London community garden bees

A couple of days ago I got to visit these beautiful hives at the allotment (that's British for community garden) in Biggin Hill, Upper Norwood. It's about 9 miles south of central London.

My friends Pippa and Charlie (seen above with daughter Willow) have been tending a plot here for several months and weren't even aware that they share this space with about ten very healthy and active bee hives.

While I was visiting and getting a tour of the grounds, we met Melvyn (above), who's been gardening here for several years. He clued us in that just down the path, behind a small stand of trees, is Bee World. The tree divider seems like a great idea to help keep the bees from establishing a direct flight path to the garden, thus lessening collisions with the gardeners.

Everyone seems to be coexisting nicely.

Two bee rescues become one hive

These are some top-drawer bees.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Now that I’m in Long Beach, I’ve found a new team for bee rescues that includes Barbara and Richard. Barbara has wanted to work with bees for a long time now and has a new top bar hive ordered and ready to arrive this week. After a month of the two of us doing bee adventures together we found Richard. He had helped his grandfather with hives when he was very young and remembering those experiences sparked a new desire to have his own hives.

The first rescue the three of us took on were bees in a dresser. The homeowner’s’ son called the Bee Rescue Hotline and described a beehive in a mattress that had been left outside. As usual, what we found was different than reported. The mattress was propped up against an empty dresser that contained a hive.

There was a good level of activity so we started to remove the drawers to see how many were occupied by bees.  Even though this was his first experience with bee rescues in a very long time, Richard took the initiative and did a lot of it on his own.

Richard dives in.

It was a mess getting the drawers out, but once the dresser was open it wasn’t too hard to get the comb tied into the frames and the honey put away.  We left the box and frames in place and came back about a week later to find some bees but not a lot of activity so probably the majority of the bees had swarmed off after having their home torn apart.  

Luckily we had another call from a woman with bees in her jacuzzi. Her daughter-in-law noticed them when she was in the water and saw a few bees. She investigated the slightly open door to the motor where she saw the bees coming from and a glob of bees dropped to the ground. She stayed calm, and the bees didn’t seem to mind the disturbance. The family called the hotline, and we went out to do the rescue.

Backwards Beekeepers to the rescue at the LA Zoo

Now that's a big hive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Ceebs answered a call to the Bee Rescue Hotline about some hives at the LA Zoo. Dave, who is in charge of the grounds, wanted to do some natural extractions rather than use exterminators. Ceebs did some recognizance and started the wheels rolling.

The zoo rescue crew.

We had a huge group of people go there to remove a VERY big hive (as big as me!). It was under an elevated platform for an old aviary that was set to be demolished the following week, so we were in a time crunch. Luckily we had a team of both pros and newbees willing to meet at 6am to take care of it. We had Kirk, Randy, Chris, Ceebs, myself, Chandra, Barbara, Ryan and James.

Kirk at work.

We started out by just trying to figure out what to do. It took a ladder and a set of containers lifted with a pulley system. There was a bunch of chaos after the first few cuts and then Kirk went in and just took it apart in big whacks.

In no time the comb had come down, the brood was tied in and the honeycomb stashed away. Chandra, one of the condor keepers, took the bees home for her first hive.

On another recent visit Randy, Joseph, Ed, Andrew, James, Margarita and Barbara tackled a few hives. Two were under trailers and were pretty big and old. Access was difficult because it required lying on the ground. These cutouts went pretty fast. Then there was a hive in a tree that required a chainsaw but was too deep to extract so will require another trip for a trap-out.

—roberta

Backwards Beekeeper Ed adds:

Here's a joke for you. An Irishman, a Croatian, and a Guatemalan meet at the zoo and...

Joseph, Ed, Andrew.

Oh wait a minute, it's not a joke, its actually the Backwards Beekeepers International Section. Andrew, Joseph and I had the pleasure of doing a great cutout this AM at the Condor Sanctuary. It was a very mature hive located underneath a trailer. I'd say it was a couple of years old.

We did not use a bee vac. All we did was smoke and cut. We spotted the queen and manually placed her in Joseph's supers, collected plenty of honey and were headed for home by 9:30 AM. I don't believe anyone was stung even a single time.

I will post the photos (courtesy of Margarita) on the LA BeeRescue site.

—Ed

These beekeepers pack chainsaws

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Mary from Chatsworth called the Bee Rescue Hotline about a two-year-old hive in a tree. The city came by and cut the tree down but the hive remained safely in the stump. There was a hole in the center of the stump but we couldn't see the hive.

It was the perfect scenario to use the new Bee Removal signs that Ceebs made. I love these signs. We put them up all along the sidewalk.

I brought an electric chainsaw but this stump was stubborn. Luckily we had half of the team from the Pierce College cutout. At one point, we had two electric chainsaws going and then a neighbor brought over his bigger gas chainsaw which was really powerful but still not enough.

The homeowner tried to move the stump with a chain strung through the stump and attached to the hitch of his huge truck, but it didn't budge. Then a couple of crow bars and a couple of car jacks were brought out to break apart the stump. Finally the stump gave up and exposed the hive which was in a part of the roots.

There's no stopping this team

Left ro right: Dennis, Anne, Ruth, Patrick, Bee Hive, Tom, Gwen, Roberta (kneeling), Danny, Warren, Ceebs

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Backwards Beekeeping Mentor extraordinaire Warren and new beekeeper Tom called out for extra hands to cut out a hive of some grumpy bees at Pierce College. Warren and Tom had gone to check out the situation earlier and exposed the hive by removing an old wall and the bees were not happy about it.

To show how great our growing community of beekeepers is, 8 people immediately said that they would come out to help at 6:30am on a Saturday. In classic LA style, we had 9 cars arrive and everyone brought a trunk full of equipment. Dennis brought his new bee vac and it made a world of difference.

The cutout was simple and hardly a bee was left thanks to the bee vac. The bees must have been grumpy from being cramped because when we returned as a group they didn't try to sting except once.

With all the hands, everyone had a job and had a chance to try out the vac. We cut out the comb, handed it to someone to vacuum and then Tom tied it into his frames while others took pictures. Good thing it didn't take very long because the next cut out from a tree stump wasn't so easy.

I can't wait till the next group cut out! They are easy and fast.

—Roberta

Tom shot this excellent photo of a developing queen in an open cell:



Dennis has more on his blog The Buzz In The Dale.