Video of the Swarm

Here is our video of us catching our first swarm.  I learned a lot and would do a few things differently, but had a lot of fun doing it.  We checked the hive a week after and saw eggs, so we got the queen.  I think we were pretty lucky with how many fell on the ground. 

Capturing a Swarm

We had a pretty cool experience on May 13.  I put my name on the swarm removal list and the next day I received my first call. It came that morning and I had meetings at work until 3:00 p.m.  I was worried I would be too late and sure enough I was.  I was pretty disappointed.  We have a week hive from the nuc we purchased and I figured a good healthy swarm could help strengthen it.  I received another call about 7:00 p.m. and we were off.  Natalie and the girls came with me and we went and put the swarm in a box.  The swarm was a lot bigger than I thought and it packed the nuc box to the brim.  I couldn't get them all in, so I left the box over night and then picked them up in the morning.

The next morning I went early before they started to fly and they were all tucked nicely in the box.  I put them in my SUV (a pickup would have been a little more ideal) and brought them home.  We got them home without incident. I weighed the bees and I figured the swarm was about nine pounds of bees.  This was three times the size of the package we had purchased a few weeks before. I put them in their place and removed the screen from the entrance, the bees came flooding out.  They pretty much covered more than 75% of the exterior of the box.  I realized I needed to get them in a bigger box and it needed to be right away.   It was a lot of fun capturing that swarm.     

I will post the video shortly.  You can see just how graceful I am on my first swarm capture. 

If you ever see a swarm of honey bees, please call me or a local beekeeper.  Honey bees are so valuable to our food supply.  Please do not call an exterminator.  

Installing my first package of bees

Here is a video of us trying to install our first package of bees.  I think it went pretty well.  I guess we will see how the hive turns out. So far it seems to be doing really good (knock on wood).

 

 

The Value of Bees for Pollination

I found this great article on how important bees are to the home gardener.  Many people think pollination is only a concern for the large farms or growers, but it is really a concern for all of us with gardens.  Last year I really paid attention to my garden to see if I could see honey bees.  I saw some bees on my crab apple trees, but didn't see any on my garden plants (zucchini, squash, cucumbers, potatoes, peas, raspberries, black berries, etc.).  We go to all the work of creating a garden, it sure would be nice to get even a better return from our efforts.  Hopefully I see a lot more bees this year with my new hive.  I will hopefully have more hives available next year if anyone is interested in letting me keep one in your backyard.  In return I will give you some raw honey from the hive and you will receive all the pollination benefits. Don't worry I will do all the work.  

Here is the link: http://gardenbees.com/garden/gardpol.htm

Happy Bees

This was a great week for the bees.  The temperatures warmed up and the blossoms were in full swing.  I checked four of the hives on Monday and I was able to see the queen in three of them. It was the first time I have been able to find her in the hive.  I have seen her in the queen cages, but never free in the hive.  They are amazing.  I wish I had a camera.  She is quite a bit larger than the other bees and she is really graceful compared to the worker bees.  It made my day to see the queens.  The last two nucs at least have a queen, so I am least feeling a little better about that.  They still have a long way to go before they are a strong hive.  I left the hives alone the rest of the week, but they were sure busy bring in pollen and I would assume nectar.  This week is suppose to start out wet and then warm up should be a good combination for nectar. 

I love talking to people about bees.  They fascinate me and appear to have the same affect on those I talk to about them. We had two Mothers Day parties tonight and I had fun explaining all about bees.  I would say like a lot of things most people just don't understand bees or has never really been around someone who is keeping them.  I know I didn't know anything about them until I started researching them.  I still have a lot to learn, but they sure are fascinating. I do think a lot more people are becoming interested in keeping bees.  Natalie has a couple of friends who both commented their husbands are interested in keeping bees.  They had no idea we were already keeping them.

One question was asked where does the phrase "its none of your bees wax" come from.  I have no idea.  Any one know?

Nature's Hive     

All the hives have arrived

Well we picked up the remaining hives yesterday.  We drove out to Grantsville and waited for 2 hours to finally get the nucs.  We were a little concerned with the setup.  Things were pretty unorganized.  We got back and the other hives were flying so we decided to quickly transfer the frames to the new hives.  The first nuc we installed and we were pretty disappointed.  We didn't see any capped brood.  It was too cold to look for eggs, but we will next week when it warms up.  The second nuc was a little better.  It had 2 frames with capped brood.  Again we will check for eggs in a couple of days.  If I need to by nucs again, I would go with Apis Hives.  Chad is great and the nuc was very well established.