Taro & Ti Bees

Easy Cutout

MikeV — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:51:40 +0000

Bees forming colony behind a picture.

Not long ago I was presented with an opportunity to gather some bees. As usual, until you go look at it, you have to form a picture in your head with the questions you ask and the answers you get. My wife’s friends mother called about bees in her roof – way up at the apex. Based on what she described – and what I saw subsequently of where they were – I was not looking forward to cutting those out. Very high up, very difficult location. But, inexplicably, something happened to change all that.

Interestingly the next day or two, I get informed that those bees moved to the neighboring daughter’s garage – apparently they were in swarm or absconsion mode and didn’t like the eve of that roof. The garage is a framed structure with no inner sheeting over the studs. Where the bees ended up there was a big ol’ picture leaning against the wall and the bees took up residence behind the picture. I could only see the top of the swarm. Yeah – little thing by appearances. I’m thinking – ooh, another tiny swarm. Oh well – better a few than none, right? I was in for quite a surprise when I removed the picture. There was a mess of bees going from face high at about 5.5′ almost all the way to the bottom of the cavity. I didn’t get a picture of that, sadly, as I became pre-occupied with getting them in the bucket once I had removed the picture.

Bees hanging around the entrance to the swarm bucket.

I pulled the picture away from the wall and found a huge mass of bees covering the cavity behind it and a little 4″ bit of white comb sticking out from the wall. They had just barely started making themselves at home. THAT was my cutout. This was larger than any swarm I’d obtained and more akin to the number of bees I get from my regular cutouts. I got lazy tho and didn’t cut that little comb. I just swept the bees into the swarm bucket and closed it up and put the bucket near the cavity. The bucket has a PVC joint near the bottom with a piece of plastic queen-excluder in it acting as an “entrance” to allow flying bees to enter in but to keep the queen from escaping. Before long bees started coalescing around the entrance of the swarm bucket and kept coming and coming and coming until there was an appreciable mass of bees by the entrance, as well as inside the bucket.

Stragglers crawling from bucket into hive.

After sitting there looking at the bucket wondering how I was going to put that in the car for the trip home, I decided that now that I have the queen, and was in a garage out of the sun and with a bit of leasure time at hand, I may as well take advantage of that and get one of my boxes and pour the bees in it before night-fall. After all – while there were a LOT of bees in the bucket, there were as many hanging on the entrance and on the wall next to the entrance. There was no way they’d all retreat into the bucket that evening. With a regular hive, the returning foragers would have a proper hive to go into and I wouldn’t have to mess around with a mass of bees hanging from the entrance and crawling all over the car on the trip back.

Bees scent-fanning at hive entrance.

I went home, got my hive and trusty queen-excluder which I use as a queen-includer, set it up next to the wall in the garage, pulled some frames out and unceremoniously poured the bucketed bees in. Since it was still light out and I wasn’t desperately tired from cutting out bees, I was able to manipulate the mass of bees sitting on the queen excluder and blocking re-placing the frames I removed and I put those back in, hoping against hope that I didn’t hurt the queen. The next time I pour bees into a hive like that, I’ll have an entrance queen-includer so the bees would have their bee-space back and I’d have less problems putting the frames back in. Then I took a square box and scooped/brushed bees into it from the wall and dumped those into the hive too and closed it up.

Comb left behind.

So far, so good. Bees fanned at the entrance, indicating to their flying sisters that their new home and their queen was in that white box. I let the hive sit there until the next night to give me time to level out another spot for it since I haven’t poured my concrete pads yet. Moving it was a simple matter of cinching the strap tight around the hive, plopping some duct tape across the entrance – the drive was only a couple of minutes – and putting it in the back seat of my Focus. It now sits proudly on bricks in my budding apiary and the bees are now busy bringing in pollen and making a home.

Hive back at apiary and happy.

For a cutout – that one beats anything I’ve ever done before as far as ease and simplicity is concerned. No hours out in the hot sun, no ripping off siding and cutting out lotsa messy comb and only a few minutes of work rather than hours. Hope I get many more of these easy cutouts.

Flowers on my property…

MikeV — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:13:23 +0000

Honeybee enjoying a Texas Bluebonnet

Up until I got bees, flowers were just pretty colorful things growing on the weeds in my back yard. And until I got bees, I had no idea just how many flowers I had growing back there – and how many there are. There are just a ton of them back there. Always could be more, of course. There are a few that I’ve yet to identify, but I’ll amend this when I do.

Texas Bluebonnet – Lupinus texensis. A yard in Texas isn’t complete without a patch of that growing. This stuff grows in a nice patch on the very worst soil on our property:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/754/

Prairie Bluet - Stenaria nigricans. These are sneaky little plants. They come in early, but are very inconspicuous. The plants are small, and the flowers diminutive. Very pretty. It took me a while to identify this – but there are years before I got bees where I’d walk thru these flowers and I could hear the hum of bees working them – they love them. So now, so do I:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62754/

Great Plains Verbena – Glandularia bipinnatifida. I’ve yet to see a honeybee on any of these but they’re growing all over the property and deserve an honorable mention:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62648/

Texas Paintbrush – Castilleja indivisa. This baby comes in shortly after the Bluebonnets make a showing. Usually they’re growing intermixed. They’re lovely flowers that compliment the bluebonnets perfectly.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62386/

Blue Vetch – Vicia cracca. I’m fairly certain that this is the correct vetch identification – fairly. Close enough for me anyway. Very pretty, and some years very prolific.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/57178/

Cut-leaf Daisy – Engelmannia peristenia. This is a flower that always attracts my bees. I think this one gives them a good jumpstart – lotsa pollen for the brood and surely lotsa nectar. It’s also a very pretty plant and a pretty flower. I have a lot on my property, but I have seen fields in this area that are just totally blanketted with them – something I’ll have to work on here:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55987/

Indian Blanket – Gaillardia pulchella. When I see my bees coming in with a red or dark orange pollen, I know that they’ve been working the Indian Blanket patches I have here and that grow in this area. Another stunning plant that’s just gorgeous to look at and one that the bees appear to like as well.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55987/

Spider Milkweed – Asclepias asperula. This is a very plain milkweed, low growing and often disappears in the low tufts of grass that it grows in. But, the bees seem to like it – I see them working this plant often.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54138/

Texas Thistle – Cirsium texanum. Thistles are not popular to gardeners and landscapers – but aside from their prickly nature, their flowers are attractive and the honeybees really seem to like them. Last year I had a huge patch of them. This year only a few. They seem to come and go with the years.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62786/

Red and Yellow Coneflower - Ratibida columnifera. Same species but the flowers are very distinctive between the two – and I have both. There are the coneflowers that have straight yellow petals, and the coneflowers that have mostly red petals with yellow rims. Otherwise they look identical. Lovely flower – and one that I’ve seen the bees visit as well.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/801/

Lemon Bee Balm – Monarda citriodora. Another very pretty flower that has made an increasing presense in my yard. I’m hoping that the more exhaustive pollination by the honeybees will help this flower multiply even faster.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/301/

White Horsenettle - Solanum elaeagnifolium. I’ve yet to see a bee visit this flower, but this plant grows reliably regardless of how wet or dry it is here – one of the toughest of the flowering plants that I’ve seen here.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/31750/

