Easiest Swarm I Ever Got

A farmer called me via my entry on the LCBA Swarm List. He had a swarm, "Come get it."

I asked, "What equipment do you think I need? Should I bring my ladder?"

"It's in a box already."

I drove over to the most beautiful little farm area by Creswell. Sure enough there on the picnic table behind the house was a big cardboard box, all taped up. There were even little screen windows taped in place so the bees could breathe. Next time I fix up a cardboard bee box, that's the way I'm gonna do it.

The farmer told me he had 5 hives, but was moving and didn't want to start any more colonies. So when this swarm issued from one of his hives, he just called me as the closest beek on the swarm list. He slid the box off the table and carried it out to my car!

"How many times are you gonna get a swarm all packed in a box and ready to go?" he asked, laughing.

"Prolly never again," I admitted, and shook his hand. 

"They produce great honey, too" he smiled.

Me, I smiled too as I drove back home. I had "caught" a swarm dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, wearing flip flops. My part in the operation, minus drive time, was about 5 minutes. You know how there's usually some leak somewhere in a taped-up box full of bees? I drove home looking in the back every once in a while, expecting to see a few bees buzzing around the back window. But no, this farmer knew what he was doing. Every bee was securely inside the box.

I've decided to give the Hard Luck Hive another shot. What is this, the forth attempt? Anyway, I set the hive back up in that nice dappled-sun area by the greenhouse in my back yard. I put 3 boxes on the Warré hive, put on my veil and my gloves and opened the big box. It was big for a reason! There must have been five pounds of bees inside. After spraying them down a bit with water, I shook them into the upper box of the Warré. All around me the dryer bees flew up and buzzed around; but they were so docile that they didn't even pretend to be upset as I put the top bars back into place and fiddled around with the Warré quilt and roof assembly. No stings whatsoever this time.

Because there have been so many absconding swarms this year noted by newbeeks on all the lists, I've tried a trick from several experienced beeks who were posting to different discussion groups: If you want to avoid absconsion, use a queen excluder for the first few days until they start bringing in pollen. My Hard Luck Hive stand is constructed so that there is a raised rim between the lowest box and the bottom board. I placed the excluder over that rim and set the boxes over it, which hold it in place. Now the bees in K&M's kTBH hadn't been very easily able to go in and out through the excluder, but these gals just seemed to ignore it and right away started moving in and out as pretty as you please. I can easily remove the excluder by sliding it out in a few days. For right now, 24 hours later, the bees seem at home, making orientation flights and even sampling the borage blossoms in the back yard.

It's been a strange year for the bees here in Oregon: a cold snap right as Spring began, then a quick spell of sunlight, then almost constant rain from mid-March until just this weekend. Timing is off for everything related to the bees. Some beeks have even had to feed their bees well into Spring, according to Ken at the Beek Association. It seems to have delayed some swarming, because all of a sudden, like my box o' bees, the swarms are beginning to issue now that there is sunshine. There's no news from the grove of bee trees. But I expect they'll be swarming next. I'm looking to fill out the 'Biodynamic Lang' and the redwood Warré here very soon.

But I doubt I'll soon get any more already boxed up and ready to go ... for free!

Hard Luck Hive

This hive has again got some bees in it. I figured these particular bees were so unlucky that the Hard Luck Hive was the perfect home for them ....

I got a call from my experienced Beek mentor friend down the road. Not far from us a landowner had done quite a bit of hollow tree felling on his land down by the Willamette River. There were some cotton woods and some oaks falling over that had big hollow centers and six-foot-diameter trunks.  Somehow a limb on one of the old cottonwood trees still standing had broken off and was lying in the grove. The limb was hollow and had a very old feral bee colony inside. The limb had disintegrated when it hit the ground and there were combs and tree bark and "bees everywhere".  Did we want to come save them?

A quick look revealed that there wasn't much left of the colony: about four or five dinner plate-sized combs representing the remains of the brood nest were on the ground, scattered around were a bunch of pieces of  honey-filled comb. Everywhere there was a bunch of empty dry old comb, in colors from brownish to black. The hive had been laying in the open for a least a day, maybe longer. However there were still a lot of nurse bees tending the brood comb and there was a chance they had kept some of the brood larvae alive. They were a bunch of little Russian-looking feral gals.We tossed a tarp over the whole 'crash site' and I quickly went and got my rescue box and equipment.

I debated for a while with myself to decide which hive I should make ready for them. I had an unpainted new Lang, two vacant KTBHs, the redwood Warre` I had built this winter, and the Hard Luck Hive. Since the Hard Luck Hive was still assembled and in place, it was the best choice; although I would have to 'smoosh' some of the comb into place below the top bars. (I would have had to do that with Lang frames too, and the Kenyan TBHs would have taken a lot more surgery on the exposed combs.)

It was easy to pick up the brood nest, since it was still relatively intact. All the combs stayed together and all the bees just clung to them as I gently laid them in the bee rescue box. Most every one of the 'flyers' orbiting the crash site flew into the box too. There weren't any drones or foragers that we could see. At first I thought that maybe in the limb crash they had all flown away; but on further reflection, I now think that since it is the end of winter, there weren't any more bees present during the disaster but the brood nurses and the queen. I estimate there was only a half-pound to a pound of bees present, altogether. I picked up all the honey comb I could locate, a couple of larger pieces of the empty dried comb and took everything home.

Once home I put the central section of the brood nest and nurse bees in the top box of the Warre`, and secured the combs to the top bars with twine. I leaned the smaller portions of full comb on either side and put the honey-filled comb below it and on the edges of the brood. Since it's still cold out and the brood nest had already been very exposed to the elements, I didn't try to separate any of the combs looking for the queen. She's either in there or she's not. I'll know soon enough.  I just closed up the hive quickly and made sure everything was as welcoming to the new occupants as I could make it. Other than that, I'm leaving them alone to sort themselves out.

We've had a couple of warm afternoons since I put them in the hive.  I was relieved to see a few foragers out and about, going in and out of the hive every time the sun came out. They seem to be happy to be here.

I dunno if the brood larvae have survived the crash. I dunno if there's a queen. If the colony can survive a week or two there will be nectar and pollen aplenty, so they have a chance to make it. If they deplete the honey stores that came with them, I can feed 'em. It would be a good sign if they were depleting those stores, it would mean some new bees were hatching. If the brood hatches and there's no queen, I can always combine them with Ed's Country Bee colony.

They're Hard Luck Bees, but they have a chance now, dontcha think?