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

Beekeepers meet the paparazzi

Chelsea, Sherri Akers, LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Rob

LA beekeepers Rob and Chelsea McFarland have been raising quite a ruckus with their organization HoneyLove.org. They're working hard in the fight to legalize beekeeping in our city.

Photos from their recent "National Honey Bee Awareness Day" event are here.

Bees on approach!

Diane W. (aka Lady Bee Wrangler) sends this story about a great way to expand beekeeping:

That buzzing sound you hear at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport could be a jet taking off. Or maybe it's coming from the 1.5 million bees that call the airport home. In May, the Chicago Department of Aviation partnered with a community group to start a 2,400 square foot apiary on-site. Now 23 beehives are up and running and are scheduled to yield 575 pounds of honey this year.

The project offers a creative, sustainable, and productive way to use otherwise wasted open space at mega-airports like O'Hare. The bees' new home on the east side of the airport campus had long stood vacant, so it was a natural spot for the bee program to begin. And if that's not enough benefit, the beehives provide employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated adults (similar to other projects that teach prisoners beekeeping).

At O'Hare Airport, Unused Land Is Going to the Bees (GOOD online)

Rooftop cut-out with a view

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Andrew and I did a cut-out together of another squirrel box, this time for his friends Fleur and Dins in Echo Park. The squirrel box was retrieved from Thousand Oaks a few days earlier.

It was a pretty tricky move because it was overflowing with bees and it was terribly high. Nonetheless it made it back to LA and we put it on Fleur and Dins’ rooftop.

Andrew and Fleur.

This is a great place for bees. It’s up on a hillside and has a spectacular view of downtown LA. It also made for a great nighttime urban beekeeping adventure after work.

The bees had been on the mean side so to minimize the craziness with the cut-out, we vacuumed them up. They were very nice bees this time around and didn’t seem to mind where they were going. They were calm enough that Fleur and Dins stayed and watched. It didn’t take long to get them in their new hive.

Unfortunately, in a few days, the bees were robbed and most of them didn’t survive the attack. They were probably just too nice. Well, Fleur was heartbroken so Andrew immediately called for another cutout. He joined the crew for a few cutouts at the zoo and hopefully he has more bees for her.

—roberta

Victoria's bees move out of the house, into a hive

No drones allowed, I guess. (click to enlarge)

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

Victoria is a wonderful fellow Long Beach beekeeper. She started out by wanting to host a hive, and posted an offer to do so on the Backwards Beekeepers Yahoo group.

She quickly got a call from a couple who had made a beautiful and uniquely painted top bar hive (see above). They brought it over with a swarm which had already set up housekeeping inside.

Henry in Long Beach helped Victoria with her first inspection, which was a bit tricky. The homemade frames were a little difficult to move around and some of the combs were attached to top bars. Henry put in a deep frame and it kind of fit.

Well, Victoria loved how it was decorated but in the long run wanted to have an easier-to-manage Langstroth hive. So I went over and in a couple of stages we cut out the combs and moved them to a new hive. The bees were just a little bothered by it and then went right back to working.

Victoria and Barbara.

Barbara came on the second visit, which made things go a lot faster. There was a little honey comb that Victoria's hubbie and daughter got to sample. Victoria's daughter wants her own beekeeping veil, which she'’ll get soon.

—roberta

Pacific Palisades Attic Bees

LA Backwards Beekeeper Ruth writes:

Joe A. was excited to participate in his first cut-out so that he could get his first bee hive going in his yard. Susan R. came too, to help with the cut out just to get more experience and to help save more bees.

These bees had lived in a ceiling or attic space in a house in the Palisades for many years. The owners were doing a total renovation so they decided it was time for the bees to go. Dorothy C. did the logistics on getting all the permissions and helpers together! Thank you Dorothy!

Below is the owner's contractor, Gary, who borrowed a bee suit so that he could make the cut in the drywall himself and get a taste of bee fever! Here are the first trial holes... hmmm, we thought they were in there! It took a minute to find them.

Once we found the right spot we cut a nice big rectangle out of the drywall so we could get our tools in there to cut the comb down.

I like a pancake spatula because it has an angle. Putty knives are good too, once you get it started.

The hive was old but not that big. It went across two 16" bays of rafter beams. We rubber banded 2 full medium boxes of frames together for Joe, and I put 3 deep frames, including some with open brood, into a cardboard nuc box for the stragglers. There were a lot of stragglers.

Joe cut a lot of the comb down himself. Susan and I took most of the honey, and the contractor's workers got some too!

Here are Joe and Susan. We made a great team and enjoyed our morning's work. I will go back and pick up the straggler box
in a few days or a week.