Plains Coreopsis – Coreopsis tinctoria. This is another very pretty flower that comes in late Spring. Oddly, I can’t recall ever seeing a honeybee on this flower – but it looks to be a good pollen source at the least.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/31/

Texas Lantana – Lantana horrida. This plant stinks. No really – next to the stink melon, this is the worst smelling plant I’ve come across growing natively here. It just takes walking thru a patch of this and you’ll be happy to get thru it as quick as possible. But the flowers sure are pretty. I have yet to see my bees work these plants either but will keep an eye out for them.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53836/

Western Ironweed – Vernonia baldwinii. I was going to pull these weeds when I saw them sprouting up by the house – but decided to leave them. I’m happy I did – their blooms are prolific and lovely – and the bees really like them a lot.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1429/

Dandelion – Taraxacum officinale. What landscape is complete without the ubiquitous Dandelion? Long used as the mascot by herbicide companies, this plant is actually a vegetable that just happened to find our environment ideal. While I’ve read that the pollen isn’t the cat’s meow for bees, it makes up for it with rich nectar forage – and you can still batter and fry them flowers afterwards. This plant seems to prefer our front yard over our back yard, but I routinely kick the seed-heads in hopes to spread it out a bit and get more growing. It is variable tho, never overpowering the landscape but rather just giving a scattering of beautiful yellow flowers on a rich green grassy background.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/885/

Sow Thistle – Sonchus asper. This plant is often assumed to be Dandelions by people less interested in plants and more interested in killing weeds. But rather than the cut-leaves of a Dandelion, this plant has spiny leaves like a thistle. Nevertheless, the flowers do bear a remarkable resemblance to the Dandelion, and it is suitable as a pot-herb as well. I don’t think enough grows on our property to really make a difference with the bees – but that could change in time – they’re really pretty when in bloom.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55202/

Queen Anne’s Lace - Daucus carota. This plant grows prolifically on our property, especially down in the moister parts. It’s a pretty plant and produces loads of flowers that results in lotsa seeds that stick to hair, clothing and are hard to get out of your socks and whatnot. I’ve noticed that my bees don’t seem to prefer this particular flower for forage. While I’ll see the bees going crazy over my Cut-leaf Daisies and Prairie Bluet, I hardly see a bee hitting up these abundant flowers.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/688/

Leavenworth Eryngo - Eryngium leavenworthii. A very spiny plant that often grows as a single long stem terminating in several branches with an odd pineapple-looking purple flower at the tip of each. It is an annual that typically blooms in late August.. When there’s a lot of them, they turn the view purple and are actually very pretty. I’ve yet to see honeybees working them tho but will keep an eye on them.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54682/

Garden Sage – Salvia officinalis. This is a newcomer to my collection. But from what I’ve read, there’s nothing quite like sage honey. Mine will still be a mix of wildflowers but perhaps my sage will add it’s blessing to the mix anyway.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/313/

Blackberry – Rubus fruticosus. The subspecies is only a guess. It’s a blackberry, folks. Thorny, viney, lotsa white flowers, lotsa tart to sweet berries with a moderate number of plump, black drupelets. Nevertheless, blackberry honey is popular and while I only have a few of these vines growing completely unattended on my property, I do plan on propagating them massively and getting a LOT of blackberry plants growing here before long. Happy bees, happy me – bees like the nectar and pollen, and I so like to get berry-faced.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1982/

Honey Mesquite – Prosopis juliflora. I’m fairly certain about this identification too, tho I could be wrong. Nevertheless, this mesquite is considered a weed by most of the ranchers in this area, but it grows thickly and prolifically all around here and on my property as well. I have to say that if there’s a single most influential source of nectar for my apiary, this would be it.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/31989/

Jerusalem Thorn - Parkinsonia aculeata. This one isn’t growing on my property but very close by and I have seeds – very soon I’ll have a patch of it growing here before long. This is an odd looking tree but it just covers itself thickly with yellow flowers and is in bloom currently.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53709/

Smooth Sumac – Rhus glabra. This is a lovely tree that flowers profusely in the late Spring and early Summer here. Every time I walk by there are bees all over it. During time of drought here I firmly believe this is one of the trees that allowed the colonies to keep storing up honey. I have a few on my property and across the road and there are some along the creek and I hope to dig up starts and get more growing.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62278/

Staghorn Sumac – Rhus typhina. This is a very tropical looking Sumac that has luxuriant and large foliage and an almost succulent looking trunk. It resembles a multi-trunked palm especially when it’s fairly young. Another profuse flowering tree that the bees just adore. It’s Fall foliage is also very colorful to. It may be a weedy tree, but I can certainly think of worse to have around and don’t mind this one at all.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2190/

Chickasaw Plum – Prunus angustifolia. I first noticed this clump of shrubs and trees a few years ago. Normally, it is very inconspicuous, growing amongst the other trees and not really standing out. But come spring, before the leaves emerge, these shrubs and trees just get completely plastered with little white flowers. My bees really appreciate this early injection of nectar, not to mention every other bee, wasp and butterfly in the area.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55260/

This list is a work in progress, of course. There are still more wildflowers I need to identify. Some non-native flowering plants I have here are peach trees, roses, lotus, and I’m sure the bees get pollen from my cattails too. And let’s not forget the ubiquitous dandelions that seem to stick to our front yard. And the list continues…

Disastrous Bee Cutout

MikeV — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:38:40 +0000

Bees top to bottom in wall of shed.

I had a bee cutout this Saturday to do. Last week I built a bee vacuum, sure it was going to cut my cutouts from four hours to two hours. Yep. Just suck all them bees up then cut and mount the comb at my leisure then pour the bees in when done. That was the idea.

But ideas and reality rarely mesh…

This cutout was in the wall of a shed – as are most of my cutouts. It was a well established hive just from a basic visual inspection – it had several entrances in holes in the siding from top to bottom with bees bulging out of them. Lotsa bees.

So in my infinite wisdom, I prepared two bee cages for the vacuum instead of one. It is a 5 gallon vacuum – a nifty piece of craftsmanship if I say so myself. I used a Shop-Vac Hangup Mini for it. The vacuum part resided in an upside-down bucket with the vacuum head mounted to the bottom. A suction-moderator hole was drilled in the side over which I put screen to keep bees from being sucked into the impeller. To moderate the suction, I used duct tape to cover part of the hole. The bee cage was another upside-down bucket with big, screen-covered holes in the bottom, and a pvc inlet in rim. It was designed so that when done I could just put a cap on the pvc and remove the cage and there you have it – vacuumed bees ready to be transported, tucked in the shade while I worked, then dumped back in.

I got to the cutout that morning in high spirits. This was going to be easy. I might get home by lunch even. The wall was so easy to access and the siding was that fiber stuff that just breaks off easily by hand. Suited up and with vacuum at the ready, I start the demolition project. I found fresh comb down near the bottom. Yep – big hive. The bees were coming out in droves so I vacuumed up some – the vac did as it was designed to do. I could look thru the moderator hole down thru the screen of the inner bucket and see the bees crawling around. All is good.

But as I continued working my way up, the bees just kept coming. I’d clear a comb and in a few seconds it’d be covered again. The combs were at an angle within the cavity – not flat on with the siding but attached to the inner sheet-rock and outer siding at an angle. Very pretty and orderly comb. With several entrances, I wasn’t sure what to expect – but true to bee construction, the combs on either side of the cavity were full of honey, while the combs in the center were full of brood. Then I had honey in the bottom-most comb – and as I pulled off siding, discovered old honey in the top-most comb. In the center was the brood.

