honeybee – tIDbits

First Swarm of the Season Captured

Got a call yesterday via the Maine State Beekeepers Association Swarm Team Hotline: (207) 619-4BEE for a local swarm and went to grab it at dusk with my friend JCF.

Thank goodness the homeowners gave us a shout as they had received two bits of bad advice – a local exterminator was going to charge them $350 to spray the bees with poison (dumb idea – see: Why not Kill Them, by prominent beekeeper Cindy Bee – yes, that is her REAL name) and a local beekeeper (who really should know better) wasn’t patient enough to hear them out and find out where the bees really were (hanging off of the house) and only listened to the first few panicked words “the bees are IN my house” (they were not) and sent her to the exterminators. Very lazy way to deal with a “civilian” who is understandably afraid of 20,000 stinging insects on their home. Swarming honey bees are not going to attack anybody, and it is the responsibility of a beekeeper to help walk folks through that. As a matter of fact. part of the EAS Master Beekeeper requirements are “can present this information to the beekeeping and non-beekeeping public in a detailed, accurate, clear and authoritative manner.” and “knowledge and ability to communicate effectively to both beekeepers and public”.

Anyway, off my soap box.

The swarm was under the eaves of a log-style home (see red circle) and fortunately they had a sturdy ladder on hand, so we didn’t have to drag one over.

Up the Ladder to Capture the First Swarm of the Season — Big J. suiting up. Then up the ladder we go to capture the first swarm of the season

I am guessing it was around 4 or 5 pounds of our little flying friends – they were very docile. Just sprayed them with a little sugar water and scooped them into the “lucky” swarm box (see the video of it in action from last year).

Combined them with a very weak hive in the apiary by putting a sheet of newspaper between two supers and letting them chew through (the top super also had a hole for them to fly, and let the stray bees come in) overnight. Went to check at lunch today and there was lots of activity around the entrance and lots of happy bees. Will go in tomorrow to check on progress and perhaps even add another super.

All-in-all a successful bee rescue.

Happy Combined Hive (note the newspaper sticking out)

Taylor’s Aerosol Hive Bomb

How about this for a wacky beekeeping product idea: Taylor’s Aerosol Hive Bomb “The Push-Button Bee Smoker”? An aerosol can with fake smoke to calm your hives down before inspecting.

Well, it is real. It was manufactured for Dadant & Sons (a formidable beekeeping supply company) I am guessing in the 1970’s (anybody have an old catalogue they could verify it in?) judging from the label and where I found it in my fathers beekeeping supplies.

One look at the caution label on the back gives me even further pause as to why it would have been produced and vexes me as to why my father would have purchased it. But the can feels pretty full, so I am guessing it was just a failed experiment – and old-time version of this goofy thing. Learn how to light a smoker folks, it really isn’t that hard.

Taylor's Aerosol Hive Bomb Warning Label

Removing bee stings – speed matters, method doesn’t

from: http://bees.ucr.edu/stings.html
(expanded from an article published 1996 in The Lancet 348:301-302)

Summary

Removing bee stings - speed matters, method doesn't

Background Conventional advice on immediate treatment of honey bee stings has emphasized that the sting should be scraped off, never pinched. The morphology of the sting suggested no basis for this, and such advice is likely to slow down removal of the sting.

Methods The response to honey bee stings was assayed with a measurement of the size of the resulting sting weal. Injection of known quantities of venom demonstrated that this is a good measure of envenomization.

Findings Weal size, and thus envenomization, increased as the time from stinging to removal of the sting increased, even within a few seconds. There was no difference in the response to stings which were scraped or pinched off after two seconds.

Interpretation These data suggest that advice to patients on the immediate treatment of bee stings should emphasize quick removal, without concern regarding the method of remova

Removing Bees from a House

Some very nice folks in Brunswick had some bees in their house (see previous post). So the Cumberland County Beekeepers came to the rescue by turning it into a learning opportunity and holding a Bee Removal Workshop.

