Hiving a Swarm of Bees

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Sometimes you get lucky and the bees just come to you. A bit of luck and a bit of planning is what it takes to make it happen. I walked out to enjoy the morning on a  lazy Sunday and discovered a swarm from a neighboring hive had decided to move in to a bait hive I'd set out on the cardeck. 

I use guidelines gleaned from the wisdom of Dr. Tom Seeley, who has studied bees for over forty years. He found that bees prefer hives that are approximately 1.7 cubic feet in volume and have a small opening, roughly the size of the smallest entrance for a commercial entrance reducer. It works best if you give them at least a single piece of empty comb. Better not to have honey comb in there, since other bees robbing will deter the scouts from choosing this as their new home. 

The last part is to use a chemical lure. Some use synthetic queen pheromone, but I use lemongrass oil, since it contains 4 out of 7 of the volatiles found in the queen pheromone.

Then sit back and wait for the bees to find you. 

I have been lucky so far as to have three swarms find my apiary this spring. The other two were my second favorite way to catch a swarm. They moved into the stacked equipment I have stored in the open under the car deck.  I store the supers this way so I don't get wax moths, and almost every year I get a swarm interested. 

The other way I catch swarms is to actually go and get them. I've caught three this year, though two were from hives I manage for other people. 

Catching a swarm is usually pretty easy, so long as they have landed in a place you can reach, and on a branch far enough out that you can shake it above a box. I prefer cardboard banker's boxes, since you can use the lid to catch stragglers. Just hod the box under, make sure you're ready for the weight of the cluster as it falls, and give the branch a good shake. The bees fall and you're supposed to catch them, and most importantly, catch the queen. If the queen makes it into your box, the rest will follow. 

This swarm was caught in a magnolia on a rainy day, so I put an old umbrella over them to help them dry out.

 

B-Code work in progress

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I've been working for the last several months on B-code, a project combining my interest in studying bees from a scientific point, with the goal of learning how bees can adapt to alterations in their environment for collaborative art projects. 

For this first study, I built a clear hive body that fully encompasses a mature hive and utilizes a form most conducive to how a hive is shaped in nature: a sphere. Each flat panel allows the outside form to nearly disappear when photographed, and glare off the surface is further reduced by putting the light source inside the form. 

Each of the flat panels were formed by pulling flat sheets of PETG over plug molds in a vacuum. Then individual panels are clipped together so they can be easily removed and replaced. Hexagon panels are viewing panels, and the pentagons each have ports for entrances, feeder attachments, and ventilation. The whole form nests to a very small space once disassembled. 

The overall goal for this first iteration is to determine whether or not bees can successfully live in an all-plastic hive in the ambient humidity and temperature ranges my my lab. This is step one towards the final goal of growing collaborative sculptures, where I can manipulate the comb-building process enough to make forms that are truly unique. 

Results of first trial: Success. 

Expanding the Apiary at Bloomfield Farm

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In November we added another six hives to the apiary at Bloomfield Farm. These hives came from my own apiary in Southern Marin, where I've been keeping bees since 2010. 

JB truck with hives in front of bloomfield farm's barn

Before we moved the hives to their new location, we had to unpack all the woodenware so we could move the hive boxes onto new stands with new lids. It felt like Christmas, only better, since this is the kind of thing I won't have to return the day after!

Hive stands from Country rubes. worth the price, with screened bottoms that can be closed, monitoring boards, and beetle baffles. 

It was the perfect day to move hives, cool in the morning and then warm and calm as the day progressed. I drove the truck down to the orchard where the four established hives waited, a platform empty and ready for six more hives to join the group. 

Awaiting the new hives

Everything goes as planned, moving the hives into their new locations. I took the time to do some inspections to verify that the hives were doing well, checking brood and resources. I'd also brought a few supers full of honey to supplement the two native hives that hadn't produced much over the dry summer. 

gorgeous, Healthy brood

Beautiful bee bread, made from pollen

The bees were looking very happy and healthy. The two images above were the bestest, boomingist of the hives, but most of the rest had begun to slow down brood production in preparation for the winter season ahead. In our warm coastal climate, its not unusual to have drones flying all winter long. 

