4/20 Smoke Bees Erryday

4/20, a day when we can all get together and smoke some bees.

Or catch them.

Today, while inspecting hives in the Brooklyn Navy Yard with a small group of apprentices, I received a text from Meg Paska, The Brooklyn Homesteader.

"A friends bees swarmed in Carroll Gardens. Want free bees?"

The answer is yes.

Yes, I would like free bees.

Thank you kindly.

Catching a swarm is one of the coolest things you can do as a beekeeper. The bees themselves tend to be healthy, as swarms cast from hives that were strong and resilient enough to survive the winter.  They're docile as well; without a hive or brood to defend, they have no reason to sting unless seriously mishandled. That said, it's usually a good idea to wear basic protective gear like a veil. When knocking bees out of a tree, it is surprisingly easy to drop them in your face, and having a bee crawl up your nose is an experience I urge you not to try.

There are other risks as well. Swarms often enjoy alighting in hard to reach places. Up trees, on top of lamp posts, in chimneys, etc. Always remember to be safe and respect the limits of your abilities and equipment. Free bees are great, but they aren't worth hurting yourself. There are many people and beekeeping clubs (including me and the Backwards Beekeepers of NYC) who are happy to help catch swarms and give them a good home. Ask for help if you need it.

Back to the story.

I had an appointment in Red Hook to inspect the hives at the Added Value Community Farm and knew that there was a lot of extra equipment to hive a fresh swarm in, but by the time I was finished with my inspections, it was almost 3 and I figured that someone else would have collected the swarm.

I mean, free bees, right? Irresistible.

Still, I figured I was due for some good luck. Accompanied by one of the Brooklyn Grange Beekeeping Apprentices who was free for the afternoon, I threw some boxes (tupperware!?) into my car and booked it to Carroll Gardens.

I dropped Allison, the apprentice, off at the corner with instructions to find the house with the swarm while I went around the block trying to find a place to park. If someone had already laid claim to the swarm, I could just swing back around and she could jump right back in. No fuss, no muss. When I found parking, which happened to be extremely easy, I found Allison standing out in front of a bright pink flowering ornamental cherry tree. Up at the top was a remarkably large swarm, hanging from a thick branch and buzzing contentedly.

Hello, ladies.

After I finagled a ladder from a friendly neighbor, I set it up under the swarm, being very careful not to stomp on the flowers underneath. I sprayed the bees with sugar syrup to get them full, heavy, and calm while I maneuvered the large plastic tub I had brought into place under the swarm.

Would you care for a snack?

*BAM*

I quickly jerked the large branch the cluster was hanging on, the entire mass of bees fell into the box with a thud, and I slipped on the lid.

Swarm captured.

Bam them bees into the bucket.  Don't smash them!  A quick, firm tap will do.

Closed up and super excited.

The action sent a cloud of confused worker bees flying, so I waited several minutes for them to land on the branch again and shook them into a small cardboard box, which I quickly emptied into the main tub of bees. I did that a couple times and ended up only leaving a handful of bees behind hanging out on the branch. They should find their way back to their original hive over the next day or two with no problem, as long as I got the queen.

Catching the stragglers and showing off my worn out bee pants.

Get in my swarm box, or I will point at you with strong intent.

With the bees in tow, I gingerly placed them in the back of my car, returned the borrowed ladder and headed back to Red Hook where I had set up a deep hive body full of drawn frames to accept the new bees.

Looks like plenty of room.  For a package, this would be huge.

Once I arrived, I opened up the hive and started pouring. So many bees.

Uh...
Slightly bigger than a three pound package.

Quite a bit bigger, in fact.

After they were all out of the tub, I did my best to close the hive without squashing too many and started transferring any large masses of bees hanging on the outside of the hive to the entrance at the front.

A small gob of bees.  Warm and fuzzy.

I'm covered in bees.

When I left them, they were marching in and spraying Nasonov with their butts up on the air. Good signs.

Allison, looking triumphant with a buttload of bees.  That's a technical term.

Welcome home!

This is probably the biggest swarm I have ever caught and it barely fit into a 10 frame deep. I'm going to have to go back soon and give them extra room to expand into. If their queen is good and starts laying, they're going to grow, and they're going to do it fast.

