Swarm season is coming to a close in our fair city but our Fort Greene bees are just settling in. On Saturday Tim and I cracked open the rooftop hives and found that our queens are healthy layers and the workers are hard at work drawing out comb. They have plenty of room to expand, plenty of food, and lots of precious boogery brood to look after, so our swarm risk is low (knock wood). But as Tim’s parents know, and as Virgil wrote, optima dies prima fugit: the first days are the best to flee.
They grow up so fast!
Two weeks ago when we introduced the bees from packages into hive bodies, we welcomed them by reading an invocation from Ohio poet James Wright. I know, it’s corny. But Wright has been dear to me since 2007, when I was working as an avian field biologist in coastal Alaska and feeling nostalgic for the Kokosing valley that I had just left behind for good. That same valley was Wright’s home turf and my friend, New Orleans-based poet Geoff Munsterman, sent me one of Wright’s poems by post.
Tim names his hives after Shakespearean queens. I haven’t chosen a name for mine yet, but the painting on the exterior is an homage to that James Wright poem about redwing blackbirds. I dropped a line to Geoff to let him know, and it turns out the tribute was more apt than I knew: Wright also has a poem about saving a bee. So it seemed right to read it as the bees entered their new home.
"It turns out/You can kill them/It turns out/You can make the earth absolutely clean." James Wright on redwings, a poem inspired by an offhand comment made by his wildlife manager nephew.
The poem is below, and I hope Tim doesn’t fire me as his apprentice when he reads this and finds out that the Latin translation could be interpreted as a sort of dare to swarm. But that wasn’t my intention. Just days after finishing my second job in the Arctic Circle I moved to Brooklyn, thinking I wouldn't stay long. But now after three, going on four years here, I'd find it hard to leave. I’ve made true friends here, I have a job at a non-profit where I can advance a cause I believe in, and the commitment I made to tend to tens of thousands of little lives is another indication that Brooklyn has become my home. The first days are the best to flee because there’s less at stake. I hope that before long our bees come to the same conclusion as I have: the place where they are right now is a fine place to be.
The first thing I saw in the morning Was a huge golden bee ploughing His burly right shoulder into the belly Of a sleek yellow pear Low on a bough. Before he could find that sudden black honey That squirms around in there Inside the seed, the tree could not bear any more. The pear fell to the ground, With the bee still half alive Inside its body. He would have died if I hadn’t knelt down And sliced the pear gently A little more open. The bee shuddered, and returned. Maybe I should have left him alone there, Drowning in his own delight. The best days are the first To flee, sang the lovely Musician born in this town So like my own. I let the bee go Among the gasworks at the edge of Mantua.
A special guest post by Robert O'Neal, my dad and fellow beekeeper in Ohio.
I. FIRST SWARM
I received a call from mom that there was a swarm in a tree above Baba and Dido’s [my grandparents] house. I asked how high up and she said maybe 15 feet. I couldn’t get home for a couple of hours so we really didn’t get there until after 6:00. We drove over to the house and the swarm was indeed in a tree but 30 feet high.
Big swarm, tall tree.
Luckily it was in a scrub cedar a couple of feet from other scrub cedars on each side. We got Mr. Ritchie [our neighbor] to come over and formulated a plan to cut the tree and lower it by utilizing a pulley and rope attached to the pickup.
Mr. Ritchie and my Dad scheme to get the bees out of the trees.
This worked out great at first. Mr. Ritchie cut a wedge in the trunk and as we lowered it down, it moved steadily in an arc until ….the remaining trunk broke and the bottom slid 10 feet along the ground sweeping the top of the tree in a down and inward arc that stopped when it landed on a juniper, throwing most of the bees all over the bush. Undaunted, we went inside and had Martinis.
By the time the Martinis were done, the bees had gathered again, for the most part, and with Ritchie’s help we cut enough juniper branches to reach them, gathered as many as we could into the nuc box and left it on the ground next to the bush. It was getting dark at that point and I determined I had better leave it open for the next day not knowing how many bees we gathered and how many remained.