When I chose the hives to bring up to Bloomfield, I made the decision to bring up my most favorite queen with the idea that this would be a good place for her to breed the following spring. She's an old queen, with a faded red mark telling me shes's from 2013. I've had some amazing queens from this old girl, and it made me a bit wistful to think she'd be so far away here in Bloomfield. 

When I opened her hive, I found tragedy had struck. When the hive had been moved to the new base, and all that was left was to shake the bees off the bottom board, I found my old queen, dead on the screen. 

The queen is dead

Its too late in the season for any of this queen's eggs to make a new viable queen. So I just had to suck it up, take a goodbye selfie, and get on with the rest of my work. 

A few days later I returned with a nucleus colony to provide a new queen for this hive. I made special introduction boards and have separated the two hives with a paper grocery bag. It takes some time for the bees to chew through the bag, and when they succeed, their pheromones will have mixed enough so they won't fight, making it easier for them to accept a new queen. 

nuc introduction

Long day, but by the time it was over, I have ten beautiful hives, side by side, ready to start gathering pollen and nectar from the eucalyptus blooms that had just started to open. 

Now we are ten

barn at sunset

Marla Spivak, one of my heroes, on the future of honeybees

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Marla Spivak is a beekeeper and researcher in Minnesota who has ties to the Bay Area.  Our bee club has the pleasure of seeing her speak every year, and many of us are continuing to breed her Minnesota Hygenic bees with our own.  Her bees are selected for their resistant to varroa mites.  We love her, and love her message.  

This is the latest from Marla to CNN.com: 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/17/opinion/spivak-loss-of-bees/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Make Beekeeping Free and Accessible! (Success!)

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We need your help!  We need 500 people to sign our petition by June 2 to make beekeeping free and accessible.  The City of San Rafael is considering new limitations on beekeeping- imposing big permitting fees and tough restrictions for those who want to keep hives.  This is an important issue- as San Rafael is the county seat in Marin.  

The Marin Beekeeping Club found out about this issue only days ago, and there will be a hearing on the draft proposal in only a few days on June 2nd.  Among the worst of it, permits would be $389 per year, with a limit of three hives, and only in single family housing with a large plot of land.  In a nutshell, it puts socio-economic limits to who can own bees and who can't.  

Our nearest big city, San Francisco, has no permits and no regulations.  Here is what San Rafael proposes:

 

C.  Bees. Keeping of bees on residential property shall be subject to review and compliance with the following standards:
            1.   The bee-keeping use shall be limited to Apis mellifera (European/western common honeybees) and must be an accessory use to a single-family dwelling;
            2.   The property owner must sign the application consenting to the bee-keeping use on the property;
            3.   The applicant shall notify all adjacent owners and occupants of contiguous developed property of the intent to keep honeybees at the subject property, and shall provide proof of notification to the community development department, planning division.
            4.   The maximum number of bee colonies (hives) that may be kept per single-family dwelling shall be limited to two (2) colonies on lots that are ten thousand (10,000) square feet and less in area, and four (4) colonies on lots greater than 10,000 square feet in area.
            5.   Permit holders shall operate and maintain the bee-keeping use in accordance with recognized best management practices that provide safe and healthy living conditions for the bees while actively conducting inspections of colony(s) and avoiding nuisance impacts on surrounding properties and persons (i.e., managing and controlling colonies to reduce occurrence of swarms) and protecting the public health, safety and welfare.
            6.   The applicant(s) shall submit written evidence that they have obtained bee-keeping training, which shall be subject to the satisfaction of the community development director.
            7.   A convenient and adequate source of water shall be available to bee colonies on the property at all times.
            8.   Bee colonies shall be maintained in hives capable of inspection to determine compliance with these standards, and shall consist of moveable frames and combs. Hives must be maintained in a sound and usable condition at all times.
            9.   A bee hive box (colony) shall only be located within a fenced, private residential yard area generally located behind the residential dwelling unit. In no event shall a bee hive box be located less than ten feet (10’) from any residential property line and less than twenty-five feet (25’) from any dwelling unit on an adjacent property.
            10. A barrier of at least six feet (6’) in height consisting of a solid fence, wall and/or dense vegetation shall be installed and maintained between the bee hive colony(s) and all abutting properties. Fencing, walls and vegetation shall comply with the Fences and Walls regulations of Section 14.16.140.
            11. Hive entrances shall face away from the nearest residential property line(s).
            12. Bee colony(s) shall be promptly and properly removed if the permit holder discontinues the bee keeping use on the property.
            13. Bee keeping permits are issued to the permit holder at the specific location identified on the permit, and shall not run with the land. A new bee keeping permit shall be required for a new bee keeping use to be operated by an existing permit holder at a different location, or for a new permit holder to keep bees on a site that has been previously used for bee keeping.

