Preparing for Swarm Season

Swarm season will be soon upon us. In central and south Texas, it's not unusual for swarms to be active from early spring to late fall, while different natural flora bloom throughout these months. Some regions will have more of a prolific nectar flow season than others around the same time of the year. Our big nectar flow is mainly in the spring, followed by a small nectar flow in the fall.

Swarms tend to happen with the onset of the nectar flow. There are many other reasons why swarms occur throughout the year. It could be that the colony has outgrown its space, congestion, lack of ventilation, lack of laying space, strong colony, disease infestation, and or reduced queen pheromones.

When colonies swarm, roughly three-fourth of the bees along with their mother queen will leave the hive. Whereas each individual honey bee, of any caste (worker, queen, drone) works for the totality of the colony, swarming equates to its reproduction, the birth of a new colony.

Did you know that scout bees (older than the foraging bees) are the ones to search for a new home for their swarm?

PachaMama Bee’s services include removing colonies and swarms from unwanted places. Whether they've been established in some structure for years or recently perched on tree branches, we see how quickly swarms can establish themselves into cavities of homes just within a few days of arriving. They quickly build fresh comb and the queen starts laying; foragers are already coming back with pollen and nectar. They do not waste any time making themselves at home in their new location (and getting ready for the next big season, so they can survive winter).

Though we cannot alter this biological imperative, there are ways to work with Mother Nature. Enter swarm management. To begin, the beekeeper must know his/her goals with the hive. For PachaMama Bees, the goal is to propagate our colonies. Loosing seventy-five percent of a colony’s bees due to swarming, can be a bit of disappointment. But if you ever get to see a swarm happen in action, sit back and enjoy it. It’s a beautiful thing.

In short, here’s what we do to manage to prevent swarming.

Set up swarm traps
Clip the wings of queens
Add more brood space to colonies
Cut queen cells
Split colonies with new queens

We prepare way ahead of time. Securing spring queens by ordering in the fall. Fall is also the time we build up inventory, assemble equipment, and do a bit of equipment painting. We assemble and make ready nuc boxes.

Inside the hives, we make sure that our colonies have plenty of food resources to make it through winter. We'll supplement as needed by feeding by sugar water and pollen patties.

In the first months of the new year, hive inspections are revealing our colonies have plenty of food resources and are at full strength. Proactive measures taken in the fall have paid off; not to mention checking and treating for varroa mites.

In early spring we'll start looking for swarm queen cells. Swarm queen cells are usually located at the bottom of the comb. But they can be found in other spots in the comb as well.

If we find queen cells in a hive, we'll cut most of the queen cells and leave only the largest two queen cells in the comb. Then take two frames of brood with nurse bees and a frame of honey/pollen. These frames along with the queen cells in the comb are placed in a nuc box. The original hive is moved away to another spot in the yard. The nuc is placed in the spot that the original hive was located, with the same entrance orientation. This is because the foraging force of bees will help the nuc grow, reestablishing themselves in their new home while the original hive will rebuild its population on their own with the help of the nectar flow. Later in the season, we’ll requeen the older queen from the original hive.

We perform this action over again with the rest of our apiaries with newly mated queens. Some colonies will requeen themselves without our intervention. While there are many methods of hive splitting, we mainly focus on colony splits with a mated queen. Strong colonies are chosen for hive splits. Sometimes we’ll get two or three hive splits from one colony- and that is why it’s so important to manage for swarms.

References
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN970
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjUwMWU5OC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MjMyYTY1MjYtN2Y1Yi00MDYxLThhZjgtYjA5MjQ2YTE5YWJk?ep=14

Propolis, A brief education

Many people are familiar with the benefits of local honey and the versality of natural bees’ wax, but the bounty of the honey bee hive has another special provision, and that is propolis.  