Awesome.

Queenright In Red Hook, Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

Wearin' my sexy hat.
Obviously.

So, I waited a couple weeks. While queens take only a few days (15-17!) to develop from an egg to an emerging virgin, it takes them a few more weeks to stretch their wings, take some mating flights, and get to laying.

Hey guys, I think there are bees in there!

AAAAH, BEES!

For the young virgins, this is a delicate time; developing hormonal glands, expanding ovaries, and drones where there were none before. With this in mind, it is often a good idea to leave a requeening colony alone until they've had time to adjust and start makin' babies. In any case, bees are much more relaxed when they have brood to take care of, especially later in the season when they are starting to get a bit more defensive and wary of wandering hands. Waiting is the prudent choice for everyone involved.

Oh.
Nevermind.

The bare minimum time for a queen to develop from an egg to a LAYING adult is approximately 25 days. In the last update, I mentioned that I found queen cells, including some capped ones, meaning that they were well over a week into development. With this in mind I didn't stick my head in the hive for over a month; more than long enough to allow for any variables, like poor weather or trouble finding drone congregation areas (DCAs).

Empty super.
Super.

Diggin' deeper.

I went in hopeful.

I left disappointed.

Well, at least they have plenty of drone comb?

No seriously, drone comb is great.

I went though the entire hive, every side of every frame looking for any sign of a laying queen and found none. No capped brood, no larvae, no eggs. I found the remains of the queen cells, indicating that at least one of the queens emerged successfully, but I found no sign of her or any other.

Hemp.

Nice distribution.

There is no way of knowing what might have happened to her. There are a huge number of reasons that a new queen might fail. She might have been injured in the highlander style deathmatch that sometimes ensues when multiple virgin queens emerge, or all of the queens may have been killed outright. She may have been eaten by a predatory insect (wasp?) or bird on her orientation or nuptual flights. She may have just failed to mate at all; a lack of virile, vital drones to share their genetic material, or a lack of DCAs. Etc., etc., etc.

Crowd control.

Well, at least there is plenty of honey to make it through the winter.

Regardless of the reason, the problem remains the same. A queenless hive has no chance of survival. Even if the hive was not destroyed by predators or stronger hives as its population waned, it would eventually die of attrition. Laying workers are a clever evolutionary trick to flood the area with drones carrying the genetic material of the hive, but drones can not sustain the hive.

Lots of honey, actually.

So what's a boy to do?

Hint:

It's SOOPERHIVE!

Weekly 101 (10/4/11)

It's that time of the month again.

Yeah.

First Tuesday of the month.

That means it's time for... A MEETING WITH THE NYC BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION! Hooray!

Michael Leung is the founder and creative director of HK Honey - an organisation of Hong Kong beekeepers, artists and designers that aim to communicate the value of bees and benefits of locally produced honey.

Michael will be sharing his stories of how he became Hong Kong's first urban beekeeper, showing us how he mixes beekeeping with design and how he markets and brands his honey and beekeeping related products in Hong Kong.

www.hkhoney.org

Tuesday, October 4th
7pm-9pm
Seafarers & International House
123 East 15th Street

OH YEAH.

I've been seeing a lot of Michael lately; he's been hanging out with my friends Meg Paska, the Brooklyn Homesteader, and Chase Emmons, the head beekeeper of the Brooklyn Grange. He was a huge help at the NYC Honey Festival. This is going to be a really interesting talk, and while I am sorry that I cannot make it, you should show up and tell him that Tim sent you.

DO IT FOR ME, WILL YOU!?


But have no fear, for even if you must miss this sweet meeting, you can always come join me for my FREE PUBLIC HIVE INSPECTION at the Added Value Community Farm in Red Hook, this Saturday at 11AM.

Taken with actual film.
None of that instagram crap here.
c2011, Michael Leung

I won't tell you what is going to happen, but I will tell you that it will be exciting either way. YES SIRREE BOB!  My car is in the shop, so I will be chauffeured by my lovely assistant, Emily Vaughn.  You'll get to meet her!  Ask her questions!  See her play with bees!  EXCITING!

I'll be there bright and early, rip-roarin' to go, and I'll start the talk and demo at 11AM or SOON THEREAFTER. Be on time! Get there early! Get your hands dirty on the farm! The demo will take place during open volunteer hours, so stick around afterwards! YES!

