Free Bees

Did I tell you that all five of our colonies died this winter?  That seems to be our pattern- one year several overwinter and make it to spring and the next year, they're all wiped out.  This year, we think we know what happened.  Last spring, we were busy caring for a little baby so we didn't manage the hives as we should've.  They grew too crowded so they raised more queens and swarm after swarm left our bee yard.  We were able to catch a couple of those swarms but mostly this meant that their numbers were depleted so they didn't go into the fall and winter as strong as they should have.  That's our guess anyway.

It wasn't for lack of honey.  Out of those five hives we harvested over 8 gallons of honey in February (we sold most of it).

 

We were discouraged at the loss of bees and vowed to skip beekeeping for a year.  But then Jamey got the itch and put our name on a waiting list for a new package this spring (they run $130 a piece in our area).

But lo and behold, he got a call from a friend who had a swarm in one of his trees.  Jamey happened to be off work so he ran over and knocked the ball of bees into a small hive box (a nuc) and brought them home.  He then transferred them to one of our hives and we crossed our fingers hoping they'd like their new home and stay.

 unloading bees from the car (only a few escaped on the way home)

The bees had already started clinging to the bars of empty comb in the box so it was a matter of transferring them into the full size hive.

Instead of using smoke, he used a sugar syrup sprayed on the bees- this occupies them as they clean it off themselves and discourages flying off (as does plugging up the entrance with grass).

 Dumping in the remaining bees- if the queen is in the hive, they want to stay with her.

Not only did they stay but a couple days later when Jamey was checking on them, he noticed that another swarm (from who knows where) discovered one of our other empty hives and moved in!

Suffice to say, we didn't buy that package.  And now we're headed into the summer with two healthy colonies already filling their hives with nectar and brood.  What a gift.

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Catching Spring Swarms (With Lots of Pictures)

I'll say it again- we are in no way experts at this.  Read to be entertained and to learn about bees, NOT to learn how to be the best beekeeper :-).

Last week, while Jamey was outside, he spotted it hovering in the air over our yard not far away- a swarm of honeybees.  It didn't matter if they came from one of our hives or not.  We wanted those bees so he leaped (quite literally) into action.

He grabbed a top bar nuc (short for nucleus, a small hive) and tried to set it up in a nearby tree but couldn't get it situated securely.  He wanted to lure the recently departed colony into it so we could keep our runaway bees.  The nuc's colony had died this past winter, but it was still full of comb left behind (the honey left behind had been licked clean by our other bees).  Wanting to quickly find a safe spot for the nuc, he set it on top of the end of our chicken coop.  Within seconds, there were scout bees checking it out- no doubt attracted to the comb inside.  Soon, the swarm which was drifting the opposite direction, started drifting toward the nuc perched on the chicken coop roof.

 

Within thirty minutes or so, almost the entire swarm had tucked themselves into their new home.  Had Jamey not been outside at the time, all those bees would have been lost (to us).  The next evening, he moved the nuc into our bee yard along side our other hives.

Just a reminder- if you see a swarm of honeybees, don't panic.  Just stand by and marvel at it.  They will not bother you unless you actively provoke them.  They are too concerned with finding a new home.

But then!  The very next day, Sadie spotted another swarm- hanging on a branch of one of our peach trees.  Jamey was at work so that swarm got away.  I do not catch swarms.  I take pictures of them.

A couple weeks later, yet another swarm was spotted in a peach tree and Jamey knocked this one into a bucket and placed it in one of our empty hives with some bars of brood and food.  No sooner did he have that one tucked away and he spotted another swarm (this one was large) up in a tree at the edge of the woods and couldn't let it get away.  I'll tell you what happened in pictures...

I didn't get a shot of him pushing the bucket up and knocking it against the branch hard, causing the swarm to fall into the bucket but that's what happened next.

Bee Math: 

6 colonies going into the winter of 2015 - 2 died over the winter + 3 swarms caught in the spring =  7 colonies going into the summer of 2016 (for now)

Below you can see trimmings from overdue hive inspections.  This bowl was placed on our front porch.  Once the bees went home that evening, we took the comb inside to strain giving us a mini-harvest of almost a gallon of honey.

sticky bees that fell from the bowl, cleaning themselves

If hives are properly managed, this many swarms shouldn't occur.  We've had a busy spring and hadn't divided the colonies as we saw there was need to, so the colonies raised new queens and divided themselves.  This is obviously not ideal because you lose the bees that leave.  Sometimes, though, you're able to get a few back.

