be collected by a beekeeper who will provide a hive, or find a suitable cavity you will occasionally see comb built in the open air–not the best in terms of long-term survival.

Meanwhile, back in the hive of origin, the workers are busily raising new queens. Yes, the plural is intentional. Having a queen is necessary for the survival of the hive so the workers will raise several queens to be sure of success. However, a colony will have only a single queen–it’s not a shared job. The first of the queens to emerge from the queen cell is going to wipe out the other rivals–it can be brutal in the hive at times.  This hive will now have a virgin queen, who will leave the hive to mate (with multiple drones) in a drone congregation area, return to the hive, and begin her egg-laying duties.

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My second hive (the GA girls) and now in the process of requeening the colony. I can only hope that the workers rear a good queen to replace the one that left with the swarm, and hope that she will be well-mated.  There are a lot of things that can interfere with this process–cold, rainy weather, a predator needing a meal while this virgin queen is on her mating flight, or getting splatted by a huge raindrop on her way home.

With fingers crossed, I’m hoping for a good, new queen for replacement. If the normal sequence of events doesn’t work, then it is possible to purchase a new queen from professional breeders but since this was a successfully overwintered, productive colony, I  would like to keep these genetics going by allowing them to produce their own new queen.

Now it’s more anxious, not likely patient, waiting for the new queen.

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