Danny rescues a water meter hive

Ventura Backwards Beekeeper Danny had never cut a hive out of a water meter box before yesterday. I'm sure it won't be his last, because meter boxes seem to attract bees like crazy.

Many more pictures are on Danny's blog, Bee Rescue Ventura.

Dennis and Steve on a big bee rescue

Steve, loaded for bees.

SoCal Backwards Beekeepers Dennis and Steve (of Lawndale and Torrance, respectively) collected a hive of bees out of a big pot in Palos Verdes yesterday. You can read the whole story on Dennis' blog, The Buzz In The Dale.

Dennis and Steve found yet another hive at the same spot, and Dennis will be returning on Saturday to remove it. Want to join him and learn how to rescue feral bees? Join our Yahoo group for details.

Sometimes forwards is just the new sideways

Kirk did some mentoring with Barnaby the other day.

Here's his audio report. Follow along with the pictures.

Barnaby looking in the hive. These bees are from Coma Apiaries in Northern California. I purchased bees from them in 1999.

We pulled a frame. Good pattern of brood, very yellow bees—haven't seen yellow bees for a while.

Supercedure cell..."but there are eggs and larvae!" he says...bees don't care what Humans say. The queen is being replaced.

Second hive: Barnaby getting ready to open it up.

I don't know if you can see it, but there was a supercedure cell in this hive—also not much brood. "Why the supercedure cell?" the human asks. Well, we saw the queen—she was going in circles like she was frustrated. "How would you like to be ready to lay 5000 eggs a day and have nowhere to lay them?" I said.

The bees think something is wrong—the queen is not laying, so they start to replace her.

Barnaby.

More plastic comb, another supercedure cell.

Closing up the third hive.

The second hive when we opened it sounded funny. I pointed this out to him. When bees are happy they sound in tune. I also had him put frames with wax foundation in the hive so the queen can lay. The bees here been here for a month—their numbers are going down.

A queen excluder is a device that removes the queen's determinism. She should be able to decide whether to swarm or leave or lay wherever she decides is best. When a human or humans decide what is best for the bees the bees fail...humans don't know as much about the hive as the queen and the bees do.

But it has been fun Mentoring Barnaby anyway.

—kirkobeeo

The backyard dresser hive

Ty in his improvised bee suit.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

I met Ty and Rick Saturday morning to do a cut-out from dresser in Long Beach. Yolanda and Johnny had a dresser that bees had moved into 8 years ago! The bees had gone into the 2nd drawer when it was upright and then at one point it fell down and they went into the top drawer.

Yolanda and Johnny.

This was a really strong hive and was producing swarms regularly. There were 4 swarms in the past month so it was time for the bees to move into a bigger hive, so Yolanda and Johnny called the Bee Rescue Hotline.

I only had one extra veil so Ty jumped in with borrowed dishwashing gloves and lots of duct tape. These were some mean bees but Ty was great and took a bunch of stings and kept on smiling. We got them into a deep box but unfortunately I only had medium frames. Ughh!

Inside the hive there were a bunch of queen cells including some closed ones. The left side of this comb had drone cells and nice capped worker cells on the right.

These bees will go to Malibu where they can live undisturbed and Ty and Rick will get some nicer bees. Not quite new beekeepers but almost. Ty gives a wrap-up in the video just below.

—roberta

Kirk goes mentoring

Kirk writes:

Debra had bees that I took out of her chimney last year. They left in January. I told her to leave boxes out—maybe a swarm would move in. They Did.

Debra smokes the bees.

Yup, we have brood and eggs. Good deal.

Put the lid on, check in two weeks.

I mentored Debra and Summer both earlier this week. It is fun to mentor.

—kirkobeeo

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.

Viewer mail

John writes:

I watched the honey video where Kirk squashed up the comb, let it drip thru a filter in plastic buckets, and then bottled it. The jarred honey looked cloudy. Is that microscopic bits of wax from the smashing process or what? Does it affect the taste?

Thanks,

John (a new beekeeper)

Kirk responds:

Most times when I crush and strain the honey I let it sit for a few days. That way the air bubbles can float to the top.

There are bits of wax, pollen and maybe even propolis in the honey. This all contributes to the natural goodness.

If you want pure honey you heat it to 140 degrees, pasteurize it, and microfilter it........that way it tastes like GRADE A tinfoil.

—kirkobeeo

Making the rounds with a newbee

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Leah, a newbee, wanted to have bees and was fully prepared with hive boxes in her back yard. She also has a neighbor who is a beekeeper and can answer questions. Leah got her protective gear and just needed bees. We planned on meeting at 7am Saturday morning with a list calls to the Bee Rescue Hotline.

We went to Westchester to rescue a swarm in a water meter. It was Leah's first time putting her gear on so we took our time to make sure she knew what to do. We took a look under the lid and the comb was new and white, so very fragile. This made it too hard to tie in to frames, so we planned to lift the huge lid and then cut the comb to get the whole hive into the box all at once. This would pretty much guarantee that we would get the queen. We spent about 30 minutes prepping and then the transfer took about 30 seconds.

Next Meeting: Sunday May 22--NEW LOCATION!

Our next meeting is on Sunday, May 22nd at 11am—in a new location! We'll be at Atwater Crossing, just east of the Silver Lake & Los Feliz neighborhoods.

Check out the map in the right margin of this blog for the exact location.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of beekeeping experience (or lack thereof).

If this is your first meeting, please spend a few minutes with this blog before you come - it may answer a lot of your questions.

We'll also have Backwards Beekeepers t-shirts for sale. They cost $15 and are very fashionable.

See you there!

Viewer mail

Diana in Maryland writes:

My only colony swarmed yesterday - it looks like about three pounds of bees separated from the rest and decided to found a new home. I was lucky enough that my husband had been at home and had seen where they had gone.

And it was ONLY THANKS TO YOU GUYS that I knew exactly what to do and sprang into action!

The information you posted is absolutely invaluable. I always watched wistfully, hoping I'd find a swarm one day but thinking I probably never would be that lucky. And now, because you guys are so generous to share your information with the world, I now have TWO colonies!

I blogged about it here—you can see pictures and a short video.

So exciting, THANK YOU!

—D

Thanks, Diana!