P.S. DID I MENTION THAT IT'S FREE!?

It's all going down at the Added Value Red Hook Community Farm, located at 3-49 Halleck St, Brooklyn, 11231, and I'll be starting the inspection at 11AM on Saturday, October 8th.

To get there by Subway:

A/C/F train to Jay Street/Borough Hall. Exit the station and walk west to Boerum Place and Joralemon Street. Take the B61 bus going towards Red Hook. Exit the bus at the IKEA store, and the farm is across the street.
R to 4th Ave/9th St. Take the B61 bus going towards Red Hook/IKEA on 9th st. Exit the bus at the IKEA store, and the farm is across the street.

Weekly 101 (9/29/11): Birthday Edition

This weekend there are many ways for you to come and visit me and my bees in Brooklyn!

Hooray! 

Inspection in Red Hook
c2011, Alex Brown

Because it is my birthday this week, I am mixing things up and taking Friday off to host a FREE Public Hive Inspection at the Added Value Community Farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Hint: It's across the street from IKEA. Getchu some meatballs in your face and getchu some bees in your hands. It's what we call a win-win situation in my business.

This week's inspection is going to be particularly exciting. If you have read Part One and Part Two of Queenright in Red Hook and would like to skip ahead and see the (hopefully) awesome conclusion of the saga, COME OUT TO RED HOOK on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30th. I won't know the ending either, and I wasn't able to do it last week because of the damn rain, so I'm SUPER STOKED to find out!

I'll be there bright and early, rip-roarin' to go, and I'll start the talk and demo at 11AM or SOON THEREAFTER. Be on time! Get there early! Get your hands dirty on the farm! The demo will take place during open volunteer hours, so stick around afterwards! YES!

P.S. DID I MENTION THAT IT'S FREE!?

It's all going down at the Added Value Red Hook Community Farm, located at 3-49 Halleck St, Brooklyn, 11231, and I'll be starting the inspection at 11AM.

To get there by Subway:

A/C/F train to Jay Street/Borough Hall. Exit the station and walk west to Boerum Place and Joralemon Street. Take the B61 bus going towards Red Hook. Exit the bus at the IKEA store, and the farm is across the street.
R to 4th Ave/9th St. Take the B61 bus going towards Red Hook/IKEA on 9th st. Exit the bus at the IKEA store, and the farm is across the street.

ALSO:
I will be manning a table at the New New York Green Block Party in Williamsburg, this Saturday, October 1st. I'm going to have live bees with me in my observation hive, lots of free fliers with basic bee facts, and a whole bunch of time on my hands to answer all your most burning beekeeping questions.

Join us Saturday, October 1 from 11am to 5pm on North 11th St (Wythe/Berry) in Williamsburg for a green block party with vendors, tours, food, and fun! Attending the fair, and many of our extra activities, is free. We are also hosting an After Party (34 Berry parking lot) complete with beer and a screening of a urban agriculture documentary followed by a Hollywood blockbuster. Check out the schedule for more info.

The Idea Behind the Event

The NEW New York is GreenHomeNYC’s revolutionary interpretation of the typical New York block party. Street fairs and block parties are an intrinsic part of the New York City summer experience, bringing neighborhoods together, culture to the streets, celebrations and joy to the public spaces of our city. The NEW New York re-invents this tradition to bring home — right to the front stoop — ideas for greening our built environment for the residents of the city.

A core component of the event is to use the streetscape and surroundings as a “classroom.” In addition to leaving behind a block transformed with examples of a greener city, such as a newly planted tree, activities will be tied into the immediate environs, such as tours of a nearby green building. The day’s activities will be multifaceted, incorporating educational workshops covering a wide array of topics, hands-on demonstrations by exhibitors, and, tours of green buildings, companies, and local natural resources. Activities will benefit anyone on the green spectrum from curious to committed, including youth.

The event will take place annually each autumn and occupy one street block. Last year we took over Third Street between Bond and Hoyt in the Carroll Gardens / Gowanus Canal neighborhood of Brooklyn. This year we are in Williamsburg on N 11th Street at Wythe — in front of Brooklyn Brewery and around the corner from Brooklyn Bowl!

