New Bees

I got the new boxes painted just in time. Roberta and I went and did a cutout from a sprinkler box at Lisa Edelstein's house.


She has a beautiful yard overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir. She's had a couple hives set up house in her yard recently. Here's a picture she took from up on her deck while she watched us do the cut out.

The bees were really mellow, even when we were cutting their comb out and attaching it to the frames in the new box. It seemed like we got the queen because the workers were doing a lot of fanning and gradually all of the stray bees marched up into the box to join their sisters. Roberta vacuumed some stragglers out of the sprinkler box but there weren't many bees flying around by the time we were done.

I'm hoping that they stay because they are such nice bees. My first hive seems much more protective of their space. So far they seem to be doing OK next to each other. You can really tell how much more active the first hive is though.

New Hive Boxes

I got three new boxes for the bees. One is meant to go on top of the existing hive when I get some more bees to put in. If you separate them with a layer of newspaper, by the time they chew through they think they are from the same hive. If there are two queens one will get axed. My hope is to increase the number of bees I have to make the hive stronger. The more there are the better they can defend themselves. Roberta says it's better to have one big hive than two small ones.


But I still got a couple of deep boxes to start a new hive. Here you can see the two sizes, a medium and a deep. The medium will go on the existing hive which already has two mediums. The two new deeps will be to start a new hive. Some people like the mediums because they are easier to move, but I'm hoping that once I get the deeps in place I'll never move them again. Starting with two deeps will give the future hive more room and keep them from getting too crowded. If they feel crowded they will swarm and take half the bees with them.


The boxes came put together but I took them apart so I could glue joints.




The glue should do a good job of holding the sides together but I also added some brads.


I got a layer of primer on them. Paint will have to wait for tomorrow.

Robbers

As I was digging the tail end of the trench for the turkey coop I looked over at the bee hive which is only about 15 feet away. It seemed like there was an awful lot of activity on the front of the hive. I've been reading my beekeeping book for the last couple weeks and one of the topics it covered was robbing, when another hive tries to rob my hive of it's honey. The conditions it described were very similar to what I was seeing.

It looked like the bees were having a party on the porch. It was covered with bees as well as the bottom third of the front. I couldn't see any bees locked in combat but I did see bees crawling up the front of the hive and then taking off. The book says that these could be robbers that are loaded with honey and therefor have difficulty taking off because they are so heavy. Normally a forager would leave the hive empty handed and take off from the porch.

I suffered a moment of indecision but figured it would be better to overreact than under react. I ran down the hill to get my bee jacket and a sheet. When I got back to the top of the yard there were fewer bees but still a lot more than I'm used to seeing. There seemed to be an frenetic character to their movements rather than the deliberate coming and going that they normally show. There were also still bees crawling up the front. This photo does nothing to capture what I initially saw that sent me running down the hill.

This video might be too compressed to see anything but you may be able to see the bees crawling up the front of the hive.

I uploaded the video to youtube which shows more detail.

I blocked the door with a piece of wood to make the opening smaller and easier to guard. Then I covered the whole hive with a wet sheet. This is supposed to make the entrance harder for the robbers to find. As I was putting the piece of wood at the entrance I began to have doubts that they were being robbed. As soon as I touched the hive a bunch of bees came out to get me. I would have thought they would be too occupied fighting on the inside but maybe I was the more important threat. They didn't spend too much time on me.

My phone chose that moment to die so I didn't get a picture. I'll go up in a little while and check on them. Hopefully if they weren't being robbed my intervention won't cause them too much trouble. My grandmother's sheet, on the other hand, may never be the same.

Update:
I just checked on them and things seem much calmer.

The bees don't know how to get in though. They are congregating near where they would normally go in. I guess I'll leave the sheet on for now, not sure what else to do.


Morning update:

I took the sheet off this morning. There were still bees clustered near the entrance outside the sheet.


I left the piece of plywood in front of the entrance to make it easy to guard. Roberta says that I can add some bees to make the hive stronger so they will be less vulnerable. She has another cut out that she can give me. I need to get more boxes for the hive though.


I was afraid they might chew through the sheet but it was ok. They just left a yellow pollen smudge.

Bees

So It's been a couple weeks and the bees have hung around. I don't have much to show because I haven't opened up the hive to check on them yet. Roberta said to give them a couple weeks to settle down before I bothered them again. I like to think that taking fuzzy pictures at close range with my phone is not bothering them.

This is some evidence of their work. The rubber bands that we used to attach the comb to the frames has been removed and cast out of the hive.


These rubber bands are hard to see.


Here, I made them pink.

I guess this means they've resecured the comb with wax. I'll try to take a look inside this weekend to see what's going on. I'm supposed to confirm that there's a queen in there too but it's pretty unlikely that I'll be able to recognize her. I've never seen one before and I'm not sure where to look. If they have drawn new comb I can look to see if there are eggs in the cells. That would show that a queen has been busy. The eggs are so small though I might need to get a magnifying glass.

Bee Cut Out

Roberta and Ceebs came over last night to transfer the bees from the squirrel box to my hive box. Their comb had to be cut out and tied into the frames in the hive box.

Roberta got some photos and videos of the process but here are some from this morning. As opposed to the rest of the times I've seen them this week, there are bees everywhere. They are flying around, crawling over the hive box, on the ground and on the squirrel box. We didn't finish until it was cold and dark last night so the bees basically laid where they fell. Once it warms up a little more I'm hoping they'll be able to regroup.


The door is in the back now so you can only see a few bees on this side.


They are still very interested in the squirrel box. It must still smell like home. Hopefully the queen is in the hive box and all the bees will gather there.


The video doesn't really do it justice but for every bee you can see here imagine 10 more swooping around.