Master Beekeeper (and Maine State Beekeepers Assn. President) Erin MacGregor-Forbes agreed to lead a group through a live removal of honeybees from a building.

The rain held out, and we were in business.

These images will walk you through the process.

The homeowner set up scaffolding for the group to work (above) and the rest of us bought out the gear. It looked like a beekeepers yard sale.

John, Keith and Chris getting the bee removal equipment ready.

We had three different kinds of bee-vacs, lots of empty frames, buckets, nucs, tools – you name it.

Chris and Erin starting to pry open the facia.

We got to work getting things opened up in a manner that would not destroy the house.

Chris and Keith trimming nails on the interior, so that no one would get poked during the operation.

The house had originally had a flat roof, so there was some funkiness inside that had to be dealt with by the crew.

Erin (in Overland garb) and Chris continue the dismantling.

Opening up the house went pretty quickly.

To quote Peggy Lee: "Is that all there is?"

So the crew got it opened up and was surprised to find only a couple of small combs and a couple of hundred bees.

Small colony of Honey Bees and an empty Paper Wasp nest.

So here we were with a small colony and a Paper Wasp nest (inactive). It seemed as if the bees I had snagged a couple of weeks earlier were actually the bulk of the swarm, and that they had just arrived when I had come by to scoop them up. I had assumed that they had been there for a while, and were just coming out for some air on a very hot day. One of the reasons for this theory is that the homeowners had previously had honeybees in a similar cavity in the house. We had just figured that new bees had smelled the last occupants and had figured out that the cavity was perfect for them. The reality is probably that I had captured most of the swarm and these were the pioneers of the colony who were inside the house at the time.

So Erin and Chris got to vacuuming the bees out with a special bee-vac (note the smooth tube, so that the bees don’t get too clobbered on the way in).

The vacuum is set up so that it doesn’t suck them in too hard and kill all the bees.

Erin rubber banding comb into empty frames

The comb is removed from the structure and loosely rubber banded into empty frames. All the while looking for the queen, brood and eggs. Only a small patch of eggs were found.

Joel borrowed a “bee suit” and helped with the process. I think he was very happy to have the bees out of his house.

The bees that were sucked up by the "bee-vac"

We used a very nifty contraption that sucked the bees into “cartridges” that were made of of the packages that bees come in (when you order them from down South) and was housed in a modified “nuc” box.

All finished. Emptied out cavity in the house.

In conclusion, for me, even though it went very quickly and we didn’t have tons of bees to pull out of the structure it was a highly successful endeavor. We all learned the process and steps one goes through to prep and remove honeybees from a structure form an experienced bee-remover. We also got hands on training with the specialized equipment that is frequently used. From what I understand, the only thing missing was hordes of angry stinging bees. That is fine with me.

Many thanks to all who participated for a fine afternoon.

Deceptive Swarm of Bees

Went to snag a swarm of bees at lunchtime today. Climbed up a ladder, sprayed the huge ball of bees with sugar water and deftly scraped them into a box that had ventilation screens duct-taped over the hand holes.

Thought that I was very crafty and had done a splendid job. That is, until I noticed that there was a hole in the fascia. Bees came pouring out of the spot where one of those little louvered vent buttons had been lost to the elements. Oops.

It turns out that the space in the soffit area was very hospitable to them, and that I had just made off with a large “beard” of bees. The rest of the hive was just fine and in the house. The heat (91 degrees), it seems, had caused a whole lot of them to seek some fresh air outside. A major house extraction is beyond me, so I am working to help the homeowners find someone to come up and do their magic.

In the end I at least get a bunch of bees to combine with a “queen-right” colony in my apiary. It should give them a nice boost of a field force.

Postscript:

The bees hung out in the box in my chilly dark basement (simulating night) until I had time to borrow a couple of supers from a fellow beekeeper. As they were nice and docile, I just shook them into the hive (with newspaper between them and the queen-right colony) and was delighted to have at least 4 lbs. of new bees.

Bees from the beard combined with another hive in my apiary

And a Video: