Moving Bees - What Not to Do

As you may have read in my earlier post it is very hard to take your bees with you when you move.  If I had known how difficult it really was I wouldn't have done what I have just done.

I needed to relocate or give away all of my bees. Having seven hives I manages to give away two and I then proceeded to rent a U-Haul trailer to move the five I planned to keep.  I looked up the requirements to move bees like I was planning and I needed a certificate of health from the state I was leaving filed with the state I was moving to.  For a modest fee I was able to get a bee inspector out to my hives and before long all of my paperwork was in order.  To prepare for the move I harvested Honey from the hives in mid-Summer to try and get the weight down but the bees just filled them back up with honey from the plentiful flowers in the neighborhood.

I knew from talking to others and doing some internet research that bees generate a lot of heat when being moved.  The professionals throw nets over hives and move them in open containers like flat bed semi trailers.  I only had about three hours on the road so I decided to risk using a closed container.  I decided to risk further disaster by closing up the hives to prevent them from flying inside of the trailer!  Knowing the bees were about to get quite hot I stopped by my local Wal-mart and filled a shopping cart full of ice, about 250 lbs of it.  I got some strange looks as I checked out but it was nothing compared to the looks I got when I suited up in my full body beekeeping suit, opened the back of the U-Haul trailer, and started throwing bags of ice into it!

When I arrived at my destination I opened the back to see what the status was and was greeted with a cloud of angry bees.  For better or worse the hives hadn't stayed sealed and there were many angry bees waiting to express their feelings.  I warned the nearby homeowners that there would be some angry bees in the air shortly and proceeded to suit up and get to work.

I had five hives to move and not the best set up to do it.  I had an appliance dolly for moving the hives, the heaviest of which was about 350 lbs!  I also had some planks of wood to work as a ramp which worked, but just barely.  I nearly lost a hive over the side as the wood shifted at the wrong time.

A neighbor got stung early in the ordeal and a few houses down some children were enjoying tormenting their mother by sneaking out into the yard and pretending to be attacked by bees.  I did my best to ignore this and get the bees off of the trailer as quickly as possible.  I was happy to find that only one hive showed any signs of overheating.  I was not happy that there was a police car circling the block as I was working.  The homeowner from the property I was putting the bees on walked over to talk with the officer and not long after I finished unloading the trailer.  I still had to move the hives to their resting location and open the hives but I was eager to move the truck to put an end to the scene.  I closed the trailer, got in the truck, and started to drive off.  The police car followed me (of course) so I pulled myself over once we were out of sight of the bees.  The officer was smiling and in a good mood but said he wasn't sure keeping bees was allowed.  I had checked ordinances and I knew it was allowed but I thanked him for his assistance and we parted ways.

I returned to the bees and finished moving them, ending the journey mentally and physically exhausted.  In hindsight I should have gotten rid of the bees, moved the empty boxes, and started with new packages in the Spring.

The best thing I can say about the ordeal is that I'm glad I did it so I can recommend from experience that others do not do this.

A swarm in July

When July 1st comes around I think to myself "Phew, I'm glad swarm season is over and I don't have to worry about that anymore."  But unfortunately the bees don't always do what they're supposed to!  I got home around 6pm and went to the back yard to water some grass that was on death's door and found this gigantic swarm hanging in our maple tree.

It was high enough that I couldn't reach it with a step ladder and it was far enough from the trunk that an extension ladder wasn't going to work so I did something I probably shouldn't have.  I got my mother-in-law to help me move a table to the back yard that I put the ladder on top of.  And to make it extra dangerous it was a two legged table!  It was a bit wobbly, particularly when I sawed through the branch and picked up the weight of the swarm, but luckily no bees or humans fell to their death.

I had to do everything I could to keep this swarm because  it came from my best hive.  The bees kept their mite population in check through the Fall of 2011, they overwintered the best into 2012, they didn't swarm in the spring despite being asked to draw out foundation, and they produced a large excess of honey for me to harvest.  Since all of those characteristics came from the genetics of the queen who was now in this swarm I didn't want them to fly away despite my already having more hives then I want to have.

I was able to trim a small branch from the tree and carry the swarm over to the boxes I intended them to live in for the next week.  Next week I will move them away from my neighbor's fence and off to another apiary I'm establishing.  I took the frames out of the top box, grabbed the branch on either side of the swarm, and gave it a good shake into the box.  As I did I was reminded how NICE workers are when they are in a natural swarm like this.  A few bees landed on my pants and arms but they did nothing but nasanov like crazy as I picked them up one by one between thumb and forefinger and placed them back in their new home.

The old rhyme goes "A swarm in July isn't worth a fly" but I'm sure this one will overwinter well on their own merits despite the late swarm.

Bee Vacuum

One of the problems with urban beekeeping is that the bees do really well.  What I mean by that is that a new beekeeper who gets a package in the Spring is almost assuredly going to have a hive that is so strong it will swarm in the Summer.

This nice spruce tree is in the back yard of one of the boys I'm mentoring this year.  It's a healthy tree and you can tell that... wait.. something doesn't look quite right with that tree.  Lets take a closer look.

The tree is full of bees!  Well, that's nothing I haven't dealt with before.  Not having the benefit of seeing the particulars we can now see in these photos I instructed them to place a box under the branch the swarm was on and shake them into the box.  When they replied that it wasn't possible to do that I suggested trimming the branch or branches the bees were on and taking the branches to the boxes.  I didn't realize the tree was so small and removing the branches with the bees on them would so horribly disfigure such a nice little tree.

