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.