REDWOODSHIRE- learning to grow; growing to learn: September 2017

It's been a while since I posted. Almost 4 months to be exact. Reason being that our family grew by a little person- which made it somewhat difficult to figure out how to get into the hive to inspect. Since we're still quite new to beekeeping, we feel it's a tag team- 2 person job. The Laird pulls out the bars, while I run the smoker, take photos & clean bees out of the way to put the bar back inside.

Back in May we installed 2 packages of bees into our 2 Top Bar Hives. This is 1 more hive & colony of bees than we had last year- our first season in beekeeping. We made the move to get a 2nd hive last winter, in hopes of catch a swarm from our 1st colony and then having 2 hives going. We thought this would provide a 2nd chance in case we lost a hive during the winter. Well unfortunately, we lost our sole hive. So we bought a package of bees, not thinking we were going to be able to get our hands on a swarm. And then we bit the bullet and purchased a 2nd package of bees for the hive we had purchased last winter.

Installations went well. And things seemed to be moving right along. Then at some point in June or July, we noticed some queen cells (meaning the bees were preparing to swarm & multiply). One day we walked out back and saw thousands of bees flying around- what you'd imagine a swarm to look like. The Laird, said "look at all those bugs!". I responded, "I think the bees swarmed". He went to get his phone to take photos, and by the time he returned, the swarm had flown off into the woods. And that was the story of how our colony size diminished by half it's size. Swarming in May or early June is ok, later than that just jeopardizes winter survival- since you loose half your bee population. Not a great thing, but there was nothing we could do at that point. The bees still had time to build up their numbers before winter and store honey. Honey also diminishes during a swarm because they bees who will leave gorge themselves on honey reserves so they will be all set until they find a new home and are able to get back to work.

Fast forward to last week. We noticed queen cup cells again in the same hive, and didn't think they could possibly swarm again. The next morning I went out to check on the bees. The queen cells were capped! The number of bees also seemed a little lighter than usual- but I didn't think anything of it because maybe they were all out foraging. It was a nice day after all. Later that day, I took the kids out back to play on the jungle gym. From 100 ft away, I glanced over to check out the bee activity outside the hive. I noticed a dark spot on the tree branch in a pine tree behind the hives. Immediately I wondered if the bees had swarmed to I ran over to check it out. And this is what I saw above me.

The Cedar Hive had swarmed AGAIN! On the last day of August, our bees had decided to go on a suicide mission. I immediately texted & called the Laird at work. When he got home, we grabbed a cardboard box and set out to capture our first swarm. It was easier than we thought. They plopped right into the box. We closed it up and put it in the garage. Then we had to figure out what to do with this swarm. We started scouring the Internet with ideas. Could we go into the hive and kill the newly raised queens, and then reintroduce the swarm (with the old queen) back into the hive? Should we let them go and just try to build up the colony that stayed behind? Should we get another hive? Should we build another top bar hive? I checked craigslist and there happened to be a gentleman selling his beehives and equipment. He just happened to be selling 2 homemade Top Bar Hives and a handful of Langstroth hives. The Laird said I should try to get in touch and get one of the top bar hives, since it would cost less to buy these used hives than build one. Communications with the seller were slow, but after 4 days in a cardboard box, and a 2 hour round trip drive, we finally had a solution for this swarm of bees.

Top Bar from Cedar Hive.
Capped honey along the top.
Worker bee brood on left side / Drone brood on right side of comb

One of his homemade top bar hives was built to similar dimensions as our top bar hives, so I purchased that one. I was definitely going to buy one of the TBH, but then decided maybe we would get both. Early on the morning I was set to drive out to get the hives, I thought it might be cool to get one of the Langstroth hives and eventually get a Ross Rounds kit. The Ross Rounds are a system of getting the bees to build their comb in a circular ring, capping it, and then being able to have perfect honey comb in a plastic container. They are beautiful. I shared this thought with the Laird, and he agreed as has wanted to get a Langstroth hive just to learn how to do it.

So I drove an hour away, and met a wonderful gentleman who had been beekeeping for about 8 years. We talked a lot and I asked him every and any question that popped into my head. An hour and a half later, I was on my way home with 1 Top Bar Hive and 1 Langstroth hive, for the cost of less than 1 hive set up. He even loaded me up with frames that already had comb built up- so that our swarm would have a head start and be more willing to stay.

Upon arriving home, the Laird and I got to work setting the hive up. We had wanted to put the Langstroth hive in between our Top Bar Hives. But when the Laird went to pour the bees in, from our very soggy 4 day old cardboard box, things were much crazier than our previous swarm and package installations. In the 4 days that they were living inside the cardboard box, they had chewed through the holes we poked for them to breath- and could freely go in and out of the box. The bees went CRAZY, and very few of them ended up inside the hive. Then we realized many of the bees had covered the mason jar feeder that was sitting in the spot that the cardboard box was sitting. So the Laird brushed them into the hive. A couple minutes later, I noticed that they had then covered the smoker! Basically anything sitting in the spot that the cardboard box was previously position, was where they were identifying as home. So we realized that we needed to move the Langstroth back over to where the cardboard box had been, and if they survive winter, we will worry about a better location then.

The Laird setting up Langstroth Hive between Top Bar Hives (initial location)

Bees clustered on smoker

What an adventure. We have no idea if the queen made it into the Langstroth hive. We looked around for her on the ground. The bees have gone into the hive and are busy at work, but only time will tell if there is a laying queen in there. We will have to do an inspection in a week or so. All that said, we are learning a lot on this beekeeping adventure and will continue to learn. It's awesome to have 2 new hives to expand into. Once you are keeping one hive, it only makes sense to have a handful;)