But most importantly, was the number of bees. They just kept coming and coming and I kept vacuuming and vacuuming and a couple of hours later filled up one bucket and was working on the second. I had started cutting comb – putting the fresh honey in a bucket, and the brood comb in a box.

Bees bulging from every hole.

It started occurring to me, a little over three hours in, that had I done this the way I usually do cutouts, I’d be nearly done stringing up comb and almost ready to go home. It was a very easy cutout – the combs very straight – but I was exhausted with the vacuum and not progressing like I thought. I didn’t use smoke because I didn’t want the bees to hide further in away from the vacuum’s reach – but in a manual cutout smoke does help herd the queen and attendants to ball up near the top, out of the way while I cut out comb and string it up. Now, I had no idea if I vacuumed up the queen or not or where she was.

Finally, I decide that the vacuum is bogus. The suction moderator kept getting clogged with bees, making for full strength suction in the hose that was no doubt killing bees. The drone of the vacuum was getting to me too. Like mowing for hours and hours on end. And the heat and thirst. The bees were a bit irate – I couldn’t open the veil to get a drink of water so I went hours in the heat sucking up bees without water. All my other cutouts I was able to retreat a bit and get a sip – but here the bees followed me where ever I went. So, the vacuum ticked them off too.

I ducked into the car and drove home for my hive bodies. Now I’m at the stage of trying to salvage the cutout. I had about a third of the comb still left to cut out – much of it honey. The bees in the vacuum were sitting in the shade. Perhaps I could make this work yet. Once I got back (after taking the a moment to cool off and get some water) I got to work cutting comb. It was too late to smoke them so I didn’t even bother. I had a good work area on a nearby well cover – tall enough to double as a counter.

Bees even overflowing inside shed.

I grabbed the box of brood-comb and frames and started cutting and tying the comb up and plopping them in the hive-body. Then I’d take a square bucket and bee brush and mist the cluster of bees and brush them into the bucket, then dump that into the hive-body and go string up more comb. Each time I’d brush dump bees into the hive as I put in another frame and grabbed an empty. Once I got enough I cut out the rest of the honey comb and strung up a frame of that and scrapped the rest – putting it in bucket for the bees to rob.

With all the comb out of the cavity I took to brushing bees into the bucket and then dumping that into the hive repeatedly, waiting a bit for flying bees to land. I’d mist them with pure water to reduce flying and encourage them to walk down into the hive-body. And slowly, but surely, the number of bees in the cavity reduced. I started spraying the cavity with Pinesol to kill the hive scent, making sure to avoid clusters of bees.

I had no idea if the queen survived or not. I wasn’t seeing the fanning on the entrance that I’m used to seeing from my other cutouts – perhaps she got sucked into the vacuum?

DIY Bee-Vac with two cages.

But the vacuum killed a LOT of bees. Very tragic. Was she still alive? I opened the buckets and scooped out live bees with my gloved hands and dropped them into the hive-body. One of the buckets had a cluster hanging from the top and was very noisy. The other bucket was very quiet. The noisy one had a good chance of the queen as most of those bees came from the brood area. Once I had done all I could, I closed up the hive, laid the buckets on their side so bees could walk out and called it a night.

The next day I returned to check on the hive. There were bees going into the hive – that was promising. Bees were robbing the old honey pretty good too – not a lot of that left. There were no more clusters in the old cavity so at least the customer will be happy. It was a very neat cutout – all the pieces neatly stacked on the ground beside the cavity so it’ll be an easy cleanup. I decide to leave the bees there one more night.

Yesterday I visited the hive again. Just didn’t seem to be as much activity as I thought there’d be. I inspected the shed to make sure bees had not taken up residence in another cavity. Nope – the shed was clear. Then on intuition, I looked at the peach tree immediately behind the shed and there just 7′ up was a large cluster of bees! Perhaps even with the queen!

I rush home and got geared up for a swarm capture and then went back to the tree where I grabbed my swarm bucket – a 5 gallon bucket with a PVC entrance that’s covered by a queen excluder – and positioned myself below the swarm. I misted the swarm a bit to reduce flying and tighten it up a bit then I put the bucket directly underneath the swarm and gave the bottom of the branch a very sharp rap with the side of my fist knocking the branch sharply up. This basically knocked the branch out of the grip of the bees and the whole mass just dropped into the bucket with very little flying. Credit goes to J. Waggle from the Feral Bee Project for that recommendation.

Hive back home in apiary.

I quickly go dump the bees into the hive and put the cover back on and wait. The swarm mass started recollecting again. Either the queen had been holding tightly to the branch and didn’t fall off, or she flew back to the branch. I tried again with the same results. Then I wait a bit for the mass to collect up nice and large and hit the bottom of the branch a third time, then this time I put the lid on the bucket. I took that back to the hive and kept the lid on. The bees clustered around the PVC entrance of the bucket this time, instead of going back to the tree. If the queen survived the cutout, she’s in the bucket now. This I placed with the hive over on the well-cover, putting the pvc entrance next to the hive entrance and left it there.

After dark I came back. I had one of two plans. If the bees had all retreated into the bucket and/or the hive, I planned to cap the PVC entrance of the bucket with a screen-cap I made for it, and tape up the hive entrance and take that home and then once there place a queen excluder on the bottom of the hive-body and pour the bees in the bucket into this and close it up and be done. The other plan was if the bees had not all gone inside, I’d do that right there and leave the hive there another night.

Well, most of the bees had gone back into the bucket, and many into the hive, but there was still an appreciable amount outside by the entrance. So, I grabbed the queen excluder and put it under the hive-body. Then I removed three frames to make room to pour the bees. I took the bucket and pried the lid off it – noting that the bees were all on the bottom. I misted them well to reduce flying then gave the bucket a good rap on the bottom corner away from the pvc entrance to dislodge any bees within the PVC pipe (and the queen if she was up in there) and then without pomp, I dumped them into the hive.

The bees are happy at home.

I tried to put the frames back in but the bees didn’t spread out right away. I worried that the queen may escape again – and indeed I believe I saw her on the frame when I pulled it back up and I quickly shook her back into the hive – so the frames were left out as I put the inner cover back on. I’ll put the frames back in this evening. But that was that. There were a few bees left in the bucket but no queen so I sat the bucket next to the entrance for the stragglers to crawl into the hive. I noticed this time that there were bees on the entrance of the hive-body fanning – there way of saying to other bees that this was home – so that gave me a boost.

I gathered my gear and left for home.

This evening, the 26th of May, I went and put the frames in. When I moved the inner cover – sliding it rather than lifting it, a mass of bees that had been hanging on it fell down to the bottom. I misted them tho so not many fliers at all. A drone flew out, making me panic – no, that’s not the queen – whew. Anyway – I carefully put in the frames. The last one wouldn’t sit all the way down so I just let it rest there and the bees will get out of the way – it was low enough that the inner cover could go back over it without a problem. I have a screen over the escape so Mrs Queenie is still “trapped” within. I put a custom entrance reducer (I only use the 3/8′s side of the bottom-board) mainly to keep the nylon queen excluder tight up against the bottom of the hive-body. I used some wood scraps last night stuffed in the entrance to keep the nylon excluder tight against the hive-body because it bows a little if not and the queen may find a way to escape. Nope – no bowing now. Then I put the telescoping cover back on and wrapped the strap around the hive and ratcheted it nice and tight. The hive is ready for transport.

