Lord's Day Swarm Catch - August 28, 2011

One of my hives began swarming at around 9 am, and Pattie noticed it. The bees seemed to settle down, and it appeared they were going back into the parent hive, when I heard some buzzing in the side yard, and found that they were beginning to ball up on a tree branch.

I initially tried to catch them in a bait hive, but that was not a sure thing. They were up there about 18'-20', and so while they were getting settled into their "ball", I began to craft a bucket on a pole to catch them.

Once I constructed my "swarm catching bucket," I got on my ladder and realized it was too short, and that was with my ladder on top of my utility trailer. I was using an old wooden curtain rod for my pole. After realizing it was too short, I headed into the back yard and found an old clothes line pole (my Dad taught me well in the art of improvisation). This, I duct taped to my curtain rod pole, and again tried to reach the bees. This time I could get to them.

So, now I ascended my ladder and positioned my bucket under the bees, and with a swift shake, I got a good number of them. After a few seconds, I lowered my pole and shook some of them into my hive box.

The bees found honey to be consumed in the bottom of my box, and they decided that this would make a nice home. Thus on this Lord's Day of August the 28th of the year two thousand and eleven, we have another new hive of honeybees! Yeah!!!

Onward Christian Honeybears

We just finished preparing 50 of our mini honeybears which will be used in a friend's wedding. Here they are marching in formation.

Coping with the heat

Today, it was in the high 90's here in South Carolina, and so my girls were dealing with it.

In the first picture you can see them out on "the deck." In the second picture they are "daisy chaining." If you look closely too, you can see several bees who are "fanning" at the opening of the hive to try to reduce the temperature in the hive. Bees are very "considerate" creatures. They all help to carry out the duties of the colony. Click on images to enlarge.

The Airport

Here is a look at one of the busy "airports" in my beeyard.

If you look at the "Departure" and "Arrival" areas, you will see that the bees actually leave the hive on the one side and return on the other side. Watch closely and you'll see.

Summer in the Beeyard

Well, summer is upon us here in South Carolina, and my bees have to cope with the heat. I try to provide nice "digs" for my bees, but the truth is, they don't have A/C in their hive boxes.

So here's a few pics of how bees deal with the heat. Click on the images to enlarge - especially the last one! That's my favorite.

Here are they are hangin out on the deck.

Here they are "chillin" on the landing deck, while one comes in like a "Harrier jet" on the left, middle of the picture.

And finally, when it's just too much to bear the heat on the landing deck, sometimes they have to go to the "pool" to get a drink (otherwise known as my bird bath). Here is one of the girls licking up some water.

So there you have it. My bees can't just make honey 24/7, sometimes you have to take to time for re-creation!

Honeybee Awareness Project

OK, in an effort to raise "Honeybee Awareness," my bees and I decided to put together something contemporary for today's audiences. My bees and I had a lot of fun doing this project and I think you will like it a lot. Let me know whether you liked it - we may want to do more projects like this one. Here it is - Enjoy!!!

Why Do Bees Have Honey?

Watch this video to discover why bees have honey.

Graduation Day!

Here's a look at the bee yard for 2011. Notice that there are now (3) hives instead of (1).

The hive in the middle is from a swarm that originated from the hive on the right, when they swarmed in April. I was fortunate to be at home on a Saturday, so I could catch them. When I was a boy, I used to catch honeybees one at a time. Now I catch them 10,000-40,000's at a time.

The hive on the left is from a swarm which I caught at a friend's house this year. Today is "Graduation Day" for some of the house bees, who are graduating to become foragers. It's a big deal in the bee community to become a full fledged forager.

When they do their orientation flights, they are locking in their location with their on-board GPS systems which the Great Creator God has given them. Enjoy!

Robber bee gets a little "street justice."

This is a video that I shot yesterday (5/27/11) of a bumblebee trying to do a "home invasion" on my honeybee's hive. He found out that "crime doesn't pay," as you will see in this video caught on one of my bees security cameras (not really, but it sounds sophisticated...). Enjoy this action packed video!

May 9th Swarm Catch

Here's a video of a recent swarm I caught. Notice how the volume of the "buzz" gets louder as my videographer (my wife) gets closer to the hive box.

We successfully relocated the bees to our bee yard, and they are building comb very quickly. It should become a healthy and strong hive.

I caught my own swarm!!!

My bees swarmed today going up about 40' in a pine tree, which was about 25' from their hive. They stayed up in the tree for about (2) hours. I couldn't do anything, since they were too high for me to safely retrieve them. So I refreshed the lemongrass oil in my swarm trap and hoped they might send out some scouts to find it. And find it they did! This was an amazing day for me. Here's a video that gives you an idea of what it's like catching a swarm of honeybees. Enjoy!

Click on images to enlarge

 Here they are about 40' up in my pine tree.

 

 And here they are as they take up residence in my swarm trap which was "lured" with lemongrass essential oil. They sent out scouts when they were balled up in the pine tree and several of them were checking out my swarm trap. Looks like they liked what they saw!!! They are now safely moved into their new home. Yea!!!

A Good Honey Year!

It's March and we are harvesting lots of honey already. Below are some pictures of my overcrowded hive. I tried to make some room for them today by removing (6) completely capped frames of honey. In a couple of days, I'll have even more to harvest because several frames were just about completed. I'll leave them in there for them to finish up, then we'll remove those and give them some empty ones to fill up.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

" My hive runneth over..."

 Do you think there are some bees in there?

 Lots of bees means lots of honey :)

 Pattie posing with "the girls."

They were especially lively today as I removed some of the fruit of their labor. They don't mind too much though, since they just keep bringing more back to their home.

A new season ahead!

It is mid February, and it appears that my bees have made it through the winter pretty well.

Today Pattie and I finished a hive inspection that we started yesterday. To our surprise, our bees had already started to gather nectar and produce honey. We harvested (3) frames today and added new frames for them to fill back up.

We also discovered some queen cells which can be seen in the first photo. That means that our present queen is getting up there in age or has been injured and the colony is preparing for a new one to take her place.

I will be setting a swarm trap to catch my own bees, if they decide to split the hive and look for a new home. 

So, it looks to be another exciting year of managing some of God's amazing creatures.

In photo #1, you will notice the large cells protruding from the bottom of the frame. These are the queen cells. They are larger than the worker or drone cells. Queen cells are very special, because you only find them when a new queen is being prepared. We have never seen them in our hive until today. We may soon have a new healthy queen who lays thousands of eggs a day. A healthy queen means a healthy colony - which means LOTS OF HONEY - which we love!

The second photo shows some brand new comb which our bees produced this year. They build this comb very fast when there are good resources available to them for it's production.

Click on images to enlarge

Now, isn't that some pretty comb? Send my bees a text message to encourage their continued good performance in their hive! Even bees need a little encouraging word from time to time. ;^D

Special thanks to my faithful assistant and photographer (Pattie)!