Busy With a Capital BEE

I've been busier than a one legged man in a a** kicking contest lately. In the last few weeks, I've traveled to Athens, Georgia to pick up 4 nucs from Jennifer Berry, then to Carthage, Tennessee to get a couple of nucs from Bee Weaver Apiaries, installed 3 packages in some new hives, split one hive, requeened another hive, mixed up and fed about 15 gallons of sugar syrup and put together a whole bunch of equipment. So how did it all go?

Nucs from Jennifer Berry

I couldn't be happier with this purchase. I only live about 2 hours from Athens, so the location is about as good as I could hope for. Further, Jennifer allowed me to bring the hive components down about a month early and she added 5 of her frames to each one a few weeks before I came to pick them up. So, the bees had already started drawing comb on the 5 frames of foundation I supplied. This was a big bonus. Once I got a chance to inspect them, I found a very nice brood pattern with lots of capped brood and lots of extremely gentle bees. They should be ready for a super in the next week or so. I'm definitely planning on ordering more nucs from Jennifer for next year.

A Berry's Bees "Peachy Queen"



Lots of capped brood underneath all these bees...



nom, nom, nom...



Package Bees

Last year, I worked out a deal with a friend of a friend to let me put some hives on his property which consists of a few acres of blueberries and another 60 acres of all sorts of good wildflower nectar sources like clover, vetch and blackberries. And best of all, he is vehemently against the use of pesticides and herbicides. In addition to my hives, he wanted to start some hives for his family if I'd be willing to help him get them started and share some of what I know. Of course, I was all too happy to oblige. It was way too late to order nucs, so I set about trying to find a source for some packages. Fortunately, a couple of members from my local beekeeping association worked out an arrangement with H&R Apiaries in Jessup, Georgia and I was able to order 3 packages through them. The members were able to go down to H&R to pick up a trailer load full of packages in the morning and bring them back to a local pick up site the same day. So by the time I picked up the three packages I ordered, the bees had been out of a hive less than 24 hours. I installed them by removing 5 frames from the hive body and placing the package in the open space to let the bees climb out on their own rather than dumping them out. When I pulled the empty packages out the next day, I had less than a 1/3 cup of dead bees between all three packages. I found the bees to be extremely gentle and started drawing out comb pretty quickly. The club members intend to do this again next year, so I'll probably get a few more next year.


Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



Nucs from Beeweaver

Back in the late 90's after I got out of college, I bought a few packages of Buckfast bees from R Weaver Apiaries in Navasota, Texas before Binford Weaver's family split off and started Beeweaver Apiaries. I liked them, but I felt that the long mailing from Texas to South Carolina was too stressful on the bees. So, when I saw that Beeweaver was doing a drop off program where they trucked packages and nucs from their location to various drop of sites across the country, I decided to give them a shot and pick up a couple of nucs from the closest drop site, which was in Tennessee. When I told people I was getting some nucs from Texas, warnings of the bees being Africanized were abundant. Fortunately, the bees appear to be very gentle. Gas prices alone put the lid on doing this again, but mileage aside, I wasn't exactly thrilled with this purchase. To begin with, when I ordered the nucs, they were supposed to be shipped in a heavy duty plastic reusable nuc box (retail ~$45). When I arrived to pick them up, they were in an inexpensive corrugated plastic nuc box (retail ~$9).  I intended to reuse the heavy duty boxes for swarm retrieval, so I was pretty disappointed in the use of the cheaper unit. I asked about the change up, and apparently, the heavy duty units were being shipped from Canada and after the shipping charges were factored in, a cheaper unit was the only way to go. Oh well...



What I thought I was getting...

 



What I got instead...

The nucs contained 4 frames, with the 5 frame location being occupied by a division board feeder. The feeders on both nucs were empty. Once I got a chance to transfer everything into my hive bodies, I found a few of the frames to be in pretty rough shape. The top wedge on one of the frames had warped to the point that it had pulled the nails out on one end, while another had a broken end bar. The comb looked a little old and had very little capped brood. Bees had chewed away the wax at the bottom and sides of a few of them, leaving only the frame wire holding the comb at the bottom and sides. There was probably a cup or more of dead bees per nuc, but to be fair, I had to pick the nucs up a day after the drop off because of my work schedule. All in all, I think I'd have been much better off buying packages instead.



No capped brood. Wax not attached at sides & bottom. Wedge bar separated. (Beeweaver Nuc)



Broken end bar (Beeweaver Nuc)



The Split

For those of you just joining us, I took the queen and 5 frames from a pretty strong hive and put them in a nuc at my house (My bee hives are kept elsewhere) a few weeks ago. The donor hive used medium frame supers for everything, so there were no deep or shallow supers. After a few days, I added a deep nuc box with 5 frames of foundation below the medium nuc box. The bees immediately began drawing the comb in the deep nuc and the queen started laying a nice pattern shortly after. Over the weekend, I decided that the population was strong enough to move them into a standard hive consisting of 1 deep hive body and one medium super. I haven't yet decided if I'll move the colony to one of the other bee yards or keep it at my house. Right now, it's in the flower bed in the front yard and I've had no complaints from neighbors, so we'll see how it goes. The donor hive was still queenless as of this past weekend. The virgin queen emerged on April 16th, so I expect her to be back in the hive by this weekend. Fingers crossed.