“Propolis” comes from the Greek words “pro,” in front of, before, and “polis” meaning, city. Together, it is “in defense of the city.” Such as a defensive wall, propolis is used as a sealant to protect and extend honey bee hives. Propolis is a sticky resin made from a mixture of bee saliva and tree pollen. Also called “bee glue” it actually reflects the type of trees, sap, and other botanical sources collected by the honey bees. In some parts of the world, propolis is green (from Brazilian baccharis dracunculifolia) or red (from mangroves). In Texas, propolis is mostly yellow and brown.  

Like honey, people have used propolis far back as we know in history. Incans drank it reduce fever, ancient Greeks used for treating ulcers, bruises, and sores, the Chinese used it for dental pain, and its use is recorded among ancient Persian, Roman, and even French militaries in the 19th century for treatment of wounds. All of these applications make sense, as modern research has shown propolis contains flavonoids, which have antibiotic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidants.

To collect a bit of propolis, beekeepers can simply scrape it off the hive box with their hive tool. Those producing propolis on a large scale, use a propolis screen below the inner cover, then take it out for removal when it’s filled.

Ready for human consumption, propolis can be found in liquid form, in a liquor or water-based tincture. It is also available in capsules or a granular form, that can be sprinkled over a salad or blended into a smoothie. You may find health-focused coffee shops or juice bars offering propolis in their beverages. If you could benefit from antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, antifungal- and who couldn’t – try some propolis! It’s PachaMama’s (Mother Earth) medicine.

Our Sweet, Gentle Honey Bees Gone Wild!

Photo credit Jose Gutierrez

Why have our sweet, gentle honey bees gone wild, so to speak?! Our gentle honey bee breeds became more defensive. Few factors attribute to this:

Weather

It’s hotter plus there is humidity, so you can imagine how someone might not be their best with these conditions. Bees will work more to keep themselves cooled. Inside their hive, they will fan their small wings to direct airflow out of the hive. The normal hive temperature inside is 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature also allows them to produce honey.   

Nectar dearth

This is a shortage of nectar-producing flowers. Summer is when nectar dearth happens, little rain, high temperatures, and drought. The honey bees’ stored food they worked hard to collect during the spring nectar flow comes into play. Since they are not able to find much food during nectar dearth, they’ll be on guard of their food storage. Yes, that means more stings! So be careful, as a beekeeper one should be fully protected and have the smoker ready. This is no time for-show-and-tell your beehive to your friends. Spring and fall are recommended for any apiary tours you might have in mind. Make sure that they have a water source nearby, this will help greatly. Or you’ll have honey bees cooling themselves in your pool, perhaps drinking your beer because it’s 5 o’clock somewhere. 

Honey Robbers

Give to the poor, take from the rich. Or bigger is bully. Let’s face it we all know that humans do all the taking, it’s been like this for thousands of years, season after season and it’s not going to change, so honey bees have developed this instinct to protect themselves and their honey storage. Usually, after the spring nectar flow, honey harvest happens in summer. As a good steward for our honey bees, we want the best for them and to see their success. The other robbers may be the next door hive, other insects, rodents, and mammals. It’s nothing compared to how much we rob from these hard-working little beautiful insects.

Queenless 

A colony that has gone queenless, will be a bit cranky, nervous, perhaps lethargic. Listen to the sound of the hive. It will be a higher pitch than your usual buzzing sound. Install a new queen if this is the case.    

As the season changes, your honey bees will go back to their normal, sweet gentle behavior.  

Quick comments/thoughts on neighbors, feeding, and treating

Installing hive beetle trap with safe, food-grade oil

Hives and neighbors, that’s a good one to tackle. What do you do if you’re neighbor gets stung? Own up and hopefully they’re nice enough to let you know what happened. This way you can address the situation accordingly. Honey bribes may work. Smooth things over with a little sweetness.

Need to mow the lawn and there’s a hive on your yard? Few things. Be quick. Wear a head veil. You can also place a temporary board leaning against the front entrance of the hive so they can’t see you mowing in front of them.