I went back the next morning and it looked like normal hive activity with bees flying in and out. That evening we transferred the nuc box to our house where I set up a hive transferred the frames, dumped as many bees as I could into the hive body, closed it up, and then left the nuc box open to clean out on its own. I checked the hive on May 21st and found that it had a comb, honey and eggs. After a quick inspection, I closed it up and left it alone to do what bees do best.
Dumping bees out of the nuc and into their new hive.
Home Sweet Home.
II. SECOND SWARM
A call from home: another swarm. This one was in the front pasture next to the barn.
Bees errywhere.
What to do? I told mom to get the nuc box and put frames stored in the barn into it and get it ready. Then the bees got into the barn and started investigating the hive bodies that were in there.
Trying to get in the barn where we store our extra hive bodies and frames.
She took frames and set them next to the foundation of the barn and the bees started to collect on those. By the time I got home she had lifted the frames up and put them in a hive body.
Rockin' out.
It looked like they were all going in and out of the hive and I just let it go until dark, when I closed it up and we brought it over to Baba and Dido’s house. My policy is that if we find a swarm at their house, I bring it to our house, and vice versa.
This one worked well and now mom considers it her hive. That hive has comb, honey and eggs in it and seems to be doing well on inspection on the 21st.
III. THIRD SWARM
I was done inspecting for the day so I went back to the garden and was walking toward the barn when I caught sight of a swarm on the “magic” post. This is a wooden fence post with a small grape vine growing near it that has now attracted four swarms over the past three years- two last year that I caught and one the year before that didn’t work out.
Bees love the magic stick.
I’m basically out of hive bodies so I talked to a friend bee keeper who was down to one hive and told him if I found another one I would give him a call. I had some frames left, so I put them in the nuc box and collected the swarm. I left it on the ground so the bees would hopefully collect in it. Oddly, there were several bees at least that were pretty aggressive and kept bouncing off my veil. I was pretty careful not to stir them up too much and I thought this was a little odd. Then they began collecting on the front of the nuc box.
Bearding the nuc.
The bee keeper friend couldn’t get over until the evening and when he got there, there were many on the front and sides of the box. I suggested we wait until morning to see if they went back in and if they did I would close it up. They didn’t. They were still on the front and sides. I thought they might be too hot so I moved them into the shade and again there were some aggressive bees that kept bouncing off the veil. I looked inside and they didn’t seem to be making any comb. This was Sunday and they appeared agitated.
The bees abandoned the nuc for a while and regathered on a nearby fence post.
Time for your close up!
I set them up on a box with the front of the nuc hanging over so they couldn’t collect on the ground. They did beard some but seemed to be less than when they were out in the sun. They stayed agitated for hours. In fact, I got stung a couple of hours later in the garden 40-50 feet away. It was a bee that kept buzzing around and looking for me and wasn’t going to give up. The bee keeper friend came over that evening, put on his suit and mom put on a suit to help him. He picked it up and put it in a big brown cardboard box and taped it closed. I heard he installed it with good success and we will see what happens.
IV. FOURTH SWARM
Argh! The next day, Baba called in the afternoon to tell us there was a swarm on the apple tree in front of their bedroom window.
Bees and apples, friends forever.
I didn’t have any more frames. I called the ex-bee inspector and he gave me the name of somebody in the bee club who lives near us. I finally got in contact with him and asked if he wanted the swarm. He came over with his grandson and a cardboard box with a green plastic garbage bag. Sure enough they were on the granny smith tree all bunched and happy. First, he sprayed the swarm with sugar water using a hand held sprayer, then he scooped what he could into the bag, and then holding the bag he shook the tree and the bees went wild.
I don’t think the stings bothered him too much but he definitely got a few. He then sprayed the inside of the cardboard box with sugar water and let it sit for a while to gather the remaining bees. He tied off the bag and put it in his truck. The bees left gathered in the box and after a while he took what he could and left.
WRAP UP
In checking all the hives on the 21st, I found that two hives [the original hives] had no eggs but good population and queen cells and my feeling is at least two of the swarms came from them.