After attempting to brush the swarm into boxes, gather bees by the bucket full and bail them into the box, and after getting stung more than a few times they gave up as the sun was setting.  I assured them that the swarm wouldn't leave until the sun was up and they responded that it sure would be nice to have one of those bee vacuums they heard about on the internet.

I had also heard about bee vacuums and I had almost built one last year.  Beesource has an excellent discussion forum and I've found it to be a great resource for build-it-yourself plans, including this bee vacuum.  When I say I "almost built" a bee vacuum I mean that I looked at the plans and thought about making one but hadn't actually done anything.  By this point it was around 8pm and I had decided to make that vacuum.



The first step was to find material to use.  I saw half of an old green ping pong table that was serving as a workbench and some wood paneling leaning against the wall in the garage.  Perfect!  I didn't have the various hinges and latches that I would need but I figured that would work itself out after I started getting things together. I got out a circular saw and a drywall T square and started making rectangles.  Once I had my 16 rectangles of various sizes I drilled and sawed out two of them and put #8 hardware cloth over the opening.  I then proceeded to assemble the rectangles as the plans showed.

I didn't have handles for the inner box so I attached some twine in their place.  I didn't have hinges for the lid so I just used some ten year old "100 mile an hour" tape that I still had sitting around in place of the hinge and it seemed to work good enough.  I then proceeded to disassemble my vacuum and stick it to the top of the lid, drilling a total of four big holes in the boxes.  By 2am I was ready for a test of the newly assembled bee vacuum!  I nervously switched the vacuum on and checked the suction at the end of the hose.  It really sucked.  Success!  I reinforced a few of the seams with some more tape and went to bed around 3am, planning to drive over to this swarm in the morning before they flew off.

I was so excited to give this curiosity a try I had no trouble getting up in time for a 7:30 meetup at the swarm.  I exercised amazing restraint in calmly handing over my precious creation to my student for its first field test.  Even I was surprised at how calm the bees remained as they were sucked up the hose!

We had a total of four people watching the bee vacuum in action (three of them with cameras) and everyone felt quite safe despite the thousands of venomous insects being forced through a vacuum nearby.

It was hard to believe that these were the same bees that had delivered a total of seven stings only a handful of hours before.  As my student worked his way around the tree I adjusted the vacuum throttle (a very necessary part of the vacuum) and before long there weren't many bees left in the tree.  It soon became apparent that the queen had been sucked away because the few workers who were left began taking to the air in search of their now missing swarm.  The vacuuming of the swarm went quite well, the only problem came after the vacuum was shut off and some of my 10 year old tape started to come loose.  A few bees began to emerge from the box but I was able to re-stick the tape and only a few bees were lost as a result.

Once the bees were safely stowed in the recently assembled bee vacuum box my student had time to assemble the equipment they recently purchased to hive the swarm.  Two days later the bees were taken out of the basement and some of the tape was removed to allow the bees to exit the holding box and enter their new home.  The original plan calls for a sliding rail to hold the box together but again I compromised in the interest of speed and used tape that had reached the end of its lifespan.


I wasn't present for the re-boxing of the bees but from the pictures they shared it looks like it didn't go perfectly but eventually all of the bees moved from the holding box into the hive.  SUCCESS!

UPDATE:  Unfortunately the bees didn't stay in the new hive and instead flew away not long after the transfer.  My diagnosis is that the hive was disturbed too much after being transferred to the hive.  The box was opened frequently as the hive was adjusted to make a perfect home for the swarm but unfortunately what they really needed was peace and quiet after a long journey involving a bee vacuum.

An Early Swarm

I've heard it so many times I have no idea where it originated but common wisdom is that:
"A swarm in May is worth a load of hay.
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon.
A swarm in July isn't worth a fly."

My addition:
"A swarm in April will probably catch a beekeeper by surprise."

This is the earliest swarm I've ever seen, April 20th. About 2 lbs of bees and we found them at 4pm in the tree. With this I am officially out of bottom boards and covers. I also have more hives than I want to have with 5 hives that need splitting (or something!) or they will likely be up in the trees too.

It must be spring already.

One of the great things about having an observation hive is that you get a peek into what's going on inside outdoor hives when it is too cold to do a full inspection.

On February 26th I noticed this bee on the right doing a waggle dance. She thought she had found some pollen and was telling the other bees where it was. When there aren't any flowers in bloom bees will collect dust from odd places and treat it like pollen. I've seen them collecting sawdust and I've heard stories of them collecting most any dust.

As I was trying to determine what the substance is that the bee was treating like pollen my wife presented me with this wonderful picture on the left! The stuff the bee collected was actually pollen after all. Those bees really do know what they're doing after all.

And apparently Spring for a bee can begin as early as February 26th in Nebraska.

I was told that this flower is a crocus and they can bloom very early in the year, often through snow. I've not heard that they are an important source of pollen or nectar for bees but from what I'm seeing this year this is the pollen that will allow my observation hive to start rearing brood as they did not have any stored for the winter.

I have quite a few maple trees in my area that may be blooming already but when a maple blooms you won't notice it unless you are specifically looking for that. There's no missing a purple flower like this one as it pushes its way up through partly frozen ground.