Mow what grass? But the bees like it - there's flowers in there.

There was appreciable activity on the entrance. No bearding but a fair number of bees hanging out and flying around. That gives me much more confidence in the validity of this colony. But – they’re still in absconsion mode. As I let the owners know that I may likely be driving back behind their house after dark to retrieve the hive, she let me know that the bees had been swarming. They’d swarm and form a ball on the fig tree, then go back to the hive, then go to another tree, then go back to the hive. That tells me that the colony wants to leave but the queen being stuck was keeping them from doing so, so when they realized that there was no queen with them, they’d retreat back to the hive. They were actively flying this evening but I saw no evidence of more swarming so hopefully I won’t leave behind a ball of bees when I pick up the hive. I doubt it tho – the bees like to tuck in for the night with their mother.

Moving the hive to another location altogether should help with that absconsion desire, I hope. Plus, once I park the hive, I’ll leave it there for a couple of weeks totally ignored. By then they should be at home and I can remove the queen excluder. Fingers crossed. I did see a few bees dragging out dead bees, junk and dead larvae as I watched them for a bit – so it seems that they’ve taken up to house-cleaning and hopefully will take up home-making…

It wasn’t quite dark, but storms are on the way. Perhaps the oncoming storms would motivate the bees to tuck away. And as I pulled up, shutting off the headlights to not alert the guard bees, it looked like they did exactly that. It was nice not needing to juggle a flash-light while I taped up the entrance. Since this was a trip of only about two or three minutes, I used straight duct-tape over the entrance. A trip of more distance would have warranted taping screen over the entrance to ensure that the bees had fresh air. I tucked the hive into the back seat, scooted home and trotted the hive across my back yard into the apiary. Strap off, duct-tape off and all is done. In the next few days, we’ll see how they settle in.

The next day after work I visit the hive to see that the bees are busy coming and going and working the little flowers on the weeds around it. The first chapter for this hive has passed successfully – despite a near catastrophic disastrous cutout. Mercy has smiled on me this time and a lesson has been learned. Moral of story – use what has worked well in the past – manual cutouts. At least I now have a couple more swarm-buckets and a shop-vac to use around the house. And I am very happy to have been able to salvage what ended up a disaster.

UPDATE — June 22: Ignoring the bees did lotsa good. They cleaned up the dead brood from the cutout comb and the queen started laying. I removed the queen-excluder covering the entrance a couple of weeks after placing the hive in my apiary, and a couple of weeks after that I pulled a frame for a peek and saw fresh brood and freshly capped brood. Hive was building up nicely. I put another deep below this one so I can ignore the hive over most of the summer – they’ll grow into it as they go and then I’ll start moving the old cutout comb up and up until I can remove it – it’s rather sloppy compared to their freshly made comb. All in all – the hive recovered nicely and is actively growing…

Weak Swarm

MikeV — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:10:38 +0000

Swarm with half of the bees out foraging.

My first swarm of the year hasn’t done a whole lot just yet. But then, the nectar hasn’t really kicked in yet. My other hives are also pretty dry too – they’re certainly ready for the flowers to kick in. Currently we have bluebonnets in bloom and have had a few trees in bloom this season so far so the bees are not starving, but the main flow from the mesquite and wildflowers just hasn’t happened yet.

My first swarm this year looks a bit weak so I decided to cut out a comb from one of my top-bar hives to at least give them a place to begin laying and storing honey – a jump-start. This also gave me an opportunity to experiment with cutouts on frames rather than top-bars. Eventually I’m going to cut out both of my top-bar hives and transfer all the bees into the Langstroth equipment I have so this helped enormously. Unlike my wall cut-outs, a top-bar hive cutout will be largely anti-climatic – I’ll be cutting it one bar at a time so the entire hive won’t be opened up so there will be less bees flying around. Once I get the first comb of brood framed up and put in the Langstroth equipment, every frame of brood I pull from then on I will be able to just shake the nurse bees off into the new hive – they’ll quickly populate the combs that I’ve put in there.

In any case, I set to prepare the frames to receive cut out comb. While the common recommendation is to use large rubber-bands to hold the pieces of comb in place, I don’t have any. I do have an abundance of string tho. So I threaded a string thru the holes that the wire is threaded thru. I set up several frames in an empty hive because I saw a queen cell in my larger top-bar hive, so I had a few prepared frames handy. The queen cell was empty tho – from last year.

Tied up comb for swarm hive.

I searched thru the top-bars and settled on nice straight comb near the back. Less drama for the bees – only a few nurse bees on this comb. I sized it to the frame and found it was slightly taller. I cut it with a pair of scissors so it fits, leaving about one inch of comb for the bees to drawn down again. I lay the cut section on the wires and marked where each wire touched the comb. Then I flipped the comb over and used the bread-knife to cut a groove in the comb for the wire to rest in. I pulled the string out of the way and set the comb on the wires then pulled the string tight. I didn’t tie the string off tho – I just wrapped it around one of the ends of the top-bar. It was secure enough and by the time I pull that frame for inspection the bees will have attached the comb to the frame and wires securely.

It went very smoothly and as I envisioned. I pulled an empty frame out of the swarm box and moved the frames that the bees were on over. Then I put the new comb frame down where the bees had been clustered. The queen will migrate to the comb pretty rapidly, as well as the nurse bees – there are a few capped cells on this comb so there is good brood scent that the bees will find irresistable. There’s also room to put nectar now. I’ll do similar for my other swarm hive too. Eventually, every swarm I collect will get a frame of mostly empty comb to give them a head start. This will save them from having to make comb right away and let them get do the business of making more bees – which will make for a happy queen.

I’ll give them a week and cover their reaction to the comb here and how they’ve progressed.

Extended Swarm

MikeV — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:37:52 +0000

Five-Day Old Swarm

I have always pictured a swarm as a bunch of bees and the old queen leaving the old hive, hanging out on a tree and then deciding on a new home – in just a few hours, if that. I’ve never heard of a swarm that would hang out overnight. But today’s swarm changed all that.

Actually a few days ago I learned about what is called a “dry swarm” – one that was three days old or so that has used up the honey it took from the originating colony. That amazed me – I’d never heard of swarms hanging out for that long. But then, the swarms I do hear about are near residential property and they don’t have a chance to hang out for several days – the reason why I’d not given multi-day swarms much thought.

But today’s swarm educated me otherwise. The property was way out in the country – took me half an hour to get there. Some turkey hunters on that property notified the owners of the property Saturday that a tree on the property had a mass of bees on it and bees were flying everywhere. Luckily, they noticed the swarm while it was at it’s most visible – when a great number of bees were in the air. I’d have hated to hear about their experience if they went tearing thru the brush after the bees had calmed down. Anyway – that was on Saturday the Eleventh.

I learned of this yesterday, the Fourteenth. That evening the owner’s son confirmed to me that the mass of bees were still there. Four days in the elements! I am still in the progress of getting more equipment put together and last night I skipped painting my bottom-boards and finished wiring frames and hoped against hope that the bees would still be there tonight, the 15th. Since the trip was a bit longer, I taped a screen to the entrance so the bees wouldn’t suffocate. I left a little entrance for the bees to go into until I taped it to bring the hive home.

