a little reunion

Remember from my previous post how I'd gotten the accidental honey harvest? Remember how there were lots of bees that died in that, but there were some bees that lived? Well, the bees that lived, I'd taken outside and put on my back porch, all together in this little jelly jar. I'd opened the jar and laid it in my giant wildflower pot, and just expected the bees to die out there, as they had no hive.

A few days ago I went outside on my back porch to water my tomatoes. I happened to glance down at the large pot and noticed a little cluster of bees - and they were all still alive. I remembered that when there is smoke in the hive, the bees take up as much honey as they can to sustain themselves, and that in fact, they can live for several days this way, without any other food sources. Oh yeah. I just hadn't expected them to live because of having no hive - but there they all were, about a dozen of them, all clustered together, keeping each other alive. I fed them some honey - they looked pretty thin and weren't exerting themselves at all - they were fairly still.  I needed to go out and check to see if the bees needed another box on the hive yet, so I decided to see if I could reunite them with their hive.

Later that day I went back outside, when I was ready to take them to the hive. They'd perked right up from that infusion of honey - they were flying and energetic and being bees. When I caught them in the little jar again, I discovered something else  - they'd been flying out and getting food for the group. Because I'd gotten them into the jar (with air holes punched in the lid) again, and one lone bee returned from her flight as I was about to take them inside. She had food in her mouth, and she landed on the lid of the jar - and then tried to get the food to her sisters through the hole in the top of the jar. I was just amazed - here this little cluster had no hive, and no colony - it was just these 12 little girls - and they were doing all they could to sustain and maybe even create a little colony of their own.

Here's what happened when I took them back to the hive:



I recommend clicking on the photo to see the larger sizes.

adventures in beekeeping

Okay. I caught a swarm and hived them in my hive that had died - I took out most of the old comb, leaving bits that were clean and hadn't been filled with old brood, etc. Remember that?

When I went to see them a few days ago, the swarm I caught had very few bees in the hive. Like maybe 100 or so? No dead bodies that I could see (although I only looked in the top, so scratch that, I really have no idea). But there are bees flying in and out now and again - just not lots. Robbers, or colony? Only time will tell.



Either way, Hubby is building a third hive and more boxes for adding to the two that already are - definitely needed for the big hive (Honeybee Zen), possibly needed for the swarm hive (Butterfly Zen). I really am not sure what is going on in that hive yet - it seems like number of bees increases as I visit, but I'm just not sure, because not by LOTS.

Now Honeybee Zen - I had three boxes on, and I needed to add a fourth. After all, the nectar flow is ON, it has just gotten HOT in the last few days, and those bees can fill a box in just a few days in a good nectar flow.

I had forgotten that I'd put a feeder box (just about 4-5" high) on top of the hive, and the cloth over it. It was so very much TIME for me to give the bees another box to grow into, because you see, they FILLED the feeder box with comb and honey. FILLED. And because it is a feeder box, I was sort of at a loss as to what to do.


Word from my beekeeping yahoo group was take off the feeder box of honey and comb, because they would continue to build comb on top of that in those lovely patterns.

What I DID do while I was there was add another box on the top of the feeder box, so the bees had somewhere else to build, since they so obviously needed it. (And I was intending to anyway). This is what happens when I let a whole week go by between visits to the bees, two days of which have been deemed a heatwave (not where I come from, but apparently by lower mainland BC standards it has been).

It really was a beautiful sight to behold. I am so utterly in love and fascinated with these little
ladies. And holy heck, I cannot blame any swarm for wanting to join that happening hive (if in fact they did) - it is so crazy busy!

And so I went today to harvest the feeder box honey before it got too much bigger. I took a flat cookie sheet and a plastic bin large enough to hold the whole feeder box, and my hive tools. Oh, and the smoker - Kiernen was SO excited, because the smoker has been deemed (by him) his job, and he finally got to do his job!

