A beekeeping topic.

[BilletHead]

               Update to the bee chronicles, the Russian scion,

  As bad as things are I'm going to drop the Russian part. Personally, I hope the leader over there gets a dose of bad vodka.  The scion is a deal that is put in bee yards popular in Europe nations. It is a place for bees swarming out of hives will gather before moving to a new home after splitting off of a hive. I have caught swarms off of low hanging limbs in my yard. Works but can be a pain because of where they choose to hang. The scion gives maybe easier place to hang out. Well one worked and I got my first swarm today. The catch coming up but first let's look at the scion. I googled them up and seen all kinds of contraptions. I did a spin of my own and put them out. A section of a branch with a plastic disk (bottom of a mineral tub) and an eye screw to keep them together. I made five to hang in the yard. Three places where I have seen swarms gather and the other places where they hopefully go. Two of the places where they are placed, I have hand caught swarms low to the ground. The other place is sky high and unreachable but not now if all goes to plans. Here are scion pictures and where they are placed. First two are the ski high places, note these high ones are on a pully where I can let them down to transfer the swarm.

  

  And the other,

  The other three are low and very reachable, 

              This is the one that caught today in a short apple tree,

     Well, another unsuccessful turkey hunt this morning I was pretty well spent, plumb worn out. I came home and ate some lunch and actually fell asleep in the chair. I don't do this, never. When I woke up I fed my sourdough starter and took what was left and other recyclables out to the recycle bin to decompose. I looked towards the bee hives to see the scion in the dwarf apple tree with a swarm hanging on it. First thing I started to do was panic. I told myself this will be the easiest one yet to capture and calm down. I put on my bee jacket and gloves. Opened the hive I wanted to put them into. Then noticed the Utah pictograph hive had less going on at the entrance so it was the one that threw off the swarm. A good thing in my opinion as it was the frame I posted that was full of brood and this queen that left if it is truly her is a good one. I took a picture of the occupied scion,

     I just unhooked the wire and carried the swarm over to the new hive that was ready. I had separated the frames.  I held the swarm over the opening and shook it. The bees fell right into place. I rehung the scion back into place and slid the frames together and closed the hive. Went into the garage and got a board and leaned it up to the hive entrance. Went back to the scion where a few bees had gone back to. Took them to the board and shook it again. Bees were already fanning at the entrance saying come hither, new home queen in here! They began to march up ramp into hive,

   I hope they take and really feel like they will. Pretty cool day I thought for a swarm throw off. Interesting hobby and fun to watch these amazing creatures. Turkey or not this was a good day in BilletHeadVille.

[jdmidwest]

Good thing they hit the lower one.

I had not seen that kind of trap, looks simple, like a big ole toad stool.  Did you bait it with pheremone or anything?

It was the first nice day around here today, I probably should have looked at mine.  But I had other projects then went inside.  Clouds rolling in, rain for a few days.

[BilletHead]

9 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Good thing they hit the lower one.

I had not seen that kind of trap, looks simple, like a big ole toad stool.  Did you bait it with pheremone or anything?

It was the first nice day around here today, I probably should have looked at mine.  But I had other projects then went inside.  Clouds rolling in, rain for a few days.

          Jd while researching this (Google) there all kinds of deals people do to enhance the chance of bees to choose the swarm to pick the scion. Such as wrapping the stem with cloth or screen wire and melting beeswax into that. I went with a minimal approach. My stems were dried wood with bark still hanging on. Some of the bark was loose. Took a draw knife and tried to clean off all the bark I could. Then rubbed beeswax and propolis on it. A couple drops of lemongrass oil at the junction of the stem and top. They have been up awhile, so the lemongrass scent is most likely about gone.  IT may be a one and done deal and never get a hit again but one worked! 

[ness]

Cool stuff! I've been wondering how the swarm trap thing works. 

[BilletHead]

21 minutes ago, ness said:

Cool stuff! I've been wondering how the swarm trap thing works. 

These are kinda a staging point for bees before picking out a final place to build a hive. The swarm traps I have out from in the yard to miles away represents a place to do a new hive. So if they choose a place like that they are portable and I can close those and put where I want. 

[jdmidwest]

They always seem to hit a fence post if its handy.  I have seen the swarm hang on a few days in the weather if the queen does not have the energy to make it any further.

Swarm queens are over a year old to start with and have swelled up bodies for laying eggs.  They drop off a little weight to make a swarm flight, but tire easy.  The swarm flight is normally staged with a few stops.

Queen bees start out as a special cell that is fed better and given more room to grow.  Bees usually make several queen cells prior to swarming, the first queen out goes around and stings the other queen cells to prevent competition.  Then she makes her breeding flight to find a drone and collects the sperm that she will make brood with for the rest of her life.  If she makes it back to the hive and does not get picked off by a bird or nature, things go well.