Perhaps next year we will be in your neighborhood!

I had a lot of fun doing this last year and really enjoyed talking to y'all.  Come out again and ask more questions!  I like it!

P.S.  If something else is burning, you should see your doctor.

P.P.S.  Please don't show it to me. I am not your doctor.

Rain, Rain, Go Away.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is totally boned.
Image by Thomas Shahan.

Ick.  It's raining.  It will still be raining tomorrow.  The roads I take to get to Red Hook are under a foot and a half of water.

So.

No bees tomorrow.

The FREE Public Hive Inspection at the Added Value Community Farm in Red Hook for Saturday, September 24th is officially CANCELLED.

Sorry folks.  I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to find out how that requeening went.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Queenright in Red Hook, Part 2

A Beekeeping Adventure in three parts.
Part One can be found HERE.

For weeks, I'd been watching the queenless colony peter out slowly. With no functional queen, and a couple of laying workers in her stead, the colony had no chance of surviving the winter. The existing workers were ageing fast and would eventually all die off, leaving only drones. I was avoiding digging into it too deeply; checking a couple frames in the bottom deep every two weeks for signs of improvement I found nothing but a few scattered drone pupae in 'bullet brood' cells, and hardly any of those either. Yet the colony remained in a fair mood and quite productive.

With no young to feed, the bees quickly filled the hive with large amounts of honey and pollen, and I figured that once the population collapsed completely, I would be able to give all that food to its healthy and queenright sister colony to supplement their winter stores. And so it went. The hive kept on working; productive, but not improving.

Then, it happened.

For the record, that's a billow t-shirt, not my big fat belly.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

See?  I told you so.  But where did my booty go?
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

I was going through my regular hive inspection routine. Check the queenright hive first, because they're almost always in an excellent mood. Pass around a couple frames of honey, pollen, brood, and bees around the crowd, and explain what is happening in the hive- how a beekeeper looks at the activity within a hive and translates that information into useable data. As usual, everything in the first hive was fine and dandy. The brood was solid, there was plenty of food (honey AND pollen), and there seemed to be more coming in.

Looking at the comb, checking for honey/pollen/eggs/larvae/etc.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Showing off for the ladies by showing them my ladies.  Yeah girl.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

So I moved on to hive number 2. The queenless wonder.

As I had seen previously, the top deep was absolutely PACKED with honey and pollen. The population was surprisingly strong considering how long they had been without brood, but the percentage of drones was very high, clearly up from the normal max of ~10%. The drones in that hive are interesting in and of themselves. I have never seen drones so solidly dark, like they'd been carved from ebony. They're big, healthy things as well. I suppose that without the presence of any worker brood, the drones are getting all the food and protein they could ever ask for.

Magritte strikes back.
Also, lookit all that honey.  Pooh bear just poohed himself.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

No babies = more stuff for you.  A true life lesson.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

The bees were in a good mood, and so I decided to pick out a frame or two from the lower deep hive body. I had a nice, curious audience, and a couple of friendly photographers, so I figured I may as well give them the full monty. I decided to pull a frame directly out of the center of the hive. All the combs had been drawn perfectly, so there were no 'hot spots', raised areas of comb that get knocked off when you pull the frame, and it came out nice and smooth.

Exactly what I had been seeing for months.  Some food, some scattered drones in bullet brood cells.  Ick.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Just as I expected. A ring of pollen and honey around the edges and a couple of scattered drone cells closer to the center, with a couple random cells containing a couple of side-laid eggs. I flipped the frame over and...

...

Is that a queen?

Shiiiiiiit.

But not just any queen. Jet black and shiny as basalt, she was the size of a virgin queen- only slightly larger than a worker. She was moving fast and constantly burying herself under her daughters. Before I lost track of her, I scooped her off the frame and into my hand.

I opened my hand to get a closer look and she flew off into the wild blue yonder.

Flight weight?

Really?

How inconvenient.

I yelled at everyone to keep an eye on her while I went to find something to capture her with. She was easy to spot in the air. Queens aren't fantastic flyer, even at their lightest, and with the weight of eggs (even drone ones) in her abdomen, she flew ass down and slow as molasses. Normally a queen won’t fly at all, weighed down by her own stores of sperm and developing eggs.