After work tonight I gathered up the swarm-hive and my protective gear and headed out. I was told recently that dry-swarms are prone to stinging when tampered with so I decided to suit up this time. Good advice and a very timely education. The drive there was long – but there’s nothing like a brisk drive thru the back-country. When I got there the owner wasn’t there yet so I hopped the fence and first inspected the source of the swarm – a bee tree that they also want de-bee’d. Looks like a good candidate for a trap-out, so I’ll be posting here about there here before long.

I found the swarm just hanging out, calm as can be. Five days out and no indication of going anywhere, even tho out there in the sticks there are all sorts of places for them to go. The tree they were on was quite overgrown with briars so this one wouldn’t be quite so simple as putting the box under them and shaking them in. At least they were low enough to reach.

I put on my gear, pulled the hive out of the back seat, made sure the duct-tape that held the bottom-board fast to the hive body was still intact – a critical detail that would make my drive home less risky, and got about figuring out how I was going to get the bees out. I decided that a bucket would be best – light enough to hold it up under the hive. I found a feed-bucket and borrowed that for the job. Then I positioned the hive as close to the swarm as possible and removed three frames to make a space to pour in the bees.

Since the bees were going to take an extra step to my hive, I decided to spray them well with tepid water. It was cool watching the swarm contract when the water touched them. Once they were good and soaked, I held the bucket under the bees and shook the branch hard. A lot of bees fell off – but since they weren’t heavy with honey, many still held on so I used my hand to scoop more bees off into the bucket until I got most of them. I took these bees and dumped them into the hive, shaking the bucket well. I put the frames carefully back in and put the lid on. Then I went back for more bees. I got smart and grabbed my bee-brush and strarted brushing bees I’d missed into the bucket and then it was back to the hive to dump them on top of the frames. These quickly went down into the hive, assuring me that the queen was in there. Eventually I was grabbing bees by hand, carrying palm-fulls of bees back to the hive. These I’d let off on the landing board and they’d promptly hop off my hands and crawl into the hive. The screen over part of the entrance confused some of them and I used the bee-brush to carefully herd them over to the actual entrance, where they promptly went in.

A few had to be left behind. The wife needed the car soon. But, I got most of them and at the time of the day when the foragers were coming back too so I’m happy. The stragglers will go back to the originating hive. Once the last handful of bees was herded into the hive I slapped tape on the remaining entrance and plopped the hive in the back-seat. I had only two lose bees in the car on the trip back – a very good capture indeed. I kept my suit on anyway – avoiding a deer could complicate the trip and I wanted to be ready to plop on the veil if the worst happened.

The bees are now home. I waited until it was dark before I removed the screen and tape. Unfortunately, I used my queen excluder on the last swarm so this one is at the mercy of her tastes. Hopefully she likes their new home and sticks around.

First Swarm of the Year

MikeV — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:38:27 +0000

Swarm on Crepe Myrtle

Saturday began like any other day – getting up and realizing that I’m running late. I rushed to my job to set up some equipment at a convention and while there conducting the work I was to do, I bumped into a fellow beekeeper. In these parts that’s a pretty good thing – there are precious few of us around here. It was really refreshing to actually sit down and talk bees to someone who was as interested in bees as myself. Talking bees to my wife elicits little more than a glazed over, blank stare. Little did I know, that meeting would be an odd coincidence, or a herald to yet another hive to enter my apiary.

Upon arriving home, I kicked back and figured I’d have a day to just do nothing. We all need those days once and a while. A day to regather our wits and purge our stresses by doing little more than lounging on the couch and taking in a few shows. It didn’t last long tho. A friend called me, telling me that his yard was full of bees and there was a mass of bees on one of his trees.

I was a bit unprepared for that. I had an empty hive out back and was planning on gluing comb-guides into the foundationless frames but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. It was supposed to be a cut-out hive that I was going to transfer one of my TBH’s into. I’d not opened my Top Bar hives yet this Spring, figuring I’d let them get up a head of steam first before disturbing them so I simply didn’t bother preparing any further yet. I figured I’d let them build up their numbers and do a split while I was in there later on this month. Next Spring I’ll make sure I have my empties and frames ready by February.

Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I rushed out and grabbed the empty hive and pulled the frames. Some wood-glue and fifteen minutes of fiddling and the comb-guides were installed. By the time I was ready to go the glue was hard enough to support the guides and I figure by the time the bees were in it the glue would be pretty much set. That was cutting it closer than I wanted, but it had to be done. I tend to frown on cross-combing and the guides help prevent that.

Anyway, my tools for this job was the hive, my veil, a camera and some duct tape. About as simple as one can get. It was a very nice day – t-shirt weather. The bees picked a convenient day to swarm. I’ve missed calls before because I was not available and that’s pretty frustrating. Not this time.

Close-up of Swarm

When I arrived, I didn’t see anything at first. I was expecting one of his fruit trees out front to have a ball of bees, but I didn’t see him or any bees on them. But, he poked his head from behind the house and hollered at me. I pulled around back and saw him pointing at a 4′ tall crepe myrtle. Hmmm, thoughts of having to cut off a branch entered my head. Not ideal, but better than nothing. I got out and there wasn’t hardly a bee flying – the mass was pretty much complete by now. A few would zoom off, then return. But it was pretty cool nonetheless. The swarm was about the size of a foot-ball – perhaps a little bigger – and hanging about midway up the little bush, right out in the open. We could wal up to it and kneel before it to examine it and not be bothered.

Tho I considered just snipping off the branch, I decided that there might be just enough room to squeeze my hive up underneath. I pulled the hive out from the car and duct-taped the bottom-board to the hive-body. Hive staples are normally used but I didn’t have any handy. I put a queen excluder between the bottom-board and the hive to ensure that the queen didn’t just up and fly off. With no brood to attract her, there was nothing keeping her there. Of course, chances are good she’d stay, but why risk it? I’ll remove the queen excluder as soon as I see some brood-comb.

We then removed a few landscaping bricks from around the bush so I had room to slide the hive in. And it did just fit under the swarm. Before pushing it in under the mass of bees, I removed three frames from the center so they’d have a place to drop.

Normally, swarms are extremely docile. However, flying bees are curious and seem to like my ears, so I tend to wear a veil even on good days. This was one of those good days. But that was all the protection I utilized. I prefer bare hands where possible anyway and if one is careful not to pinch a bee between arm and body or similar, stings are extremely rare. Swarms don’t have a hive to protect so their defensive nature is extremely muted. They’re also gorged with honey too so they’re clumsy fliers too. When bees swarm, they’ll store a lot of honey in their crops to be used to make new comb and keep the colony sustained until a new source of nectar and pollen is found. That makes it harder for them to sting or do much of anything.

Bees tucked into hive.

After pushing the hive-body up under the swarm, I had the owner and his son back off a bit. I wasn’t worried about angry bees, but was more mindful of an uninitiated person’s tendency to swat at anything that lands on them and once the swarm was shook off there’d be more than a few bees out flying around. I grabbed the branch firmly and after double-checking to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, I yanked the branch downward hard. Virtually all the bees fell right off the branch and down into the hive. I yanked again to make sure the queen wasn’t still hanging onto the branch, and that was that.