—Ruth

Viewer mail

Helen writes:

We have just started beekeeping this year. We inherited a hive that had wired wax foundations on the two deeps and one western [editor's note: I'm guessing this means a medium box]. The deeps are pretty full of brood and honey and the western is full of honey so we thought we’d try putting on a second western for honey. We put one on a couple of weeks ago. Since we are sharing work on the hive with a friend and he wanted to use plastic foundations covered with wax and we wanted to use just starter strips covered with wax, we did half of each. Unfortunately they’ve hardly touched either, only sealed around the edges with propolis. I had read someplace that sometimes spraying sugar water on helps, but it didn’t.

Is it possible to successfully introduce frames with starter strips in a hive that has wax foundation in some supers? If so, any thoughts on why the bees seem to be ignoring them? Or what to do to encourage them to start? They do go up and walk around on the starter strips, but they aren’t drawing any comb. We have another hive with just two deeps with wired wax foundations and the bees in that hive have been drawing comb like crazy, so it’s not a matter of not having sufficient nectar & pollen.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Helen

PS – My husband and I love your site. His favorite saying now it “Backwards is the new forwards!”

Kirk responds:

Well, it probably isn't the starter strips or the plastic foundation. It is probably the time of year. Bees like to draw comb on starter strips and to draw foundation when there is a flow. Also the bees have to "festoon" or hang on the starter strips to draw comb. This means bees—lots of young bees. So depending on what time of year and where you are located has a lot to do with it.

Also if you are up north or where it gets cold that honey is also INSULATION. So if you take the honey you can set them up to freeze and to starve. I have found bees draw comb if there is a flow.

Plastic: I have seen people use all kinds of tricks to try and get bees to draw out the plastic. If you just are a Backwards Beekeeper you will remove most of the confusion you are now experiencing. One other thing. All bees are Backwards the humans just confuse them.....also All Bees are created equal some just work harder than others.

kirkobeeo your pal

LA Weekly visits the Backwards Beekeepers

Thanks to David Cotner of the LA Weekly for a well-written piece on our group:

Kirk Anderson, the Backwards Beekeepers' sardonic and direct guru, leads the meeting. He offers sage slivers of advice for the care and keeping of the bees in a way that comes off as completely natural but in reality stems from decades of observational experience that began in the 1970s, when he ordered bees through the mail from the Montgomery Ward catalog.

Beekeeping may seem like something to be pursued by specialists, involving arcane knowledge or insect sorcery. But, Anderson says, "We want to show everyone that it's easy," wryly promising, "You don't have to be a brain surgeon or a politician to do it." For those who were brought to the meeting because of the stern warnings of the recent documentary Vanishing of the Bees, Anderson stresses, "There are plenty of bees -- nature keeps that bucket pretty full."

Backwards Beekeepers, L.A.'s Bee Rescue Service (LA Weekly)

Backwards Beekeeping in France

Friend-of-the-group Renaud keeps bees in Pénestin, France. He checks in with this photo of himself and his son Grégoire, both modeling Backwards Beekeepers apparel.

Rescuing a Long Beach tree hive

Jennifer, Maddy and Izzy beneath their tree hive.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Barbara writes:

This rescue could not have been sweeter (well, unless there had been honey). One nice mom, two live wire little girls bubbling over with questions, and a sweet little tree hive all made for a pleasant after-dark rescue event in Long Beach.

I had checked on Jennifer's bee situation a couple weeks ago—I had hoped it would just be a swarm, since she had just noticed it. But it turned out that the bees were settled in and were making comb.

When Roberta and I returned, we found the same little hive, now with one more comb than it had three weeks prior. It required some tricky pruning on Roberta's part, since combs were built through several tiny branches as well as the small main branch. She managed to free it and clear a path down.

My job was to hold the ladder still for her and not let go even if a blob of angry bees fell off the branch directly above and landed on me—a distinct possibility. Since my first bee rescue was the BBQ bees from hell bouncing off my veil and entire body, I figured I could handle a bee bomb on my head. Fortunately, I didn't have to test this theory.

This little hive was really a beauty and the bees were not at all defensive. Roberta was able to invite the girls back out to see it since the bees were so calm. Izzy and Maddy were snapping pictures with their own cameras and so excited that one question was tumbling into the next.

We put the hive, branch and all, into a cardboard box. The hive had so little growth in those three weeks that we suspect it might be queen-less, so Roberta has not quite decided where it will end up. Perhaps it will be added to another hive; perhaps she’ll wait and see how it does on its own.

Roberta and I answered each and every bee question the girls could think of while we were cleaning up, while we were packing the car, while we were strapping the ladder on top of the car, well, you get the idea. I’m sure they will still be talking about their big bee adventure for days. Who knows … maybe they will join a future generation of beekeepers. ☺

—Barbara