bee swarm # 5?!

swarming bees

cutting branches out. im watching with curiosity about stings... 

the orchard looking west along the west ridge

final cut to the branch that held the swarm

box-o-bees (queen included) Liam and I moving the bees on up!

well another planned day at RDI was 

interrupted by our 7th(?) swarm of the season.

all three of us (Liam, Meghan and i) were in the kitchen garden getting ready to plant some veggies and herbs, when the hum of a swarm filled the air. 

Brock's voice about following the party ringed in our ears and we watched as the air filled with bees, eventually landing in a pear tree near the food forest just behind Penny and James house. 

(you can almost see the house roof in the picture at right.)

we proceeded to have the next top bar hive ready (these hives are one long hive with honey comb bars at the full length) and suited up for our adventure of cutting out all the bees amassed around the queen on the branches of the pear tree. 

its the pirate hives....

Liam dumping bees... in shorts... crazy man

the hive- that's a lot of bees

adding boards... in shorts...

after cutting out some branches we made the final cut (at left) and dropped all the bees and their hive mates into a box.

we moved amongst the swarming bees and their newly claimed branch in-a-box, very calmly mind you, up hill to the hives at the top of the food forest with no stings or anger from the bees at all.

Finally arrived up at their new home amongst our other hives- we are now up to 8 for the season, only starting with 3 out of 5 from last year... its been 4 weeks of constant new swarms. this means our current hives are busy at work expanding, or we are not doing enough to control the amount of queens that are being born. many bee keepers open and manage their hives choosing not to allow the the birth or creation of queen cells- the queen cells look a little bit like peanut shells worked into the side walls of the normal hive cells that birth drones and workers.





















if we find one without melting it down for bees wax i will post it... its been too exciting to save the cells and document.

Meghan took all the photos of Liam and i in our funny suits, and it was a job well done... and it was our first bee capture on our own for all of us- it being the first bee interaction for Meghan ever.

almost finished- some excited bees about their new home.

swarming a pear tree

we did have one closing thought- after checking on a previous swarm that happened a week ago, we noticed one of our newly swarmed boxes abandoned... the hive had comb and chambers, along with some unhatched bees, propolis, and filled honey comb... 

why was it empty? what happened to the unhatched bees? 

a few were still moving.

 we were curious and left with many more questions about exactly what we had seen today....

did this hive come from one of our previous swarms who didnt like their new home?

or was it a hive that out grew its space??

questions upon questions.

the universe is not personal.