There were hundreds of bees flying, but the greater mass of bees just fell right in. They were too close to each other to take flight and they were pretty full of honey, so they just dropped in with most landing on the queen excluder. I pulled the hive out from the bush a little so I could carefully put the frames back in. Even with bare hands, the bees were just not interested in me. A few landed on me then flew off. Once the frames were in, the bees that were climbing up climbed back down to get to the queen so it was easy to put the cover on without crushing bees.

Bees making themselves at home.

And that was it. 15 minutes of anticipation and a few seconds of excitement and I’m left wanting more. I’m sure more swarms will pop up here pretty soon. I left the hive there for the rest of the day to let the flying bees settle down and make that hive their home. That evening I returned and once the bees were all tucked in, I slapped a bit of duct-tape over the entrance, and taped down the cover and my friend and I lifted the hive up into the bed of his pickup. It was really light, of course – no comb full of brood and honey yet. I put some duct-tape on the cover and then put a large brick on that. The tape gave the brick traction so it didn’t slide off during the trip. We put a couple more pieces of duct-tape over that for good measure. Humanity would collapse without duct-tape, that I’m certain of.

The ride was only about ten minutes. That was about as long as I was willing to keep the tape on the entrance. Otherwise I’d have cut some screen and put that on instead. The bees were okay tho – there was enough air to keep them happy for a bit.

I had spent the afternoon putting down some bricks for their new home and leveling them to make sure the hive sat flat. Actually, I gave it a very, very slight forward tilt so that water would not enter the bottom-board and pool in the hive. I left enough room so I could work my Top Bar hives and get them transfered into new equipment.

Once we arrived with the hive, it was a trivial matter to put it down on their new bricks. I peeled off the duct-tape from the entrance and walked away. I didn’t see any bees coming out tho – usually at night they stay home and don’t fly. I checked it the next day and the bees were busy flying in and out of the entrance, happy as can be. In about a week or two I’ll examine the frames for brood and once I’m satisfied that the queen is laying good I’ll remove the queen excluder from the bottom. Now I’ve got to paint the rest of my hive bodies and glue up the rest of my frames for the next swarm…

Swarm!!!

MikeV — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:06:02 +0000

Cutout JHH-style Hive with swarm bearding on it.

There’s always an occasion where you take a hive and split it. You take half of the hive and put it in another box, and the one without the queen will make a new queen from the open-brood left over. This mimics the natural way of hive multiplication, that colonies do in nature – swarming. Well, one of my hives swarmed. I think it was today, tho it could have happened yesterday. It was fairly anticlimactic tho – as I had an empty cutout hive out there – a short version of my long-hive design.

I went out to repair some irrigation lines. That meant a trip past my hives to get to the affected hose. As usual, I peek at my hives on my way past, but this time, I saw something different on my cutout hive – a dark mass on the front.

A closer look revealed a mass of bees. Many bees. None were flying more than usual, and both of my hives still had normal activity. These bees were just kinda parked on the front of the hive, covering the entrance.

This cutout hive is the one from which ants had driven a previous tree-cutout. I didn’t remove the comb from the frames and just parked the hive somewhere out of the way. I’m migrating to Langstroth hives so I really wasn’t interested in spending a lot of time working with this box, cleaning it out and all that neatness.

Existing KTBH hives - guess which one is the source!

From the front of my other KTBH hives, it is readily apparent which one was the source hive. One had the normal activity, while the other was buzzing from within and had a slight bearding on the entrance – tho it too also had normal flying activity as foragers came and went.

I was going to split these hives in the Spring and then put the splits into Langs – do a cutout of sorts. But, it looks like one hive did that for me ahead of schedule. I’m glad I had another hive out there – that swarm is mine now and I didn’t even have to do anything. I love bees…

Fire-Ant Catastrophy

MikeV — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:01:17 +0000

Wood JHH Style Cutout Hive

A while back a co-worker notified me of a lightning damaged tree that had bees in it. The city had tried to remove the tree by pulling it over, and the top split off down the side, exposing the hive. Needless to say, they scooted out of there pronto. I’m sure they were planning on coming back with some poison later, so this became a rescue operation, as are most cutouts.

I quickly put together a box for this cutout – my first attempt at a JHH type hive, tho in this case I built a shorter 10-frame version specifically for cutouts. Then it was on to the tree. I was assured that the comb was fully exposed in the hollow so I neglected to take an axe or chainsaw. Not that I had any to take – those are tools on my wish-list.

When I got there, it was as described – I could easily see the bees. More than half of the comb had fallen down to the ground and after a week of exposure was pretty much abandoned. But a fair bit of comb remained in the hollow. The bees, tho, were amazingly docile, even with this amount of hive damage, and didn’t give me a problem as I walked up to the tree to inspect it.

Cutout table set up with first bit of comb to tie up

I quickly set up a little table to work on and arranged my equipment and suited up. It’s time to cut them bees out. This’ll be my first attempt to string up frames – these have top-bars designed after my TBH top-bars so I figured I’d string combs up on them like I string them up to my TBH style top-bars. The results were mixed – I’ll explore other methods on the next cutout with those particular bars.

Photo of split bee-tree a little bit into the cutout.

In any case, I got to work cutting the combs out of the tree. They were all right in the open. Half of the combs had fallen down to the ground when the tree split apart the week before. It’s a storm-kill tree – a snag – so when the city came in to remove it from the right-of-way, it split in half and the city workers suddenly had more to deal with than just a stump of wood. I’m glad they didn’t return right way with pesticides! I really had no idea of just what they planned to do but I wanted to get them bees out of there before they did whatever they planned to do – around here, feral bees are usually poisoned.

Stringing up the comb was a bit harder than my TBH cutouts. First off, the frames were a little awkward to deal with using the same cloth-strip tie-up method. And second off – I was out in full sun on a hot summer day. The comb was softer, and the work-table was also hotter. Made for a bad combination. But, I eventually did get some good comb tied up with much patience.

Close-up of the bees.

I brushed the remaining bees from the tree into a collection bucket that I emptied into the cutout-hive, and I scraped out the last of the bits of comb from within the cavity so that the bees would have less to attract them back into the tree. I sprayed exposed wood with Pinesol to help destroy the hive scent too. The bees kept clustering in some parts so I suspected that the queen was deeper in hiding. And deeper in was true – there was a pocket in there that I simply could not get into. I could hear the remaining bees inside the cavity humming away and the queen was most certainly in there. I tried for the better part of the afternoon trying to break open that hardwood tree but in the end, just couldn’t manage it. No chainsaw handy, unfortunately – something I plan to rectify for the next tree cutout.

However, most of the bees were in the box. So, I placed the box right next to the tree. Bees were seeming to come and go from it so I was hopeful that the bees would eventually migrate into it thanks to the smell of the brood.

All the bees migrated into the hive overnight.

The next afternoon I packed up a borrowed chainsaw and drove out to the tree. When I got there, I didn’t see a single bee in the tree. Not a hum when I knocked on the pocket. And bees were coming and going with great regularity from the cutout-hive! Apparently the queen and remaining bees migrated to the hive to set up home! So, I packed up the chainsaw and left – I didn’t want to remove the hive until night-time so I didn’t leave a bunch of foraging bees behind.

That night I returned. As usual, the bees appeared to be tucked away. I gingerly placed a piece of duct-tape over the entrance. No buzz. Not unusual. I placed a towel in the back seat of my car and went and grabbed the hive. And as I was putting the hive in the back seat, I noticed that one hand was covered with fire-ants! Ouch!!! I brushed them off as best as I could and brushed off what I could find on the hive.

