Trap-out and hive transfer

Barrett showing off some very productive bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I went over to Barrett's place before the recent Backwards Beekeeping meeting to work on some projects we've set up.

The first project that Barrett, his neighbor Dave, and I worked on were some bees in the base of the sycamore tree. The bees had been in the tree for about 2 years. After a month of trapping them out, it seemed like all the bees were out and now we wanted to see what was left in the hive.

We found empty comb and no bees which means that the trap-out worked. Then we filled the hive with dirt and cemented the area to discourage bees from coming back. Check out the video for the quick version of the process:

The next project was a hive transfer of a swarm that we put in a deep box about 2 weeks ago. They built comb like crazy. Check out the video to see the beautiful hive they had built:

We cut the beautiful brood comb out and tied them into deep frames. It was an almost perfect fit. Dave spotted the queen with his eagle eye and boy was she huge. She must have been over an inch long! We couldn't catch a picture in time though.

I needed to leave for the meeting but next projects are adding the trapped-out bees to the hive that we transferred and then fix another hive that also suffered from not having all the right equipment at the same time. Medium frames in a deep box—I can only say that I work with what I find in my car.

Barrett has offered to thank the Backwards Beekeepers for the help by hosting a tour of his hives and a satellite meeting on the West side. Look out for details on our Yahoo group page.

—roberta

Bees for Summer

LA Backwards Beekeeper Summer writes:

I just had a great time with Kirk putting my nuc hive into its permanent hive! I wanted to share some pictures and the story.

Kirk and I went to get a beehive from a bird house in Del Mar.

We brought the entire birdhouse back to my sponsor's yard, but when we opened up the birdhouse, all the bees were dead! We came to the conclusion the bees were probably poisoned before we picked them up.

Poor little bees.

However, all was not lost. Kirk got a call the following week about a beehive in a BBQ! He cut out the hive and delivered it to me.

New beekeeper moves her bees

LA Backwards Beekeeper Kathryn checks in with this story about moving her rescued bees:

I have this box of rescued bees from Arrowhead Water that Kirk brought me and the box was looking pretty sad. It had weathered the insane downpours the past month and the bees were thriving but something more substantial was overdue. So it seemed high time for a hive transfer.

The box had long frames in them and my hives were medium so Kirk brought me a box and frames with old comb in them (overnight a skunk or raccoon had a little snack of old comb but it was essentially intact). It still needed a top and bottom so I went to Honey Supply and picked them up. Here's my new setup. I was ready to go:

I recruited my dubious husband to document my first hive transfer as a newbie Backwards Beekeeper. Big points for getting that close to that many bees! Here we go...

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The chickens came by to see what all of the fuss is about. Since there was no bird seed involved their interest didn't last.

I set up the new long box and install the old comb in the spot where the old paper box was. Figured the bees would be less disoriented if things didn't change too much. In this shot is my medium hive from which my original colonly absconded. So there it sits empty except for the comb which I put back in after freezing (to kill off wax moths) hoping a swarm will move in.

Now it was time to start putting the hive in their new box. It really is true that bees just aren't that picky. This colony was happy and thriving in a cardboard box, essentially. But us humans must always intervene.

Much activity from the girls as the frames start going in. They went right to the box so hoping that means the queen is already there and safe.

The landing pad looks pretty active as the last of the frames start going in.

Success! Bees transfered!

Checking out the new digs....

Look at the pollen on the girl near the right. Loved seeing that.

Another shot of newly moved bees figuring it out and an even better shot of pnacked pollen saddlebags

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And here they are ensconced in their new wood box, much safer from the rain, ants and predators. Enjoy, girls!

—Kathryn

A cut-out for a new beekeeper

Kirk tackles a big cut-out, and helps another new beekeeper get started:







And Larry writes:

Kirk—

It was a pleasure to meet you yesterday and I really appreciate how skillfully and patiently you transferred our colony of feral bees from inside a stucco wall into a hive.

In addition to the sting that I got on my cheek, I got a few more as I was futzing with the hive later. I got a sting on my right wrist when a bee crawled inside my glove, and later when I couldn't find my big, heavy welding glove, I got stung on the left wrist by a bee who crawled inside an ordinary work glove, and on the finger by a bee who was able to sting me through the fabric of the glove.

After you left, I kept spraying the bees clustered on the wall with sugar water, and the clusters kept getting smaller. At one point, I decided to scrape some of the comb off the 2 x 6 studs in the wall, and that's when I got stings 3 and 4.

At about 9:30 pm I suited up again, this time with duct tape around the cuffs of my gloves, and went out to transfer any remaining clusters of bees into the hive. But there was not one bee left on the wall in the old colony space. They had all gone into the hive.

Pretty cool! Looks like our transplant was a total success.

This morning, I went out to the freezer to see about some honey. I cut away some empty comb and cut up the juicy comb into blocks that I put in plastic containers. I mooshed up a lot of the comb that was not as full, and I'm letting the honey drain out of it.

I just had a piece of toast with butter and some of the honey from my bees. Unbelievable! I'm a budding bee dude.

You're awesome, Kirk.

Thanks,

Larry

The branch-in-a-nuc bees

A couple of weeks ago Travis (who runs a pest removal company that we link to on the Bee Rescue page) gave me a nuc containing a very small hive that had drawn comb around a tree branch.

Once it became clear that the bees were going to stick around in their new Silver Lake home, it was time to get the combs tied into frames. Who better to supervise this job than Kirk?


Kirk took a good-sized knife (which he likes to call a "toad stabber") and gently cut the layers of comb away from the branch, and I tied them into frames.



