MABA swarm hotline

For me, collecting swarms or attracting swarms to bait hives is the most exciting part of my beekeeping.  Possibly making spring my favorite beekeeping season.  

 

Sunday at 1PM I received a text from the MABA "swarm commander" - a homeowner has called the swarm hotline about a swarm in their yard.   The best part of the text details...the swarm address is 3 miles away and the swarm is just a foot or two above the ground.  I'm all in and arrive in the next half hour.

 

I strongly relate to E.O. Wilson's connection to nature as not outgrowing his childhood bug phase. Knowing everyone does not share this view, I consciously met the homeowner's insect concerns with lots of listening about the swarm of bees. The re-framing education moment comes next - I say "that huge ball hanging from the tree canopy is a wasp nest, these bees likely have their nest in a cavity, like a tree."   

A few weeks ago, I patched up and painted my old wood nucleus box.  Wow, I'm ready for the swarm call-out, or so I thought.  Good - my bee toolbox has a bag of gloves. Bad - the gloves are too small, too old - they split and I quickly gave up wearing gloves.   The bees don't like the brushing or the hand attached to the yellow brush - my poor hand!

I added a swarm lure to the nucleus box entrance, brush, brush, brush again...and I'm nearly there.    I leave the nucleus box for collection just before dusk, 7:30PM.   So proud of myself to discover no bees returned to the trunk of the shrub.

Run-Away Split

MABA's August speaker, Sam Comfort, shared novel beekeeping and queen rearing practices with the club.   I was spellbound by Sam's life story and accomplishments including:

• inexpensive construction - $0.80 hive box using rough sawmill lumber and bamboo skewer as a top bar
  
• the demanding rhythm of Sam's calendar-driven queen-rearing business by grafting
• SARE grant - emergency queen rearing using Run-Away Splits, Sam's variation on Walk-Away Splits
  

In the absence of a queen, 1) open brood pheromone (versus capped brood) helps retain worker bees in both queen rearing methods (split or grafting) and 2) that new comb is desirable in the Run-Away Split method.

NCSU report compared Sam's 32 mated emergency queens to their database of all tested queens and graded Sam's emergency queens as A- (high reproductive potential).  This dis-spelled my bias that emergency queens mate poorly.

Georgia Prison Beekeeping

I made a final bid in MABA's picnic and live auction. Anything is possible with the hard work of dedicated GBA volunteers and Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. I love the light colored honey and label created by prisoners at Lee Arrendale State Prison, a women's facility.

Follow this link to a article in Atlanta Magazine, At Georgia’s Arrendale State Prison, women inmates forge a bond by keeping bees.

removing medium honey super

My spouse, the voice of reason, captured many excellent photos during the removal of the medium honey super, but my favorite is the image of bees peering upwards between the frames.  I have an extra inner cover and extra 1gal pail feeder allowing the bees to leave the equipment and return to their hive in their own good time.  The AJ Beetle eaters were stuck solidly to the frames with propolis and required some coaxing followed by extra care to keep from spilling the vegetable oil.  The last slide is our 2010 MABA live auction item created by John Parris.  The under powered electric window box fan (not shown) failed to blow the bees off the frames, so  I returned to more conventional bee clearing methods--frame shaking and frame bumping.

2009 wish list

Where does reading get me? Reading about bees is very satisfying and builds my vocabulary, but how much is appropriate to the tiny Atlanta in-town apiary? I mostly rely on listening to my Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association (MABA) friends, re-reading Keith Delaplaine's book "First Lessons in Beekeeping" and of course trying to learn from my mistakes. Here is my 2009 wish list:

• Running two AJ Beetle Eaters (+vegetable oil) per box, not one per hive as in 2008
• Purchasing nematodes (Southeast Insectary in Perry 877 967 6777) for spring SHB treatment
• Replacing concrete blocks with new hive stands that lift the hives higher and let more light reach the ground
• Painting a unique entrance for each hive as described in The Buzz about Bees by Jürgen Tautz
• Trying a bucket syrup feeder and certainly repeating the baggie feeding
• Purchasing more queen excluders and running a single deep brood chamber, not two as in 2008
• Trying a queen marking kit and practicing on a few drones
• Purchasing swarm traps (+lures), not the reactive ladder based swarm capturing as in 2008
• Trying MegaBee served dry using a bird (meal worm) feeder--no protein served in 2008
• Trying SuperBoost brood pheromone during the summer
• Trying Honey B Healthy (+water) for front entrance boardman feeding--not letting the neighbor water my bees using their salt water system swimming pool as in 2008

Why am I changing so many variables--not very scientific? My goal in 2009 is to reduce the SHB population and cover the single deep brood chamber with lots of bees during the summer SHB strength.