It's the dead of winter here in the Pacific Northwest (Oak Grove, Oregon), and the bees are buckled down waiting eagerly for the arrival of spring 2010. On Tuesday there was a freak snowstorm that brought our city to a standstill, but the bees perservered in their Warre hives as well as their horizontal top bar hives. Here's a picture of our backyard with two horizontal top bar hives, two Warre hives and the natural stump hive that is currently vacant.
Today my wife and I stopped by two Warre hives at Sokol Blosser Winery that we hadn't visited for months.
The good news: The bees are alive and the hives are heavy.
The bad news: Both hives had mice take up residence in the bottom box.
Thankfully it was caught before the mice completely decimated the hives and I was able to remove the mice, their nests and the smelly mess they left. After that I added 1/4" hardware cloth to the entrance to keep the mice from returning. Hopefully both hives will overcome.
The mouse nest:
We've had 3 hive orders in the past two days: a great start for the 2010 year at Bee Thinking, and we look forward to preparing hives for the Spring Rush. Again, if you are looking to get a horizontal top bar hive or Warre hive in 2010, please get your orders in soon!
Over the past week I've had 6 swarm calls, of which I've caught 3, 1 was a bumble bee colony, 1 was a bearding hive in a tree, and 1 was too high up to catch. It is both invigorating and exhausting, and I wonder if I'll feel bored when swarm season ends.
Yesterday one of my hive hosts, Eleanore, called to inform me that hive F (Carniolan) was swarming. It landed about 15 feet up in a Pear tree. I arrived a couple hours later to catch it and combine it back with it's previous home. The first knock into the box didn't get the queen, as they quickly moved back to the tree branch. The second was a success, and all of the bees quickly moved into the cardboard box.
While they moved into the box I scoured their old hive for swarm cells and the new, virgin queen. I found 5 cells but my queen search was fruitless. In addition to removing swarm cells I broke up the brood nest by adding 4 empty bars between some of the outlying brood comb. Hopefully this will give them the illusion of space for expansion.
After breaking up the brood nest I picked up the newly-captured swarm and carefully dumped them into their former home, hoping that they wouldn't realize I'd tricked them. I left them to finish moving back in and proceeded to check the remaining hives for swarm cells. I started with hive G -- Italians -- (in which I found only a single supercedure cell with no swarm cells).
As I was on the second Italian hive I heard it: The unmistakable roar of a swarming hive. I looked over and saw thousands of bees catapulting out of hive B. I squatted within inches of the entrance, looking diligently for the queen in order to catch her before she joined the cloud of bees. Sadly I believe I was too late, and the swarm slowly began to land 30 feet up in the a tree.
I spent 15 ill-considered minutes swatting, prodding, poking and balancing with the ladder in one hand and a 10 foot length of bamboo in the other. Other than facefuls of bees, there was little payoff for my foolish efforts. Remembering that I had a swarm trap in my car, I grabbed it and nailed it 150 feet from the swarm in hope that they will move in. Tomorrow I'll check it out.
So far all of my (3) swarms have been Carniolans. No Italians, Buckfasts, Minnesota Hygienics have swarmed...yet.
What a week! After more than 6 months of planning and building, the first 10 packages in the 20 hive apiary expansion have been installed. 5 packages of Italians and 5 packages of Carniolans arrived at Ruhl Bee Supply on Monday, after a trek from Northern California's Oliveraz Bee Company. It was an unusually warm day -- almost 80 degrees in April!
My wife, a photographer from the Oregonian and I met at Ruhl, waited in line for 20 minutes to pay and then entered the holy of holies: The small warehouse containing over 10,000,000 honey bees -- 1000 packages. Our photographer was obviously taken aback by the sight and intense sound, but slowly began to adjust to the idea.
We got our packages, carted them to the truck and proceeded to strap them down for the 3 mile trip to our Oak Grove home where the first three packages were to be installed.
First, I gingerly procured the queen from one of the Carniolan packages and quickly replaced the can so as not to release too many unhappy bees. I removed the cork, covered the hole with my thumb and inserted a small marshmellow where the cork had resided. After that I removed all but the bottom box from the Warre hive, placed the queen cage in the back corner and removed a few bars above her. I grabbed the package, slammed it down to get the bees to the bottom, removed the can, upturned it and began pouring them in on top of the cage. I set the package down for a moment as I got stung in the ear. After swearing, I replaced the bars and added the top box and poured the rest of the bees into that one. I leaned the package against the entrance, added the feeder box and top and walked away from the mass of frantic bees.
It was an exhausting day, but I'm glad we got it done. And I'm glad the Oregonian was there to document the process. The article should be in MIX Magazine in May or June.
This week I continue preparing the 10 Warre hives that will receive the next shipment of bees. It has been determined that 3 hives will be placed at Sokol Blosser Winery, 4 at Lachini Vineyards and 3 at Cameron Winery. I look forward to it!
Over the past week I've had 6 swarm calls, of which I've caught 3, 1 was a bumble bee colony, 1 was a bearding hive in a tree, and 1 was too high up to catch. It is both invigorating and exhausting, and I wonder if I'll feel bored when swarm season ends. 
