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It is really early, and I’m not sure where these girls are finding pollen, but they are! Listen to these bees sing!

It was a beautiful day to get out and feed the bees some pollen after a long winter. Very pleased with the strength of the colonies and an incredibly low loss rate so far!

More updates as we get to the other yards!

Had a brief window of time this morning to check on the bees.  I had to race the rain, but the girls needed a bit of pollen patties to jump start the laying of eggs and I wanted to make sure they had plenty of food.  I can say that I was pleasantly surprised at the number of bees!

Bringing in the pollen!

 

Hard to believe the number of bees in the hives this spring!  A mild winter does have its perks.  The brown slabs on top are a pollen and sugar substitute to keep them going if it gets cold and wet.  Introducing a food source is generally going to get the queen laying faster, but she has been busy the past month or two if there are this many bees!

 

 

It all started at a little church. A church with bees in the back wall, about 15 foot up. And they had a choice, be removed or face the poison chamber. So I said I would cut them out of the wall and attempt to give them a new home that they would be happy in. The problem is, in September they would not have much time at all to replenish their honey stores before winter. They would need lots of supplemental feed.

Now cutting bees out of a wall is not a fun job at all. It is hot, sticky, and you will likely get stung multiple times while working off scaffolding 10 foot up. It is not a job that anyone goes looking for, but I did it anyway. It was so hot and sticky that I didn’t take any pictures. The entire job went smoothly (an unexpected bonus!) and four hours later on a 95 degree day I had them relocated to a friends house, away from my bees to avoid robbing and fighting among the hives at my place.

Now we wait, I thought. Often bees don’t like being forced out of their home and the bee vacuum is hard on them. There is a good chance the queen will be hurt or killed during the process, and the odds of having a viable colony at the end is about 25%.

Here are some pictures of the relocated bees at their new home.

Remember when I said relocating bees is tough and has a low success rate?  Fast forward to the next day and I get a phone call from another friend who tells me there is a swarm in his parents tree.  So I pack up everything and head over to see what I can do.  Sure enough, this is what I found about half a mile from where I left the church bees the day before.  I stopped by where I left the bees the day before and confirmed that they were gone, so here I am collecting the same bees for a second time.

 

Now things are never simple around bees, or me for that matter.  These girls were flying around and taking their time following the queen into the new box, so I left them hang out in the shade to come back at dusk and move them to my house because they obviously didn’t like the new home I had picked out for them.

At least that was my plan.  Because about 2 hours later, I got another text saying the bees had swarmed out of the box and onto the other side of the tree.  Another trip out to Monroe and this is what I found.

 

 

So into the boxes again!  This time, I locked the queen into the box with a screen and came back at dusk to pack them up and bring them home.  Last night in the dark, I had them set up.

This morning they are still there.  But they are bearded up on the outside of the hive, trying to make up their mind if they want to stay or continue our little game of chase the swarm…  I hope they are done!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I got a call from an old friend telling me that he had a swarm of bees.  I thought, yea right.  Honey bees swarming in September.  That just doesn’t happen.  Then he told me they were on the ground.  So I told him those are hornets, no way it would be honey bees.  His response was I am 95% sure they are honey bees.  After a few minutes of telling him he was wrong, I told him to send me a picture.  I’ll show him I thought.

This is what he sent.  A large swarm of honey bees on September 1, on the ground, breaking all the rules.  So I packed up and drove 35 minutes to get them.  True to form they continued to break the rules and left 10 minutes before I got there.  Just another day for a nice ride!

Just when you think you know something, the rules change!  And honestly, it no longer bothers me.  I like learning new things.

Its been a couple of weeks since I have gotten into the hives but I plan on pulling some honey supers tomorrow.  So tonight I just took a quick look at some of the hives to see what I will be getting into tomorrow.

In case anyone is in Conneaut this weekend, I plan on setting up a table at the Conneaut Farmers Market.  Stop by and taste the difference in local honey!

 

In the spring a bee colony grows aggressively to prepare for swarming to create a new colony. To keep the bees in production, you can split the hive into several different colonies and trick them into thinking they are not ready to swarm.

Here are a series of pictures from the splits we did yesterday.

I took the time to get into the bees this afternoon and worked up a sweat! There was one hive that was very strong with 8 boxes stacked up for the one hive and that is before the honey starts going full steam. The lower six boxes had eggs and brood, so I split it in half and added two more supers for honey to each one. Each is still very big, but they need room for the population explosion from all the brood.

Heres what they look like after the split.

Tomorrow will be another busy day, I’m getting 8 more queens and will be splitting other hives to expand the apiary even more! If you want to help, let me know, I will suit you up.

This wysteria is just one of the many flowers the bees are feasting on these days.

Now that spring weather is here, I have had the opportunity to get into the hives for inspections.  In the strong hives, there have been queen cups, which means the bees are preparing for swarming – their way of creating a new colony of bees an continuing the circle of life.

There were no eggs or larva in the queen cups, so it will be at least 2 weeks before the strong early hives start swarming.  If you see a cluster of bees like the pictures below, contact me on Facebook messenger, or send an email to RussColtman@gmail.com and I will come collect the bees and give them a happy home and give you a pound of honey!

 

I spent today putting 12 packages of bees into happy homes. While some people may get more than a little freaked out by having 36 pounds of bees in the van, I like to listen to them hum.

It’s been a long day, so I’m just going to share the pictures and explain more later.