When I got back to the apiary, there were still some ants on the hive. I put the hive on the stand and brushed off the ants with a paint-brush. I hoped that since I was home where I’d battled the ants down to a bare minimum, these remaining ants would not be a problem. I removed the duct-tape and went to bed.

The next morning I went out there to inspect the hive. I expected to see a few bees flying around the entrance. But, there was no activity. Not a single bee. I braved looking inside the hive and saw many ants inside and over 100 dead bees near the front of the hive. Bees that apparently had come under a stiff attack from the fire-ants while still at the tree. The colony was gone – absconded. I can only hope that it found a hole in a nearby abandoned building to hive up in. I’ll inspect the area next Spring to see if I can locate them.

But, lesson learned – future cutout hives will rest on a table with it’s feet in cans of water while on location. I will not lose another hive like that again! I was so thrilled that after all that work the queen had moved into the hive. Really made my day. And I was devastated to see that our friendly neighborhood fire-ants reversed that victory. A costly lesson indeed.

Frame Jig

MikeV — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:43:54 +0000

Frame jig from scrap wood.

Putting together frames is actually a pretty simple thing, but if you’re doing a lot of them, it helps to have a jig of sorts. There’s a great design for a frame jig over at BeeSource.com but I had a cutout very soon, not a lot of fancy wood-working tools and just some scrap wood to work with and not the time to mull over it so I simplified it a bit for my current project.

As you can see, it’s not much more than a simple rectangle made of scrap wood. I measured and cut the wood so that when they’re assembled, they’d fit within the 17″ space inside the verticals snuggly. I had a couple more pieces of scrap wood that I placed on the the outside of the verticals so that I could clamp it down to hold them tightly.

Frame Jig showing top-bar ready for glueing

In this case, I used my 12″ clamps – but now I’ve got a 24″ clamp that will work much better. Once clamped down, they’re ready for gluing and nailing. Or just nailing if that’s what you prefer. I’d clamp a few on – three or four frames for my little jig, but you can make it bigger and use a couple more clamps to spread the force out a bit – then make sure they’re even and straight then I’d tighten the clamp down. After that, while they can still slip a bit if I’m careless, they’re still held tightly enough that I can work quickly and securely.

Assembled frames removed from Frame Jig

I do the top-bars first. I preset the nails so that after I apply the glue and set it in place, all I have to do is nail it in. It’s like a factory – it goes very quickly. Once that’s done I flip it over and do the bottom-bars in the same manner. I wipe off any dribbling glue and let it set for a little bit. Then I’ll undo the clamps and slip the frames off and place them in a spot where they can finish curing.

And that’s that.

Second Cutout

MikeV — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:25:22 +0000

100% Cotton Strips for Comb Hammock Method

As you have no doubt gathered, from reading my previous posts, a cutout is the act of cutting a hive out of a cavity where it is not wanted. Such as, out of a wall or a tree. I’ve yet to do a tree and may not do trees tho I will be putting out swarm-traps by several local bee-trees. But I’ve done a wall cutout, and today, I have done a well-cover. Both times were enjoyable, from a hard-working perspective. Wasn’t easy by a long-shot, but it was very rewarding. This time around, I had the help of the son of the owner of the property from which I was removing the bees, and that help was a true blessing. The final fruit of this removal is a top-bar hive with several brood-combs, several honey-combs and thousands of bees happily at home. Another colony rescued.

I found out about this particular hive a couple of months ago. The son of the property owner just found out that I was starting in bees and was doing a cutout and he remembered that his parents had ordered an extermination of a hive that had taken up residence in their well house five years earlier. Normally, these bees have not been a problem, but this year for a period of time the bees got a bit hot and stung them several times. With grandkids coming over and having a problem with hot bees being between the house and garden, the bees had to go. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of beekeepers in this area – the only people they knew to call was an exterminator. I tried to circumvent this, but it was too late – the guy came that day already.

Everything ready the night before.

When the fella went to the bees, he took the outer cover off the well-house, drilled two holes in the inner cover, and sprayed poison thru the holes. He also sprayed the entrance too. Fortunately, one hole missed the bees altogether and got the insulation inside instead. The other hole was between two combs (of perhaps 12 or more combs) that more or less contained the poison in a very limited area. And finally, the bees had a back door. Another entrance. So, it was business as usual for the bees. Interestingly – they stopped stinging. I’m conjecturing that they were going thru a period of having more than one queen in the hive, preparing to swarm, and the hive was a bit unsettled for a bit. If that’s the case, I have the new queen…

Hive entrance where well-house meets stone.

I hurriedly built a new hive and top-bars then worked to schedule a cutout. I decided to try another method of tying up the combs – a method that uses a strip of cloth along the edge of the comb and split and tied to the bar on either side of the comb, then a single supporting string around the middle to help keep it from popping out or sagging. The problem I had with the previous cutout was that I’d tie up the combs with three strings, and one or more would invariably cut into the comb. So, when I lifted the bar up to place it, the weight of the comb would cause the string to dig in, and a gap would form at the top where the comb is supposed to meet the top-bar. This hammock method didn’t have that problem since it doesn’t dig into the comb. Once tightly secured, it is going no-where.

Work area is set up and ready.

With this in mind, I bought a few 100% cotton pillowcases. I cut one up into strips that I figured would be wide enough to wrap around the edge of the comb to cradle it securely, I used some scrap comb I had laying around to help with this measuring. It turned out to be a couple inches or so. In retrospect, next time I may make it just a touch wider – 2.5″ perhaps. This method will also make transporting the hive back more secure as well – bumps in the road will not affect these strips as they would comb-cutting string.

Looking down into hive brood comb.

Strips are cut – surely more than I need but you never know since the hive has been there for several years. I tied a few more slip-knots in the string that will reinforce the comb-hammocks and gathered all my gear together for the cutout. Smoker is full of wood and paper, bread-knife, scraper and sundry tools are assembled and my suit is ready. It pays to get things ready ahead of time. Tying those slip-knots with gloves on is a bear, and I imagine that cutting those strips at the cutout equally so. The only thing I wanted to deal with at the cutout was the comb and bees themselves.

Ready to brush bees from comb into hive.

We got an early start on Sunday morning. It was more to avoid having to work in the intense early-summer heat than anything, and my helper also had a scheduling constraint. I expect you could cut out bees any time of the day and even at night. I’d considered doing night cutouts, but some areas are awkward to get into and I felt that a daytime cutout would help in that matter.

Pruning comb to size.

When we arrived there, it gave me a chance to assess the situation first-hand. It was my first visit, so I had no idea what to expect. The well cover was a little framed structure looking like a large dog-house. It actually had siding on it, and a corrugated steel roof that was about waist high. The well-house was approximately 3′ wide, perhaps 6-7′ long. It was up against a stone building that housed the distribution plumbing and garden supplies. The bees had found an entrance between the well-house and the stone building – a crack in the caulking perhaps.

Ensuring comb fit with template.

We unloaded the equipment and I suited up. We unscrewed the metal roofing from the plywood below, then found that the plywood was nailed to the well-house frame. I smoked the entrance and around the plywood to get the bee’s heads down and get them busy gorging on honey. We had to pry the plywood off to expose the comb. The bees remained amazingly calm. We worked from the end furthest away from the entrance until we spied the combs.

Stringing comb with cloth strip and string.