The Carniolan mix that I got as a swarm last year was chock full of bees a few weeks ago, but now has a lesser population. If I can get to them later in the week and they still don’t have eggs I am going to have to order a queen to try to save them.
Temperatures were in the 50s, clear with little wind.
I checked the hives at Dido's [my grandfather] house first and I tried baling twine as smoke for the first time. It worked well.
The two swarms from last year had good population in both hive bodies and enough weight to indicate plenty of food.
Hive 1, Italian swarm.
Hive 1. Check out the Beetle Blaster and the grease patty for tracheal mites.
I see bees on 7 frames. IN MARCH. This is going to be a big colony.
Hive 3. Feral Carnolian/Italian mix. Don't know where they came from.
Cranky, but productive.
Hive 3. Fewer bees than the straight Italians, but they'll explode once pollen starts coming in.
There was less population in the hive with the bought bees from last year, but enough, with plenty of honey.
Hive 2. Overwintered Italian package. Not as robust as Hives 1 and 3, but hey, they survived!
I did not check for egg laying so as not to disturb them too much.
At our house I needed to move the hive to a new base because it was quite crooked. They did not appreciate my efforts. There was good population and food supply.
Hive 4. The home hive, overwintered. Requeened last year with Minnesota Hygienic stock.
<3 Marla Spivak. Needs a bath.
None of the hives had paid much attention to the food patties I put in weeks ago.
"Bee report: Good population and honey in all four hives. :-)"
As texted from my dad in Ohio after his first early spring check. You can see the bag of grease patties he is about to give the hives in the baggie he's holding.
In Ohio, we have a hive of Minnesota Hygienic hybrid bees, as developed by Marla Spivak, and multiple Carnolian hybrid hives that were captured as swarms. The latter hives are a bit more aggressive than the Hygienics, but they seem to be remarkable producers and overwintering well.
I'm looking forward to my next trip home to Ohio, so that I can work with them some more!
As I mentioned earlier (and didn't follow up on (like I promised I would (sorry))), I had a busy birthday weekend in late September, extracting, filtering, bottling (and eating) all the honey contained in these supers:
Full of tasties.
It was a bit of a light year. Three of the hives in Ohio are new after some harsh winter losses, so most of the harvest was from the oldest hive, which runs Minnesota Hygienic stock. Under the best of circumstances, each one of those medium supers can hold about 35 pounds, or 3-4 gallons of honey. This year, with most of the hives concentrating on building up enough stores for winter, the supers went on late and were only half filled by the time they were pulled off. It's important to remember that the bees NEED honey to survive the winter. They don't go to the trouble of making it just so that we can take it; each hive needs up to 80 pounds of honey to make it through the winter. Even with that, a strong hive might need supplemental feeding in the spring before the first nectar flow to jump start its brood-rearing.
Prior to my arrival, my dad had cleared the honey supers of bees and brought them to our house. As you can see, they were sealed up with an outer cover and several pots of geraniums, which served to keep curious bees from getting in and starting a feeding frenzy. They'd like nothing more than to take that honey back, so you have to be very careful and minimize the amount of time the frames of honey are out in the open. I missed a dime sized amount that dripped out of the first super as I was carrying it inside. Ten minutes later, this:
This probably warrants a women/fashion section joke (amirite?), but I'm not up to the task at the moment.
Braving the cloud of hungry bees, we slowly got through all the supers and sealed them back up. We like to recycle the comb, so they went back to the bees to clean out for a day and then into cold storage. I'll be covering extraction methods (and storage) in their own articles, so for now, I'll leave you with some pictures from the harvest.
Super #1 and our Italian (shockingly, it didn't break down) tangential extractor.
Lookit dat honeeeeeey. Awwww yeah!
Think Beiber can uncap honey like a pro? I doubt it.
You spin me right round baby right round like an extractor baby right round round round.
You spin me right round baby right round spinning honey out of cells baby right round.
"Down the hole and through the filter to the bottling spigot we go," never made it as a nursery rhyme, but is germane to the subject at hand.