So why the new fees and heavy restrictions?  Beekeeping has never been more difficult, more expensive, or more crucial to our communities than it is today.  We need to clear the way to encourage people to do their part, not impose fees and fines.  San Rafael isn't reacting to nuisance bees- in fact, there have been no complaints in the city.  

We in Marin want San Rafael to be more reasonable and adopt the same standards as San Francisco. From the SF.gov website: 

"Bee pollination plays an important role in agriculture contributing to productive crop yields and diverse ecosystems. Bee activity is addressed in two areas of the San Francisco Public Health Code to state that honey bees are not considered a wild or potentially dangerous animal and that honey bees are not considered a public health nuisance just because they’re bees.

San Francisco allows urban beekeeping without any specific permit requirements; however, bees can pose significant health and safety risks and urban beekeeping is subject to the law of nuisance and regulation by the Department of Public Health. Beekeepers must manage their colonies in a way that’s sensitive to surrounding areas and neighbors. If bees do create a nuisance situation, the Department of Public Health can issue citations and require mitigation of any hazard, which can include reducing the size of the colonies, moving the hives to another parcel, or requiring that all beekeeping operations in an area cease altogether."

San Rafael needs to adopt the same attitude.  Please take the time to go online and sign our petition to keep the practice of beekeeping free and accessible.  

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/758/713/229/beekeeping-in-san-rafael-must-stay-free-and-accessible/?taf_id=11283488&cid=fb_na#

Followup to this article: San Rafael is now a permit-free beekeeping city, and any problems will be handled by existing nuisance laws. Success, thanks to all who signed the petition and spoke at the city council meeting. 

Nucs for sale

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This week I sold another round of nucleus colonies, this time to a good friend and mentor Arthur Baker, who is expanding his number of apiaries in Marin and Sonoma counties.  

Among the sites for my bees is Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg, founded by the brilliant and lovely couple Mimi and Peter Buckley.  Arthur's new hives will start by visiting the fields of vegetables that will be sold to local restaurants and markets, and next spring will pollinate the apples for feeding their beautiful pigs. 

from Front Porch's website, "We grow our produce to order for local chefs and knowledgeable grocers who share the same passion for flavorful, old-time varieties, ones that need a bit more love and attention than the commercial hybrid types." 

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Arthur was interested in locally adapted genetic stock for his hives.  My hives did a terrific job through the winter despite our summer drought, and after the spring honey harvest I split my strongest and divided and requeened my least desirable hives. As with every year, for my queens I select bees exhibiting signs of varroa resistance, hygienic behavior and a propensity to propolise, plus even temperament and good honey production.  

This year I added to my apiary the genetics from Sue Cobey's Caucasian bees, via friend and mentor Volker Ackermann, who let me in on learning to graft queens in his apiary and then gave me several beautiful queen cells for my own hives.  I can't leave out Robert MacKimmie, the guy in the photo, who was also there to show me how it's done.  

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Arthur's new queens are a mix of my own stock and the Caucasian lineage, and I wish them all well in their new homes.  It's a very satisfying feeling to hand those cardboard nuc boxes off and see them loaded in the truck.  ictured in the photo is Robert MacKimmie, expert beekeeper, inspected his grafted queen cells.