The swarm is their way of going out and making new hives.  They prep for it by making the drones (male bees) and more queen cells.  Then she leaves with a portion of the workers to make a new hive.  The queen cells hatch and start over in the original hive.

They can sense the ability of the queen, if she seems to be failing, the workers will start building new queen cells and start the process.  The new queen will hatch and take over the hive.  This is how I make "walk away splits".  Take a frame of eggs and brood that they will make a queen cell out of, some extra bees and brood, some honey.  They will realize the queen is gone, make a new one and start a new hive.

[BilletHead]

           Caught another swarm on a scion. Bigger swarm. I thought a third larger than the other but comparing pictures from day before yesterday over double the size. Had a videographer, wannabee videographer taking pictures. There will be hold my beer and watch these videos coming up. another blessing in the bee yard today.

         

[BilletHead]

          Peeking outside as it was warming up I noticed quite a bit of extra activity on one of the hives. This hive in particular is the oldest and first built one three years ago. It is the number 1 beehive hive due to the painting Pat did on the front of it. I told her it may swarm today with it getting warm and humid. We had business in town and left at 10 and returned at noon. As we pulled in the driveway, I looked in the yard towards the beehives and cold see a black mass in one of the short trees. Could not tell which one and I assumed it was the same scion that had caught a couple days back. Nope it was the dwarf pie cherry tree about on its last leg. The hive they had swarmed out of had less activity at the entrance, so my guess was right. I put on my jacket and got some things together for the transfer. Asked Pat to take some pictures and videos.  Here is what happened and we are tickled to death.

    Good swarm I think. @jdmidwestcan tell us if it is a good one or not. For sure my largest to date. Very , very easy going and calm. Pat helped and never gloved up but did put on her bee suit. Bare handed she was.   

Here I dumped the swarm into the hive. Before video got started part of them had already dropped into the hive. I had already picked some frames that had drawn comb on two frames so the queen could start laying right away. After dumping I slid the frames together carefully and shut it up,

 

 

  Put a board leaning up to the entrance where other bees not in the hive began to land and march in while others were fanning to let others know the queen was home and this was the place to be. I took off jacket and with no suit of gloves made a few trips with the scion back and forth from the swarm tree tapping the scion on the board and the bees marched into the hive. Just like the others I hope they stay and do their bee thing. 

      Raining and stormy Pat just checked and all were inside right now. 

 

[jdmidwest]

My bee student at work, I started a hive for him last summer and let him get things going.  His wife called today, swarm on the house.  I followed him home, it had moved to a small tree covered in honey suckle vines.  I sit back and coached, he had his wife in the middle of it too.  Decent swarm, we put them in a new hive and all is well.

I gave mine some extra room a few weeks ago to try and cut down on the swarm.  I am going to try some splits tomorrow if weather permits.

[jdmidwest]

Nice afternoon when I got off work.  I dived into the bees and did some much needed chores.  Recent rains and bad weather had put things off some.  But the things I did a few weeks back worked and the hives were even stronger.

I cleaned out the bee shed and arranged the equipment for the coming season.  Took inventory on what is there and what needs repair.  Suited up and lit the smoker.

Started on the weak hive.  I had shrunk them down to one box hoping to make them stronger.  It worked, they had built up and needed more room, added another box to them to keep on building.  Its on the far left with spare equipment on the same stand to the right.

 

The remaining 3 hives were rocking, I added honey supers to give them room to keep on growing.  Hive boxes are getting stacked higher than I like to work them.  A honey super weighs about 40-50 lbs filled with bees.  Its a pain to move one of them above chest high.  I am going to break those down soon to make splits for a spare hive for me and one for a new beekeeper.

 

Hung up a Scion with the sock attachment idea that I found on the net, alternative to what @billethead uses.  Doped some Lemongrass essential oils on it for bait.  Used some scrap lumber, a eyelet and some paracord.  Easier than hoisting a box that weighs 30 lbs up the tree on a ladder and then getting it down full of bees.

 

Some big ole bug eyed drones died in the process.  For some reason, the hives are making alot of worthless drone brood this year.  Drones are males that only have a purpose, go out and breed a new queen.  It only takes a handful, but my hives have been putting them in every crack.  Drone brood needs a bigger cell, so they build them outside of the normal comb.  Varroa mites like them also, so killing the drone comb is a double bonus when working the hives.  Drones tend to eat more and not do anything but fly out and breed the queen.

Here is a drone and some drone larva in the burr comb I removed.  Its the white stuff in the combs.

 

Finally, a few girls talking about the guy in the white suit.  They are going to follow him up to the house and nail him when he comes back outside.