I used a bundle of sage, so it smelled lovely, although the honey now has a sagey/smokey taste to it. One thing I hadn't remembered, again: I had an empty gallon ziploc bag in that feeder. So underneath all of that lovely comb was a flattened ziploc bag that it (the comb) was adhered to. This made it easy to slide the cookie sheet under to lift it up, but essentially impossible for the bees to go down when we smoked the hive. And so I ended up having to take off the entire feeder with comb and bees inside.

I used my bee brush and my wits to get as many of them out of the box as possible and back into the hive. I lifted, turned, got myself covered with honey, and I did my best. When I took the box home, there were still lots of bees on the comb - I kept finding ones who'd stuck their heads into the cells to survive the smoking. I put all the live ones in a little jar and freed them outside, knowing full well they'll die without their hive - but better outside than in a little jar in my kitchen.


And after getting out all the bees, and pouring all of the honey and comb into a couple of containers, I've got my very first honey harvest! I'm amazed - I did it! I was so proud, I took it around to my neighbours for them to try - and everyone was quite impressed. It was an amazing day. Honey from my own bees! Well, from the bees in my hives, I mean. And! the blueberries will be ready in about two weeks, too! Blueberries pollinated by my girls!

As always, click on the photos to see all of them.

 
 

we got to see the bees!

It's been three weeks since the bees were hived, and we were advised to just leave them alone completely for two to three weeks. My husband had gone and put tar paper on the hives to insulate them during an unseasonably cold snap we had. It was difficult, but I put them out of my mind as much as possible, and we left them alone to see if they'd survive.

Yesterday we finally got to go out and pay them a visit. My intention was to take off the feeders and feeder boxes and tar paper, and just let them go on their own. The blueberry bushes have been in bloom, so there is plenty of nectar flow and pollen available to them right now.

As I went up to the hives, this is what I saw:

Plenty of bees flying in and out of the hives, with their legs just FULL of pollen. The healthy hive (Butterfly Zen) AND the one that we thought might be dead (Bee Zen). Just see all the activity there was? Bees were coming and going like crazy - it was a thing of beauty.

I decided to take the feeder - which was completely drained - and the feeder box off of the healthiest hive - and it was quite easy. The tar paper was stapled to it, so it slid off with the feeder box, and I was done. I ushered the bees back inside so I wouldn't crush any - I sprayed them down with my mix of honey, water, and Honey B Healthy, and they got busy cleaning themselves off and ran down into the hive. And I was able to see comb - lots of good comb on several of the top bars in their hive. Yes!

Next I went over to the lesser hive to see what was there. The feeder bag was still almost full, and when I peeked in, I didn't see any comb on any of the top bars. Yet when I looked outside the hive, I could see bees going in and out like crazy. Hm. So I stuck my face all the way down into the hive - as much as I could, in order to see the bottom box. And there, on the bottom box, was comb! The bees in that hive had begun building their comb in the bottom box rather than in the top box! Imagine my surprise - I hadn't considered that possibility. But there they were, comb all built in the bottom box, carrying in and out pollen like mad.

I decided to leave the feeder box and the tar paper on that one - I figure they need all the help they can get, because it does still get cold at night, and I want to give them as much of a chance to build themselves up as possible.

I was taking photos and of course my camera battery died and I'd forgotten for the first time in ever to bring the extras along. Sigh. But I did get some great shots of the hive entrance. My beautiful girls - all flying in, legs fat with pollen from the blueberry bushes. Happiness. My bees are alive!!!

I suppose if I was going to have a half-dead hive, the blueberry farm was a good choice to put them in - nectar flow came just a few days after we'd hived them there. And PLENTY of it!

If you want to see all of the photos I managed to take, they're here:

Blueberry Bees 25-04-2010

 

blueberry bees!

We have a home!!! The blueberry farm is our new home!!! I am SO happy!!! And? When I was looking for a great photo to put in this post, I found this wonderful designer, too - click on the photo to see more of their stuff - I am in LOVE with this as a shirt and I want to get one! Because my bees? They will be BLUEBERRY BEES!!!