I started removing some of the rear-most comb which was the honey comb and we got to work tying some of that up. This stuff was some dark comb but it didn’t have any of the white-spray on it from the extermination attempt – where ever I came across comb like that I discarded it. There was a lot of reddish honey that had a real mild and pleasing flavor in this comb. This I took over to our work area – a piece of plywood set on the end of the well-house – and got to work implementing my comb-hammock experiment. It was a little awkward the first time, and the honey comb was heavy, thick and sticky. I got it cut and sized thanks to my template. We managed to get a strip of cloth around the edge. I placed a top-bar by my template with a string already attached to the thumb-tack I had pushed into the top of the bar. The comb, with it’s edges covered by the cloth, was placed onto the template and we cut the strip of cloth on either end of the comb where it met the top-bar long-ways so I could tie it around the top-bar. I used my bread-knife to put a groove into the comb’s top edge to help make a good tight contact with the wedge comb-guide on the top-bar when we tied up the comb. We pulled the cloth strip nice and tight and tied it off to the top-bar. No gaps and very snug. I then pulled the string that the comb was sitting on tighter and wrapped it back up to the bar and wrapped it around the thumb-tack several times. And that was that. I was able to pick up the comb by the top-bar and it didn’t sag one bit nor did the single string dig into the comb thanks to the cloth strip. My helper hammered the tack gently to push it tighter against the string and I put the comb in the hive and went to cut more.

Comb fully strung up.

It wasn’t long before we got to the brood comb. I pulled out several long honey combs – some longer than 3′. I scrapped all the parts that were stained by the poison – they weren’t being used anyway and didn’t have any honey in them since it was sprayed before the nectar really started flowing. Once I got a few bars of honey tied up, I scrapped the rest too – I wasn’t interested in tying up all the honey comb since the bees would just make more when they got settled in.

Strung comb placed in TBH.

I got to the point where I could lift off the plywood to which the combs had been attached. They broke off easily and sat amicably on the floor, supported by their attachment to the wall. So, I gently grabbed the outermost brood-comb and took it to my hive and with a flick of the brush sent most of the bees into the floor of the top-bar hive. Most of them went back to the honey combs I’d placed in the TBH. With more bees flying around, I decided to move the work area to the roof of a dog-house that was right next to the well-house but allowed us a few feet more of separation from the bees. My helper had no suit or veil, but the bees were ignoring him and for the most part, even me. Very docile. I cut a wedge out of the good part of the brood-comb, trying to get the central cluster of capped brood as well as some honey and pollen into the wedge. This I tied to the top-bar like we did the honey comb. Practice made it easier for certain, but the brood-comb was much lighter than the honey-comb so that helped a lot too. This I put into the hive and we got the next brood comb.

Comb scrap pile.

I scrapped all the drone cell sections as well as any part of the comb discolored by the poison. With that, I ended up with 4 bars of nice sized brood comb in the hive, along with as many bars of honey comb. I put an empty bar right by the entrance so the end comb didn’t get too much bridging attached to the end of the hive by the bees, and I put an empty bar between the brood combs and the honey combs to give them room to build another comb so they didn’t get crowded. I then closed up that part of the hive and opened up the rear of the hive – it was time to start scooping out bees.

Bucket of honey comb.

At this point, I had no idea if I had the queen or not. I did see a cluster of bees form on the bottom board after I brushed off the second brood comb – a cluster that remained pretty tight when I brought back the tied up comb to place in the hive. I suspected that the queen may have been at the bottom of that little cluster. Nevertheless, with all the comb removed, it was time to get the rest of the bees and hopefully the queen if she was not in the hive already.

Another bucket of honey comb.

I have a little square bucket that I put against the wall where the bees were clustering and with a few flicks of the bee-brush had a good amount of bees in the bottom. I didn’t bother spraying them down with water – tho that would have helped reduce the flying a bit and perhaps made for fewer trips to collect bees. But, it worked anyway – bit by bit I’d reduce the number of bees in there – flicking them into the bucket then emptying the bucket into the hive. There were two areas that I was keeping an eye on that bees seemed to be clustering. However in both of these clusters I didn’t see the characteristic stance that bees take when the queen or brood-comb was present – with bees lifting their abdomen up in the air and buzzing their wings – an act called scenting. These just clustered together and did little of anything else. It made it easier to brush them off, but I was suspecting more and more that I had gotten the queen already.

Empty bee cavity treated with Pinesol.

Once I was about finished getting bees, I carefully sprayed Pinesol on the walls, trying to avoid spraying on stragglers. There were no more clusters of bees in there and I was seeing the bees on the entrance of the TBH starting to act as if the queen was in the hive, so I’m confident that I got her. the Pinesol covered the scent of the brood and queen that remained in the old hive to keep foragers from coming back and hanging out. I wanted them to ignore their old hive and fly into the new hive. The bees helped by bearding on the entrance and buzzing their wings to let their sisters know that the queen and brood were in the new hive now. Very soon, I had almost no bees in the old hive. All had gone to the new hive.

Comb pattern on plywood cover.

And that concludes a successful cutout. We started cleaning up and I got out of my suit. We put tools away, packed up my bee gear into the truck and bagged up the scrap comb. I put a pair of 2×4′s on top of the hive across the top-bars and taped it securely with duct tape. Then we left for the rest of the day. The hive would sit there until nightfall when all the bees out foraging will have returned home.

Bearding bees scenting the entrance.

That evening we returned to pick up the hive. There were still a few guard bees on the entrance so we waited until the sun had totally set, then I put duct tape over the front entrances. The bees made nary a sound as we picked up the hive and put it in the truck. I was more confident with this trip because of the comb-hammocks and how securely they held the comb, and yet we still took it easy on the road. A swerve to avoid bobcats on the road made the hive shift across the truck bed some – but that shifting helped in that the hive was remaining relatively still as the truck was moving – it wasn’t jostled as hard as it would have been had we securely tied it down.

Hive ready for night-time pick-up.

When we arrived at my property and unloaded the hive there wasn’t a peep to be heard. I screwed the hive to the brackets I’d put on the stand and heard one or two buzzes and that was it – the hive was very much asleep even after the trip. I screwed a sheet of Solarboard to the 2×4′s on top of the top-bars to keep the burning sun from cooking the hive and to keep rain out and then carefully ripped off the duct tape from the entrance, making sure no bees were attached to it.

Not quite asleep yet.

This morning I checked on the hives. The existing hive was busy busy, getting an early start on the nectar flow which probably is at it’s peak in the cool of the morning. It gets oppressively hot in the afternoon. The new hive looked like it was just waking up. A few bees would hover around the front of the hive then go back in and a few more would peek outside at the brand new world. I expect to see much more activity as the hive settles in and they start scouting for nectar sources.

Final home for second hive, next to my first hive.

And indeed, this evening, the bees are hopping! Both hives seem almost in a competition to see who can be the busiest hive. No conflicts – each seems to be flying into their own hive with nary a problem. They did buzz around me a bit when I went out there to inspect them, but after the previous day’s cutout, it’s not a surprise that they’re still a little on edge. There is a line of ants going up into the hive tho – likely going after the honey spilled on the bottom board or perhaps brood that got cut when the comb was being trimmed. I’ll deal with them here shortly – the bees don’t seem to be overly bothered by them just yet. And there we go – from cutout to apiary, the story of my second bee collection.