On Kirk's suggestion, we put the frames back into the nuc box (instead of a full-size hive box) in the hope that they'll be better able to keep themselves warm in this freakishly cool LA summer.

—Russell

Maurice mentors a swarm capture

Albert, a new Los Angeles Backwards Beekeeper, recently got his first bees. He writes about this video:

Maurice from Santa Monica caught a swarm and we transferred it to my hive. They were slow to start, but then raced right into the hive. But then apparently the queen must have flown out of the hive to the nearby fence, so the swarm followed her (yikes!). Maurice then sort of shook the swarm off the fence into a bucket, which he then literally just dumped into the top of the hive. That seemed to work (lucky!), and the swarm on the fence dissipated, and the remaining bees on the ground in front of the hive all went into the hive. This all took about 4 hours.

Maurice has become one of the most active bee rescuers in the city. He frequently posts to our Yahoo Group after collecting swarms or hives that people have called in to the Bee Rescue Hotline.

By the way, notice that the swarm-catchers are working sleeveless and gloveless—bees in a swarm are almost always docile and disinclined to sting.

Helping out the speaker bees

L.A. Backwards Beekeeper Roberta says:

Robin asked for some help with some bees that had “taken over his life”. The bees had set-up shop in a speaker box after he chased them out of a wall.

Bees just love speaker boxes. Robin is very creative and made a custom hive out of scrap lumber. We talked about bee space and he made some quick adjustments to his design with a circular saw. He even made his veil out of old tent netting and plans on making his own smoker.

His frames were super deep but they seem to work really well. The comb on the right resembles Africa. We removed the comb and tied them in and the bees seemed to feel at home right away.

He’s already recruiting more beekeepers on his block.

—Roberta

Setting up a top bar hive

Backwards Beekeeper David writes:

Hi all - thanks to Kirk, I got a nuc on Sunday. I took it over to the house where I had set up a Top Bar Hive and left it there with some sugar water around and hoped they'd move into the hive. Today, I went back and suited up and cut them out of the frames and put them into the top bar hive. I'm posting some photos in a minute - one of my friends took stills and another video taped the whole thing.

I was amazed at how sticky everything got! I guess it was a no brainer, but when everything stuck to everything else, it was getting a little annoying. This group of bees was completely gentle and easy going. I don't think I need the whole suit and everything. Not one of us got stung or even seriously threatened...

Thanks to Kirk and everyone else for all their help! It was an awesome experience! What a thrill!

david

Join our Yahoo group to see more of David's photos.

New beekeeper report

New Backwards Beekeeper Marc checks in with his progress:

I attended my first meeting of the Backwards Beekeepers on April 25th...I captured a smallish swarm Easter morning and took a peek today, being only three weeks that the "girls" have been hive making. Wow. They have been busy.

Here is the swarm that landed late afternoon the Friday before Easter. They had swarmed on the stand of a bird feeder. At my daughter's encouragement to capture them I proceeded to discover the resources available to me. Very quickly I found the Backwards Beekeepers, LA Honey, and lots of information and other sites.

Okay, time to become a beekeeper. By Saturday night I had assembled a hive with one medium super and 10 frames. Sunday morning they plopped right in (having been christened the Easter Hive by my wife) and within a few days they were foraging and every fifth bee arrived with pollen.

Today (day 22) I opened the hive to swap out frames without starter strips and found two frames with drawn but empty comb and three like the picture below (mostly capped brood I think).

Below is a closeup of capped cells and larva. And maybe that is the queen on the extreme right. At this rate I think I have another three or four weeks before I have to put a second super on. I will also switch to a top entrance at that time. It's a very docile hive and opening it up was a non event for the bees. No doubt the light smoking helped. From the appearance of the (possible) queen my guess is that they are probably Italians, which the book "The Backyard Beekeeper" states are "not markedly protective of their hive" and "quiet on the comb"...

It's been a ton of fun so far and with little effort involved other than watching, reading, and planning. Honey is not a primary objective at this time, but if the hive grows really fast then maybe I'll collect a little this year.

Regards,
Marc

Corey helps a downtown swarm move in

Backwards Beekeeper Corey, who operates out of downtown LA, sends this video of hiving a swarm on his rooftop. Thanks Corey!

How to hit the ground running.

New Backwards Beekeeper Kacy writes:

I wanted to share some photos and notes on my bee experience yesterday and today.

I drove to Orange last night with a friend in a borrowed pickup truck to get the two hive boxes from David, who said he couldn't keep them anymore. He fired up his smoker, and I was sure he was going to ignite them! But they did calm down and survived all that smoke. I taped the screen borrowed from Kirk on top of the box. After some prying loose, we were able to carry it out to the pickup bed.

He also had a new swarm that had just appeared the day before. This being my first hands on experience, I wasn't planning on taking the swarm and told him that might be better left to a pro.... but there it was, this sweet heart shaped mass at the top of the jungle gym, vibrating like the whole thing was one breathing organism, which in some ways is true.

So we lifted a cardboard box up to it and swept them (albeit clumsily) into the box and taped it shut. It was then loaded into the truck and I covered it all with a sheet. I put the box cover in, which had a cluster of bees on it. Four of them actually survived the long drive home!

This morning Kirk came over to help me do a proper setup. Unloading in the dark last night was not very precise and I wasn't prepared for 2 hives! He showed me how to set the starter strips in the frames and load the box.

We then added a new box to the very crowded and angry original hive, and set up the swarm w/their starter box and a bag of sugar water and a yummy looking pollen patty for dessert. I am so thankful that Kirk was able to come over on Easter sunday and help my start out right! And I'm really looking forward to this new ongoing experience with the bees!

Bee well and thrive...

--Kacy