Backyard Apiary

Black widow spider wrapping a bee in teh front of a hive at the community garden

I inspected the garden hives this past weekend and there was a giant black widow spider that set up shop under the leftmost hive. I tried cruising it’d with a stick, but it fled under the hive and I wasn’t going to go chasing after it.

The other weak hive that overwintered at the garden is no more. The hive was queenless and the population was only a few hundred bees. The hive was too weak to save and wax moths had started to move in. I shook out all of the bees and have begun the process of cycling frames through the freeze to kill off the moth eggs, larvae and worms. I can only fit 3 frames at a time and have left the others out in the yard for the bees to clean up. The tulip poplar is blooming so the bees are only visiting the free meal on days that it rains.

The long hive at the garden is doing really well. Many frames of capped brood!

There was a carpenter bee burrowing in to the side of a box. The box walls are only 3/4″ thick, but apparently that is more than enough room for a carpenter bee to make a home. After I chased it out, I plugged the hole with sticks. That really won’t do much besides slow it down a little bit, but hopefully that’s a good enough measure until I can permanently plug it.

The backyard hives are doing well. The nuc split had three frames with capped queen cells. I gave one to the mostly drone hive and another to the hive I captured from my neighbor’s tree. Now there is no doubt that every hive in the yard has or will have a queen.

The foul weather on the 29th has the bees in a really unpleasant mood. While standing about 15′ in front of the hives, a bee cited me for loitering and stung me right next to my eye. I’ve been stung a fair number of times as a beekeeper (two in a week) and I must say that this is one of the most unpleasant places to get stung. I took some allergy medicine in an effort to prevent swelling.

I moved the captured hive in to the yard and the bees seem to like their new home. They were festooning on a single frame instead of the wax attached to the pine needles. I checked the tree where I caught the bees and there was a tiny cluster of the stragglers.

The top bar hive bees are booming! They’ve already drawn out two bars of wax and started working on a few more. I cleaned out the scrap pieces of wax at the bottom.

One of the splits has a capped queen cell. The other split is mostly emerged drones and I didn’t see any queen cells. The split needs to be merged with a viable hive or given eggs so the can raise their own queen. I got a good picture of a few drones almost completely emerged.

My new neighbor stopped by to let me know there was a giant pine cone or swarm of bees up in a pine tree in his front yard. The cluster was about 30′ off the ground on the very end of a tiny branch. I don’t know why they chose that particular spot, but the hive would have come crashing down very soon because the branch was already sagging. He first noticed the bees almost a week ago, which means that despite the extreme winds, heavy rain and peanut m&m sized hail we had this past weekend, they decided to pick a completely exposed location to build.

I set up an A-frame ladder and fully extended the bucket on a telescoping pole. From the second rung from the top, I was close enough to reach the cluster. I positioned it right below with my neighbor spotting from a safe distance and then gave a quick thrust to scoop the bees in to the bucket. Some bees rained down and I was immediately stung on the wrist. Swarms are generally very calm and not defensive. As I lowered the bucket, I could see some fresh, white comb built in to the pine needles. I was no longer catching a swarm, but removing a hive. The cluster remaining in the tree was about half the size and the rest were poured in to a waiting medium box. I switched to the telescoping tree pruner and I propped the telescoped bucket in the ladder directly below (about 15′ below) the hive. At this point many of the bees were already in the box and fanning. Many slices later, it was a flimsy little twig of a branch,  the hive came down and missed the bucket. I didn’t think it would land in the bucket, but the chances were better than if I had not set up the bucket. It was already fairly dark and using a flashlight, I didn’t see the queen on the ground where the comb landed. I’m hopeful that I got her with the first scoop.

I caught my first swarm of the year this evening. They were waiting for me to get home from work on the dogwood tree about 15′ from the hives. I’m not sure which hive send out the swarm. My guess is that it was Hegemone because I haven’t been in the hive in over a week and I split the other hive, which didn’t have any capped queen cells on Friday,  in to three hives. Last year, Hegemone sent her second swarm to the same dogwood tree right next to the hives. I put last year’s in to the same top bar hive, but they absconded a few days later.

There are a few basic methods used for actively capturing a swarm.

1. You can cut the branch and drop the bees in to a box.
2. You can use a bee vacuum to suck the bees in to a container.
3. You can shake the bees in to a bucket or container and then pour them in to a hive.

I like the dogwood tree and the swarm was on one of the main branches. Cutting it was not an option and I don’t own a bee vacuum.  I held a restaurant busboy tray under the swarm and then tapped the branch down quickly against the tray and most of the bees fell in to it. I proceeded to pour the bees as quickly as possible in to the top bar hive before they all took to the air. The main goal was to get the queen in to the hive so the rest of the bees would migrate in to there instead of back on to the branch.

I’m hopeful that they’ll remain in the top bar hive this time around. Instead of being a new hive, it had a lot of bee traffic in it and there is even some small pieces of comb on some of the top bars. I also (probably a going to be a mistake) put a bunch of scrap wax in to the hive to give it that old hive smell.

I inspected all of the backyard hives on April 3rd and the long hive has a queen! The hive has been sustained and this new queen is an offspring from the purchased queen, which has been dubbed “super queen” because of her size and how much she lays. Antheia, Hegemone and super queen are expanding nicely. Hegemone had a few swarm cells on a few frames. As far as I could tell, the cells were empty. I added another box and swapped in several empty frames to help keep them from swarming.

The morning of April 8th, the long hive and Antheia were moved to the community garden. Both bee yards have a mix of genetics and at least two strong hives to help ensure any issues can be addressed easily. Both hives originally at the garden are weak and possibly caused by me leaving the top feeders filled for too long. Their queens didn’t have much room to lay because every cell was being filled with syrup. They’ll get more space and a brood boost soon. There were not many forages out when the hives were moved because it was early in the morning and a little chilly. I put a nuc about 15′ from where the long have sat. There were not the typical dozens of confused bees flying around trying to locate the hive. I found two bees in the nuc this evening and dropped them off at the entrance of Hegemone. Any forages from Antheia would have drifted to the super queen because her hive is now on the end.