Update: 6:00pm
I climbed around to the other side so I could see the door to the hive box. There were bees coming and going and some just hanging out.

Bees!.2

I went to a Backwards Beekeepers meeting yesterday and ran into Roberta who I know from the Chicken group. She's a very active Beekeeper and saver and relocator. It turns out that she had a box of bees looking for a new home and offered to bring it over this morning.

She said that it was a cutout in a squirrel box. I thought that squirrel box was a technical bee term but it turns out it was a box made for squirrels to live in that gets strapped to a tree. It hadn't occurred to me that people would want to encourage squirrels to live near them, but maybe they're less ambivalent about squirrels than I am.

The squirrel box must have looked good to the bees because they moved in. Here it is on top of my hive box. Roberta said that we should let them settle down for a while and then move the comb from the squirrel box into my hive box. Hopefully this will encourage them to stay and set up shop in my yard. We'll see how it goes.



Update: I went to check on them when I got home from work. I couldn't see anything from the front so I edged around to the left and peeked around the back to see if I could see anything. There's a hole in the squirrel box that faces the back. There were bees piled all along the edge of the hole. It might have been my imagination but it seemed like they started moving around a bit once I got there.



It's kind of hard to see so I lightened this next photo to try to emphasize the bees. It looks jammed solid. A couple bees flew out while I was taking pictures. I didn't have my suit on.


This is a picture of me running away after one flew out and hit my neck.


Update 5/24:
I got a slightly better picture tonight cuz I got home a little earlier.

All it cost me was one bee sting to the hand. I wonder how many times I'll have to learn that lesson.

No More Bees

When I got home from work the next day the bees were gone. There were a couple stragglers trying to figure out where the rest had gone. Welcome to the club. I'm not sure why this hive decided to keep looking. One day I'll find a match.

Last Thursday I went to do a cut out with a few other people from the Backwards Beekeepers. Even though it was hard, sweaty work it was fascinating. I learned a lot.

Bees!

So I put my name on the "Needs Bees" list with Backwards Beekeepers and I already got two calls from people in the group. One call was to assist with a cut out of a 5 year old hive tomorrow morning (I guess I'll find out what that means tomorrow), and the other call was to see if I wanted a swarm that was all boxed up and ready to go.

I drove down to Redondo Beach on my lunch hour to pick up the box.

The bees were buzzing a little but seemed pretty calm. I don't know how many bees are in there but the box was fairly heavy.


The guy who have me the bees said to set on top of my hive boxes with hole facing down so that the bees would have to move through the hive box to exit. That way they could experience how cozy and perfect it would be for their new home. He said to do it at night so the bees would wake up calm in the morning and not be agitated when they discovered the hive box.

By the time I got home from work it was already getting dark so I got to work making the box more hospitable. I wrapped string around some of the frames to give the bees more places to grab on to in the hive so they wouldn't have to be on top of each other. This is something I saw Marc do on his flikr stream. I also brushed some honey around on the inside to encourage the bees to stay.


I put on my bees suit but the bees never left the box and barely stirred while I opened the hole in their box and set it on top of my hive box.

I even tucked my pants into my socks.


In the morning I ran up the hill to see what was going on. Not much. Like my house, the hive box is in the shade in the morning so it's cool.


I went up a couple hours later after it had warmed up a bit and there were a couple bees flying around.


There also seemed to be more activity in the cardboard box. You can see some of the bees clinging to the screen.


I guess it will take them awhile to figure out that the front door is at the bottom. I wish I could be there today to see what they do.

Bees

Last weekend I got the final coat of paint on the bee box and this weekend I was hoping to get it positioned somewhere up on the hill. I needed to have some kind of base that would be sturdy but also impregnable to ants. Apparently ants can do a number on bees so a lot of people have legs that can be set inside containers that hold something to prevent the ants from crossing.

Azalea and Marc and Max have very slick pipes that screw into the base of box. They look great and can be adjusted to make the box level, but when is saw how much they cost (almost $24 for all the pieces) and after spending so much for my SWCs I decided I needed to find another solution.

I scavenged around the yard and found a couple 2x4s that were long enough to do something with. I made a frame that was 16"x 6' with a couple cross braces in the middle. I figure I can fit at least two hives on here or maybe three. I always thought that bees were territorial and needed to be separated but they seem to do OK closer together. This way I don't have to build a base for each hive.


I had some leftover rebar from building the stairs.

So I drilled holes in the bottom of the base and pounded the legs in with a hammer

The whole contraption seems pretty solid. I could stand on it. I hope that I'm heavier than a couple bee hives.


This is my finger. I just thought it was a pretty color orange.


I found a place on the hill that is fairly out of the way but also easy to access.

I should have known any work on the hill would require digging.


I finally managed to get it level and firmly in place.


Now all I need is the bees.

New Project

I started a new project today:



Bees! Well, no bees yet but I put my hive boxes together. It looks so cute, it actually has a happy face on the front. I still need to paint it and find a place in the yard for it but I'm hoping to get some bees in there soon.


I also had the chance to go visit a nearby beekeeper with some new friends I met at the chicken group

The bee suits are so flattering, and although I was covered from head to toe I still felt a couple spikes of panic when a bee kept head butting me. Everyone else was really calm and relaxed. Maybe that comes with time.

There were 6 different hives here and the beekeeper said that they all have distinct personalities. I didn't realize that bees could be so different. There are lots of swarms in LA right now so once I get set up and put my name of on the list hopefully I can get a nice friendly group of bees.

Update 5/03/11:

I finally got the boxes primed and painted. I just need to make a base for it to sit on and I think I'm ready for bees.

I wanted to pick a golden color so it would blend in a little on the hill when the grass has turned yellow. This color is actually called golden honey. A bit twee but I think it looks nice.