Flying high now...

At last, the swarm bees have a permanent home — the "Rocky" hive is up and running.

I stayed home all day yesterday, anticipating the delivery of the new hive. By late afternoon, the UPS truck still hadn't come and I was very upset — storm clouds had gathered and the skies opened to pour down rain on the poor makeshift hive again. When 7 p.m. had come and gone, I called UPS to make a complaint, but I was told it was possible that my delivery could still come that evening. At 8:45, we heard the rumble of the delivery truck on our street, and it was a beautiful sound. I was glad to get the boxes and unpack them, even though it was too late to move the bees that night.

This morning, I assembled all of my gear, got the smoker going, suited up and headed out to the back yard to move the swarm bees. The bottom box of the makeshift hive had almost completely collapsed from yesterday's rain and was actually crumbling. Here's a photo of the sodden mess of cardboard, newspaper and empty feeder.

The plywood and bricks I'd used for a bottom board were still intact, but the board had bowed up after getting wet in this week's storms.

I sprayed the bees down with a little sugar-water before trying to move them, but they were in a fairly calm state anyway. It was easy to move the three frames I'd put in the cardboard box to a regular super. I was excited to see that the bees had built out a lot of comb on these frames. I added in the remaining five frames to the box and then moved the second super on top. The bees had moved up into this second box on the temporary hive and were storing pollen in its frames. I placed the inner cover on top of the second super, closed it up with the cover and inserted a full feeder.


Here, you can see the Rocky bees at the entrance to their new home. I wish I'd had time to paint this hive, but it's all made of cypress and I'm told that it will endure all kinds of weather for years. The main worries now are whether or not the queen made it into the hive (again, I didn't see her) and robbing by the original hive bees. Speaking of the original hive, I'm looking for a name for it. Any suggestions?

A (bee) house of horrors

Those poor swarm bees. The thunderstorms and downpours of the last two days have done their damage to the makeshift hive. The plywood base and roof bowed up and the cardboard box is in a state of collapse (giving new meaning to the term, "colony collapse disorder"). I was able to replace the roof with another piece of plywood, but there is not much I can do about the base or the box. I did remove some of the newspaper plugs from a couple of corners of the hive so the poor bees could have some air and a way in and out. I can only imagine how it looks inside.

Still, when I went out to replace the feeder this morning, they were hanging in there. I was thinking of giving each hive a name. The swarm bees, being the underdogs with a fighting spirit, are definitely "Rocky."

I tracked the status of the hive I ordered and it made it to the Atlanta area Friday and was scanned for Monday delivery. It can't come soon enough. Hang in there, little winged friends, help is on the way!

Really, I couldn't blame them if they swarmed again and left for good, considering their current living conditions. I just hope their temporary house of horrors doesn't turn into the (bees)wax museum.

Swarm alert!

Today I had the most amazing experience — I collected my first swarm! It all started when our backyard neighbor, Oscar, came over this morning to tell me that my bees had swarmed in his yard, specifically on his patio table umbrella. I met him at the fence, peered over, and sure enough, there was a large swarm attached to the umbrella.

For a moment, I panicked. I'm a novice beekeeper with only one hive, for pete's sake. I knew what a swarm was, but had no idea how to go about collecting one. There wasn't much time until the swarm would decide to move on, so I pulled myself together and thought about who to call. I remembered that my friend Cookie and I had discussed bees a few months ago and she mentioned that she knew beekeeping guru Cindy Bee. (Yes, that is actually her name and it is certainly appropriate!) Cookie had emailed Cindy Bee's contact information to me. I found the email and quickly dialed Cindy, who took time out of her busy schedule to give me some quick pointers over the phone.

Since I don't have a second hive box yet, I would have to assemble a makeshift hive from whatever we had on hand in the garage. First, Cindy advised me to use plywood and 2x4's to make a bottom board. I had sheets of plywood, but not 2x4s, so I used bricks. Next, I was to take a cardboard box and cut a small horseshoe-shaped hole in the bottom to make a flap that would open for the bees to enter and exit. Then Cindy said I should spray a small amount of lemon-scented Pledge or lemon juice around the opening, which would help attract the bees. I had two extra supers on hand, so I removed some of the frames from one super and put them in the cardboard box, as instructed.

It was time to suit up and head over to Oscar's yard to collect the swarm. Using my bee brush, I brushed the bees (thousands of them) downward from the umbrella into the box. They seemed happy to land in the lemon-scented box and quickly crawled onto the frames. I set the open box on the patio table for a while and the remaining bees that were flying around eventually headed into the box. I'd say I collected about 99% of the swarm before I put a lid on the box and took the bees back to my yard.

Then came the hard part. I set the box on the makeshift landing board and pulled the flap open from underneath to give the bees an entrance and exit. Next, I put a super with frames on top of the cardboard box. Per Cindy's instructions, the bees needed to be fed with the 1:1 sugar/water solution, so that required some ingenuity on my part. I had a mason jar on hand, but no ice pick with which to poke small holes in the top — I ended up using a seam-ripper from my sewing kit to make the perfect little bee-sized drinking holes in the top of the jar. I took the jar, filled with sugar-water, and my last unused super (empty, no frames) out to the makeshift hive. This top super would protect the feeding jar, which I turned upside down on top of the frames in the super below. I covered the whole thing with another piece of plywood.

To sum up the configuration from the bottom up: plywood bottom board, bricks, cardboard box with bees, super with frames, feeder jar inside empty super, plywood cover. It's a little sad-looking, but I hope it will do the job temporarily.


A quick peek under the plywood cover showed that the swarm bees had already found the sugar-water. Cindy warned that my original hive would be very interested in this new, weaker hive and its sugar-water supply and might try to "rob" it. She cautioned me to find and seal all of the openings, leaving only one space of about an inch or so for the swarm bees to enter and exit their hive. This would give them a better chance of protecting their hive and sugar-water supply from intruders. Since the cardboard box was sagging in places and there were odd-shaped openings all around, I decided to use newspaper to stuff the holes. It remains to be seen if this method is successful — every time I checked the hive this afternoon I saw the crafty little winged creatures entering and exiting new places, so I had to plug those with paper. May have to pull out the duct tape soon.


I also needed to check the original hive and see what was going on, Cindy advised. I took off the cover and saw that the boxes were full of bees. No beetles in sight. That's a good sign, she said. I hope this means that the bees swarmed because the original hive was too congested — they split to form a new colony.

I called Brushy Mountain Bee Company and ordered a hive right away. The cost to ship it to me overnight was prohibitive. Wendy reassured me they would ship my order out today, so I opted for regular shipping. I'll probably get my order on Monday, but if I'm lucky, it could come sooner. Then I'll set up the new hive in a permanent location and move the swarm bees from their makeshift home. That's assuming they survive the weekend, the other hive doesn't decide to "rob" them, and they don't decide to swarm again and go somewhere else.

I'm grateful for the generosity of neighbors, friends and an expert who doesn't know me from Adam's house cat. What an exciting and rewarding experience.

My hive grew a beard.

For the past few weeks, my bees have been hanging out on the exterior of the hive and the landing board. I was afraid this meant they were preparing to swarm, but actually, they are doing something called "bearding."

Bearding is a phenomenon that happens during warm, humid weather — usually in the mid-to-late summer (swarming is most likely to occur in the spring). The bees are just plain hot and some of them go outside the hive in order to give added ventilation to the house bees and brood nest inside. When they cluster on the exterior this way, it gives the hive the appearance of having a beard.

Honey bees are so smart.