And last but not least, a very special thanks to the Fetching Mrs. T Bee for putting up with my travels, gallons of sticky sugar syrup made in our kitchen and using the table on our back deck for a pit stop for traveling nucs. A hobby without your best friend's support isn't much of a hobby.


If you'd like to be notified of updates to this blog, please email me at beeswax@teezbees.com. I promise your email address will not be shared with anyone.

 If you're interested in learning more about beekeeping, join a local beekeepers association as well as your state's beekeepers association. Explore your state's master beekeeper program if they have one. The following links can get you started:

U.S. State Beekeeping Clubs


South Carolina
South Carolina Beekeepers Association
Local Beekeepers Associations in South Carolina
South Carolina Master Beekeeper Program

Georgia
Georgia Beekeepers Association
Local Beekeepers Associations in Georgia
Georgia Master Beekeeper Program

North Carolina
North Carolina State Beekeepers Association
Local Beekeepers Associations in North Carolina
North Carolina Master Beekeeper Program

Splitsville

I figured it was time to stir things up a bit, so I decided to split one of my hives. But it wasn't just because I couldn't leave well enough alone. In what appears to be something stripped from the annals of Bizzaro World, the weakest hive I had going into winter is now bursting at the seams, while my strongest hive is sucking wind. Ordinarily, I'd requeen the weak hive, but the only queens available in early April are in Hawaii and would cost me a bundle after shipping. So, I decided to let the bees do their thing and raise a queen for me.

For those who are unfamiliar, a split is the taking 4 or 5 frames of bees, brood (eggs, larvae & pupa), honey and pollen from a strong hive and putting them in an empty hive body or nuc box. If you don't have a new queen to introduce, whichever hive that is left "queenless" will instinctively begin raising a new queen within a few days.

I'm not going to pretend I'm some pro at splitting hives. I attempted it once and it failed because of mistakes on my part. And although I learned from those mistakes, I was understandably a little nervous about the possibility of fumbling a second time. As luck would have it, Jennifer Berry wrote the neatest little article on doing splits in this month's Bee Culture magazine, and after reading it, I was pretty pumped and ready for round two.


I planned to use a 5 frame nuc box to perform the split, but before I made the pilgrimage to the bee yard, I did a little prep; most of which was to prevent a truck cab full of angry bees from taking my eyes off the road. To begin with, I attached the bottom board to the nuc box with a couple of brackets I bought at Lowes. Next, I cut a piece of wood to block the entrance and secured it with a few thumb tacks. Then, I added a screened inner cover for ventilation. Finally, I rounded up an adjustable bungee cord to secure the inner cover so it wouldn't pop off coming down the road. With all my gear in check, I hit the road.

Bracket attaching the bottom board to the nuc for transport

Screened inner cover for ventilation



Entrance block held in place with tacks



Adjustable bungee cord. A truck cab full of angry bees wouldn't be good.

After a few puffs of smoke, I started taking the hive apart to find the frames suitable to my needs. When it comes to honey bees, I'm pretty good at two things: 1) I can usually find the queen, marked or not and 2) If I get stung, it's on the tenderest of spots. Guess which happened first?  Along about frame number three, an angry young lady decided to sting me on my index finger just behind my finger nail. So much for increased dexterity by not wearing gloves. It felt like I'd missed with the nail gun. I swear, I think she hit bone. Through gritted teeth I grunted as I scratched out the  rapidly emptying stinger, trying to shake it off. Now I know that an opposable thumb gives us an edge on the animal kingdom, but when it comes to manipulating frames in a bee hive, a pain free index finger is right up there with the thumb in my opinion. However, despite a throbbing digit, I found the queen a few frames later and whipped out my queen catcher, but in a continuance of the good luck, I ended up catching her in the jaws. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to release the grip immediately, and she dropped out. Absent a 3rd hand and quickly beginning to panic, I put the frame back in the hive and began searching for her. My luck started to turn as I found her crawling around on the ground in front of the hive without stepping on her...yes I've done that before too. Breathing a sigh of relief, I snapped her up in the queen catcher and set her aside. Three stings later (knee cap seriously?!, elbow and forearm), I released the likely traumatized queen into the nuc and loaded it up in the truck.


Queen Catcher




Done!

 Everything went pretty smooth from there. It's a good idea to move a split several miles away so that foragers won't return to the wrong hive. So I put the nuc on a couple of blocks in the flower bed of my front yard (about 10 miles away from the donor hive) and dropped on one of my hive top feeders with some syrup and pollen substitute to reduce their stress levels. By that evening, everything seemed hunky dory as they were flying in and out their new home.



Newest addition to the flower bed

I plan on keeping the nuc at my house for several weeks. In the meantime, I'll be checking on the donor hive in a couple of days to see how they're coming along raising a new queen. Hopefully, they'll have a new momma by mid month. Stay tuned...