By the time I returned with a suitable container, she had settled on the butt of Paul Smith, a photographer and student at the Columbia School of Journalism who had come down to get some shots of an urban beekeeper for a feature he was working on.

Telling him not to move, I gently scooped her into a waiting pill bottle and popped the lid on.

I handed the queen off to Tobin, Ross Brown's son and budding beekeeper so I could use my hands.
D'awwww.
The queen is fully stretched out here.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Back in hand, you can see just how small the queen really was.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

What to do now? The ‘queenless’ hive was not queenless after all! Comparing her to the drones in the hive, it was abundantly clear to me that she had been present but unseen and unnoticed from the beginning, that she was mother of the drones, and the reason I hadn't been able to requeen the hive successfully. The 'laying worker' was actually a true queen who had run out of sperm to fertilize eggs. I don't have a solid explanation for the poor egg placement or the instances of multiple eggs in a single cell. My best guess is that reduced to flight weight, her abdomen was simply not long enough to reach the bottom of the cell. It is also very odd that the workers didn't take the opportunities to replace an obviously failing queen presented to them by my multiple requeening attempts, but no matter.

With the queen removed, the bees would be desperate to replace her. Thinking (and working) quickly, I effected a 'transfusion'. From the "queenless" and broodless problem hive, I transferred five of the deep frames of solid packed honey and pollen they had collected. In exchange, from the queenright colony I swapped in five deep frames of capped brood, eggs, and empty comb in the hopes that the workers from the ailing hive would finally recognize their queenlessness and take steps to raise a new one.  In both cases, I shook all the bees clinging to the frames back into their original hives to prevent any fighting.

Making room in the "not so queenless" hive.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Choosing frames to transfer from the queenright hive.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

I can has babies?  Yes, I can!  A nice frame holding a large amount late stage capped and emerging brood, and even more eggs.  Perfect for providing a boost in population and the raw material to make a queen from.
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Nice bee 'C', a solid laying pattern by the queen in the healthy hive.  Free of bees, you can swap frames from hive to hive without worrying about them being accepted.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

But what did I do with the old, unlaying queen, you ask? Usually a dud queen like her gets squished and tossed into some rubbing alcohol to make "Queen Tea", a pheromone heavy brew that you can use to anoint swarm traps with queen scent. It's an old-school trick, and a great way to recycle extra queens, but obviously necessitates killing the queens. Ick.

Instead, I opted to put her into a retirement home. Taking an extra 8 frame hive body full of honey and pollen, I transferred a couple thousand bees from her original hive into a single story nuc. In the hopes that she'll continue raising viable drones to populate the local drone congregation areas (mating fields) until she peters out completely, I released her into her new home.

Putting together a retirement home for the sterile queen.
A bit of a downgrade in terms of space, but better than my hive tool to her face.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

Letting the queen loose on the top bars of the 8 frame nuc.
Notice the lack of other bees on the top bars.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

I don't think that I've ever seen bees form a court so quickly. Within seconds, the workers shaken into the nuc had formed a perfect circle surrounding the queen and marching her down between the frames. With pheromonal pull like that, it's no wonder that they refused to replace her.

The beginning of the court.  Approximately 10 seconds after release of the queen.
See how little she is?
Image c2011, Paul Smith.

Another view, a few seconds later.  A perfect court around the dud queen.
She is practically the same size as a worker and differs mainly by colouration.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

Hot, sweaty, and feeling clever, I closed up the hives.

Whoof.
Image c2011, Alex Brown.

The following week, I cracked the hive open and found exactly what I had hoped for; a multitude of queen cells in various stages of development. Some were even capped. We’ve got queens. But will they be any good?

Hell if I know!

I guess we’ll find out in PART 3 of Queenright in Red Hook!

YES.
LOOKIT THAT FUCKING QUEEN!
Image c2011, Micah Garen.

This weekend, during my FREE Public Hive Inspection at the Added Value Community Farm in Red Hook, I'll (we'll?) find out if the new queen survived and managed to mate.

For the *live* conclusion of the tale, stay tuned or COME OUT and find out first hand! The fun will start at 11AM, across the street from IKEA.

Cross your fingers for better weather.


Can't check bees in the rain!