Whoops, magically made a top bar out of my langstroth

And now for my next trick: I went to check my first Langstroth hive ever that started out as a swarm capture.... only to find that I had magically turned a Langstroth Hive into a Top Bar Hive. Whoops. Here is the sweet little swarm that I caught from the back of the store "Trucks R Us".

Trucks R Us Swarm Before

Trucks R Us Swarm After

Here is my sweet little swarm magically turned into a top bar hive, only without the removable frames.

Oi, I had to do an extraction on my own darned hive. Turns out, I put frames in the lower brood box, but didn't think to put frames in the upper brood box where I decided to hang my black inner feeder. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either!

Problem solved. I had some wired frames hanging around and my good friend Becky Tomato helped me rubber band the comb to the frames. It's hard to see in the picture, but there are 3 wires running across the frames.The trick to attaching comb to frames is that there is an up and a down to comb. The comb is tipped slightly upwards so that honey doesn't run out of the hexagons.

Meanwhile, my high school chum was cheering us on and her lovely husband was providing shade with a large piece of corrugated metal. It's top notch checking bees with other people!

De Ja Swarm

Same tiny little tree in the country club area, 2 different swarms of bees, one week apart. What is it about this tree? I'm guessing the first swarm left some good smells on the tree. Do I have any actual scientific evidence to base this on? Nah. By the way, I love this time of year.

Erda Gardens Swarm Catch

This one one well behaved big mama of a swarm and a textbook perfect swarm catch! One of the hives at Erda Gardens swarmed. I was already planning on going to the farm to help with splitting some hives so the timing couldn't be better. We positioned the hive body as close to the swarm as possible on a stack of tables and saw horses, had a few beats of peace and gave the plum branch a good hard shake! Into the hive the bees fell. We closed it up and thees started fanning to their sisters to come home! What a great rush... Enjoy your Erda Garden's Home and make loads of honey to share with the CSA members.

My First Swarm Catch of the Season!

Swarm!

I just caught my first swarm of bees yesterday! I am embarrassed to say that the bees were from my own hive (oops) and that it was a wild circus act. The hive was the last of my hives I needed to split and I got a call from Farmer Jesse who just happened to be working the fields when he saw the mass of bees.

I threw my girls in the truck and hauled over to the farm. The bees were hanging 12 feet off the ground in a Chinese Elm tree so I set up the ladder. I taped my box to the top of the ladder so that I didn't have to hold the box and try and yank down on the branch at the same time, while dangling 10 feet in the air.

I told the farmers to WATCH OUT, gave the branch a swift jerk and all the bees landed in my box. I then realized that I forgot my sugar water and honey comb lure back at the house, so I left the box taped to the ladder, hauled home, grabbed the goodies, hauled butt back to the farm.... only to find that my box had come untaped and had fallen over a 8 foot chain link fence into the neighbors property. Oi!

box down!

I retrieved the box and the bees had stayed put so I shook them into a new beehive with all the new lures. Did I mention that Farmer Jesse had just flood irrigated and that this was all happening in 4 inches of water? Did I mention that my girls were busy honking the car horn the entire time? Did I mention that I had an audience of farmers watching my circus act?

Anyway, next time I'm not forgetting my lures. I might forget the box to catch the bees in but never again will I forget that darned sugar water and honey comb!

Home Sweet Home

Bees, don't make me shake this pagan goddess at you!

Um, so I am in the middle of capturing a swarm at this moment with my friend, and I discovered that I am willing to do anything to capture these dang, I mean sacred bees... including shaking pagan goddesses at them. Here she is in all her bee goddess glory. She is sitting in the bed of a brand new toyota tacoma that we forgot to roll the windows up in.

Here is the original swarm. Looks like a 4-5 pounder. Amazing!!!! The reason that the pagan goddess is needed is because these little rascals didn't like the hive. They keep swarming out of the box. We have all the bee lures known to mankind in the box. We have sugar water, honey comb, pure honey poured in the box and lemongrass essence sprayed on the hive body. The hive is named Canada and maybe they don't like Canada. Everybody likes Canada. You can't take your guns there.... maybe that's the reason.

Swarm Calls

I keep getting calls about people looking for bees to start the season. I also made this same mistake my first year of beekeeping. I didn't realize that the best time to place an order is by February. By this time in the year, it is to late. The bees are sold out!

Anybody out there who is looking for bees, make sure and get your name on swarm lists and have a light box, bee veil and smoker in the back of your car at all times. Answer every call immediately and ask a few questions before driving to the location:

-How long has the swarm been there? Hours? Days? Longer? This is a good question to find out if this is a swarm of bees or an established colony.
-How high is the swarm?
-What kind of tree or structure?
-How large is the swarm? Grapefruit? Cantalope? Watermelon? If it's smaller than a grapefruit then it probably isn't worth your time.
-Will someone be at the home when you arrive?
-Have you called any other beekeepers? You might show up and someone has already picked up the swarm.
-Is there a power source? This is a good one if you have a bee vacuum.

Work fast when you get to the swarm site before the bees pick a home and all fly off. Remember that you are an ambassador for the bees. The homeowners are probably scared and it falls on you keep everybody calm, handle the scene and be a little bit of a hero at the same time! Happy Trails.

Swarm basics kit includes:

Box with ventilation
bee veil
hat
smoker
smoker fuel
fire source

Mexico has swarmed

Inspiration hit me this morning while setting up my notes on all of my hives. I'm naming them each after countries just so I can make notes like: "USA needs to be split," "Japan's queen is aggressive," "Wax moth infestation noted in Brazil,""Ethiopia is robbing from Germany."