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Category Archives: beekeeping

Bee Swarm

Ken was worried about the possibility of the honeybees swarming and sure enough, on Saturday, the strongest hive split apart. They made a new queen and thousands of bees followed her out of the hive. I noticed excessive activity down there and told Ken about it. He walked over to see what was up and had the chance to watched the swarm take off and land on a nearby bitterbrush. There were so many bees that they weighed the branches down to the ground. Ken suited up and got a spare hive box with a few frames and cut the branches and dropped the girls into the box. They stayed so they must be happy with the new, less crowded box. Now there are six hives.

A Honeybee Swarm

Ken has six active bee hives this year and yesterday one of them swarmed. Honeybee swarms are a natural occurrence and can be expected if hives are really busy and growing in population. The bees force the queen to slim down by not feeding her and she makes new queen cells so the bees left behind will have a new leader once the old one has swarmed. One of his hives from last year was thriving and constantly had bees ‘bearding’ on the front of it and Ken expected it to swarm.

In yesterday’s case, they didn’t go far – maybe ten or fifteen meters to a young ponderosa pine tree and fortunately Ken spotted the giant bee cluster before they moved on to what would be their new home.  The tree is on a hillside just below our backyard and the swarm was high enough that it required a ladder to remove it.

Ken had promised a swarm to our friend Mary for her birthday, since her bees did not survive last winter. Of course, she and her husband were out walking the dog and without their phones so it was a while before they called and said they would be right up. In the meantime, Ken started setting up a ladder and other equipment to get started on it by himself. I was not in favor of him doing it alone and was relieved when they said they were coming.

With three of them it was much safer and easier. They all moved slowly in their bee suits, keeping the bees calm, while they gently began cutting branches away from the pack of bees. Little clusters of bees were placed in an empty hive with the branches. Gradually they got to the main part of the festooning bees and very carefully cut out the two big branches holding it all together. They got just about all the bees into the hive and put the top on. The stragglers joined the others around their queen and in a short while all was quiet. Mary got her bees early this morning when it was cool and will get them set up in her bee yard and then remove the branches from the hive and replace them with frames so the bees can build orderly comb and fill it with brood and honey.

The swarm
Ken carefully considers his first move
We watched honeybees while we waited for our friends
It takes a team
Mary steadied Don on that downhill facing ladder
That’s a lot of bees!
Job well done!
We think they came out of this hive.
These two were kept away from the action

New Honeybees

Ken went into winter with four active hives and three survived. That was a very high percentage. Normally it’s less than 50% survival rate around here due to mites and disease and many other factors that are often unidentified. Since he expected to lose more, he put in an order for three new colonies. They have to be ordered before a beekeeper can determine how many survived. The new bees arrived over the weekend and moved into their new homes in the Methow. So now there are six! The old hives were already very active and the bees have been out gathering pollen and maybe even some nectar. I used my longest lens to get these photos but still I was too close and a bee got stuck in my hair and stung me on top of my head.

Bees from last year’s hive returning with pollen
New bees arrive in a cardboard box with five frames

Collecting Pollen

Yesterday, after the rain quit, the honeybees were out and about collecting pollen from the willow catkins. I wonder if they feel a sense of relief after being cooped up in the hives all winter?

You really should click through these images to appreciate the bees’ hard work.

New Honeybees

Four of Ken’s six beehives burned in the fire last summer and the replacement bees arrived last month. Ken and I went over to Dave’s house where other local beekeepers were gathered to get bees to start new hives or replace colonies that didn’t survive the winter or succumbed to other things like mites, pesticides, fire, etc. I think there were over 120 boxes of bees delivered to start their new lives in the Methow and Okanogan valleys.

We quickly brought them home and Ken got to work moving them into their new bee boxes. After that he checked the two old hives and discovered that one of them had died in the last couple of weeks. It had been the weaker of the two but after surviving the fire and the winter, it was a great disappointment to lose them just when things should have been improving.

A stick bug. Dave was sharing them with friends.
Baby stick bugs
Boxes of bees
This border collie waited patiently while her person talked about bees.
Wall art
New bees still in their cardboard box
The smoker
Smoking the bees forces them to move down into the box and makes them less likely to sting.
After being smoked.
A few bees that need to be poured into the hive.
There’s the queen.
She is kept in there with a piece of hard candy. The worker bees will eat it and free her.
Ken and his bees.
Luna watches the bee work from a safe distance.
The hive that died had plenty of honey so it wasn’t for lack of food.
Frames from the dead hive.

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