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Life Flows On

Four out of the six colonies survived the winter which we find pretty miraculous.  We will harvest honey this year.  We've already lost (and captured!) a swarm- more on that to come.

Easter pies- sour cherry and blueberry 

swine decimation 

Two of the culprits.  The other two are no more.  Stay tuned for more on this- we made our own bacon.

 

The adoration goes both ways.

guarding his yard (from squirrels, that is)

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Bees, Ducks and Chickens, Oh My! (The Reality of Having Animals)

I would like to begin this post by saying that being able to live in a place where we can raise and enjoy animals is such a gift.  They are fascinating (and entertaining), useful (think eggs and meat), beneficial (they eat bugs and turn soil), and are often just plain fun (think pretending they're babies).

my girls (younger) with their girls (also, younger)

But sometimes, they drive me bananas and all I want is to drive them to the other side of the county and drop them off.

There, I said it.

I take part of that back.  I really don't want to drive our bees anywhere.  Actually, right now the bees aren't causing any trouble.  We were very disappointed that after all our work with them last year, all five colonies died over the winter.  As much as I am in awe of bees (ask my kids' friends- if any of them ask a single question about bees, I launch into a 4-part lecture series on the topic), part of me wondered if we should give up.  But we didn't.  We ordered two more packages, watched them build up over the summer, left their honey alone, and we now have six colonies as we head into this winter. Jamey made moisture quilts to hopefully insulate them from condensation which can be fatal.  We'll say a little prayer, tuck them in and hope that we see at least a colony or two alive this spring.

The ducks.  We bought four Khaki Campbell running ducks from a farmer we know.  We wanted them for their eggs and expressed that we wanted hens. Well.  Either they weren't hens or they just didn't like us because we got one and only one egg (and it could've been a chicken egg- it was hard to tell) and that was it.

The very first night we had them, one of the four went missing.  We're thinking predator.  The other three fell into a cute routine of quacking around the chicken yard each day, splashing in their water and then hunkering down in the chicken tractor out in the yard.  They never followed the chickens into their coop as they need their own water source (so they can scoop-drink).

Well, after a few weeks of this pleasant (albeit non-laying) life, they discovered they could get out through the holes in the fence (they were small enough).  Over a few days, two walked their way out onto our road and got hit by cars.  Bless our dear neighbor who scraped them off with his shovel.

So there was one duck left.  Without his friends, he no longer stayed in our yard and instead wandered the neighborhood becoming a bit of a nuisance.  He's no longer with us (and that's all I'm going to say about that).  So the duck project was a fail.  I feel yucky about the whole thing but we couldn't spend hundreds and hundred of dollars installing new fencing and other attempts to solve the problem weren't working.  Frankly, non-laying ducks were just not worth it to us.

Moving on to my most recent nemeses: the chickens.  We haven't bought chicks the last couple years so our chicken population has slowly been aging and dying out.  We're down to around ten.  At one point, we had 40 (that included some meat birds we later butchered).  Of these ten, about 3-4 consistently get out of their yard and into our neighbors' yards.  Turkey has learned to ignore them, thank heavens, but they wander around, digging up everyone's flower beds and newly planted grass.

Here again, if we spent a lot of money, we could fix the fences (they've been patched COUNTLESS times).  We could buy a lot of organic, free range eggs with that money.  But we don't have the heart to get rid of the chickens.  So, for now, they're locked up in their coop.  It's not a terrible place to be. I'll be adding leaves and straw to give them something to scratch and maybe on really nice days we'll let them out for awhile to enjoy their yard.  You know, on good behavior.  In the meantime, I want to price out fencing and see if we can't re-fence part of the yard or make something work.

So, there.  I know this wasn't a very uplifting animal post but I just needed to say all this.  It's not all wine and roses.  Instead, it can be a lot of whine and thorn-ses.  Such is life- a life I still wouldn't trade with anyone (just look at that first picture in this post again). Pin It