More Bees!

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As few weeks back, a former boss of mine contacted me because I'd asked folks to keep an eye out for honeybee swarms I could collect. It turns out his neighbor was moving out of state, and could not take their beehive with them.  I was looking for more bees, and these bees needed a home.

Robb and I went over to reconnoiter, and to devise a plan for moving these bees.  I'm quite experienced in moving swarms, but transporting entire beehives is something I haven't done many times.  In truth, the few times I've moved entire hives have not been particularly pleasant experiences, either for me or for the bees.  

I wanted to make this a perfectly planned and executed campaign so that nobody got hurt, and no bees got left behind.

Robb built a number of cardboard lids for the hive boxes.  We drove over to the house with a car filled with beekeeping tools, cardboard lids, and empty hive boxes.  We did all this just before dusk, when the bees would be getting ready for bed.

I placed an empty hive box inside a cardboard holder, and then transfer the frames of honeycomb (and bees) into the box.  Then I'd cap this box, wrap it in an old bedsheet, and carry it up the hill to my car. The beehive was located on a beautiful property in the Oakland hills.  While spending time at this house was lovely, carrying a box of irate honeybees up the steep hill in the dwindling twilight was quite an endeavor.  

It actually took us a couple of nights to complete the move, because we kept running out of daylight. I wouldn't recommend this generally, but as I'm currently furloughed from work, and we're under pandemic lockdown, we really didn't have anything else to do.  (Beekeeping is the ultimate hobby for social distancing.  Nobody really wants to get to close to an open beehive.)

I had initially intended to use the hive boxes that the bees came in, but as I was transporting them I noticed something that made me change my mind.

In among the bees was a diminutive scarab-like beetle with distinctive deely-bopper-like antennae.  It was a hive pest I'd long read about, but had never seen in the flesh: a small hive beetle.  Since these beetles tend to live in the crevices of beehives, I thought it might be wise to not bring a hive with beetles into my yard.  I figured I'd store the hive equipment -- which really is nice -- until I could figure out how to be certain it didn't contain these invasive beetles.  (The hive is parked at the end of our driveway for the moment.)

For the most part, this hive was compatible with my gear.  The only difference is that the original owners used two sizes of boxes -- smaller ones for honey storage and one large one for brood. 

I prefer to only use one size box for everything.  If all my gear is the same proportions, then it's all interchangeable. Also, shorter boxes, because they contain less volume, are significantly less heavy than taller boxes. Honey is shockingly heavy.  I don't want to struggle when I work with thousands of stinging insects.  I'm always looking for ways to make my work run smoothly.

To accommodate the larger frames, Robb built a temporary box, by screwing two of our boxes together.  We ordered a "queen excluder" to keep the queen out of the larger box.  My plan was to have the worker bees finish raising the brood in this box, and not let the queen lay more eggs there.  

For those wondering how this works, the queen is larger than her sisters and can't fit through the interstices in the excluder.  The worker bees can come and go, but the queen is prevented from entering the box.  

This colony settled into their new life in our tiny back yard very happily.  They are a huge, vigorous colony. Every day in the late afternoon, I'd find myself watching the massive amount of bees flying in and out of the hive and say to Robb, "It's a good thing I'm not afraid of bees."

The hive was crammed with bees.  Maybe too many of them.

I gave them a couple of weeks to recover from the disruption of their move, and then did a hive inspection.  I saw several of these peanut-like structures. These are the specialized cells that the bees create to house developing queens.  The larvae develop in these cells until they are ready to undergo their final transformation from grub to honeybee. At that time, the worker bees close up the cell, and the metamorphosis occurs.

Several closed structures?  That means there were about to be several new queens. Which probably meant that these bees were going to swarm.  Which would probably not endear me to my neighbors.

Clearly, it was time to intervene, and split the hive into two colonies.

I set up a second beehive, and divided the colonies between the two hives. Each colony got an even distribution of frames. Each colony got a couple of capped queen cells. Each got a whole lot of bees. And each got a large number of empty frames, to fill as they pleased.

Hopefully this would keep the bees occupied and dissuade them from swarming out of the hives.

These bees are already hard at work.  

I let them build whatever structures they wish, and in a few short weeks, they've built this astonishing wax comb, and filled it with honey. 

I could not be more delighted with these wonderful new bees.

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After a long absence, I'm re-joining the Harvest Monday blogging party.  It will be nice to be part of the community of online gardeners again.  If anyone wishes to read other garden blogs, they can find links at the Happy Acres blog.