Feeding and treating for pests, I think there are many options available to you. Tons of research has been poured into treating and feeding bees to maximize strength, health, honey yield, and breed of the colony. It sounds like bees are turning into the next cattle for ranchers. In my view feeding is great for bees when they need it. Help bees before they need it. Treating, introducing chemicals into the hive to treat your bees will create an imbalance in their ecological system, this will affect them over a period of time. Although it will get the job done, the choice its entirely up to you. We’ll discuss more of this in future posts.

Being able to identify what your bees are doing? How they are doing? What to look for? Smell? Sound? This knowledge comes with research, experience, and plenty of reference. So, you may join a bee club, ask for a mentor, perhaps a coworker is a beekeeper. Do your research online, get books, attend seminars and beekeeping classes. And a big one for me, plain old trial and error. There’s nothing like first-hand experience of success and failure.   

Preparing yourself and your equipment

A gentler breed is preferred when staring out with your first bees, because one way or another you will learn to respect bees. It’s better to get few stings with a beginner hive than hundreds of bees aiming their stingers at you! Have the proper equipment. Hive suits, one larger size is recommended to give you slack and ventilation when moving around, also bees will not be able to get their stingers through so easily. You’d be surprise that they can sting through two layers of clothing. To cover major parts, I wear a hat veil with strings to cover my head, long sleeve shirt, and jeans. During the hotter months and higher humidity levels, there’ll be some sweating going inside your bee suit. To prevent sweat from running down your face and into the hive you can wear a bandanna on your head. For people with long hair, tie it up, don’t let it get in your way of your inspection.

A lot of the things mentioned may sound simple, common sense, and practical. The best advice I’ve heard from experienced beekeepers is “let the bees be.” Sometimes I think that’s silly after all the work I put in all these years. But looking back sometimes you can do too much, and also not enough. Have your focus, have your goal set to when you’re working with bees. They’ll appreciate you as a handler, and of there will be course less casualties on both sides. Move carefully, just as you are watching them, they’re also watching you. A bunch of little eyeballs looking at your hands moving around. When their little heads lined up in row are sticking out between the frames and watching you, you may puff a little smoke on them. It only takes one sting to trigger the alert pheromone for the colony. In that case, with your smoker you can puff at the place of sting, to mask the pheromone. A honey bee sting is an unforgettable experience, or any stings for that matter.

Be prepared to treat your sting(s), have something readily available to treat it, I use an anti-itch topical cream. Since bees are protecting their home you can’t blame them for trying. They have a whole ecological system going on down there.  

Tools and equipment. Pick your weapons of invasion carefully! Just kidding though it could be seen this way from the bees’ perspective. I inspect multiple hives throughout the day. Over the years, I found a bucket organizer (a sleeve with pockets that go around a 5-gallon bucket) the most practical and convenient set-up to carry from hive to hive. In this bucket organizer I have a hive tool (j hook), frame grabber with manipulator (good for wood and plastic frames), frame perch, 9-frame spacer, bee brush, heavy duty scissors, flashlight, black permanent marker (for labeling on tape), roll of white duct tape, a couple of entrance reducers, couple small blocks of wood (wood wedges to help prop up spacing between hive boxes), lighter, smoker wood plug, 2 queen clip cages, fillet knife (why, am I gutting fish? No, it’s to cut comb as needed), and needle-nose pliers.

Last but not least it’s the glorious smoker. Get a good quality smoker, as it will save you countless hours of keeping the smoke alive. I keep my smoker in a different bucket, on top of my fuel (wood shavings). Understand how the smoker works - inside the smoker there is an inner round, base that is perforated  with metal legs, the breather plate. If you’re able to fix these legs to the bottom of the smoker with the legs touching the base of the smoker, and just above the air inlet, then you’ve won half the battle. This will allow air as you squeeze the bellow to flow into the chamber easily to create mix with heat and fuel, thus creating smoke and potentially a flaming mini torch if you’re not careful. This can burn the little wings of your bees. Technique, technique, technique.

To use a smoker is sort an art, that must be mastered ASAP. Rule of thumb to starting up the smoker, fill it with your preferred choice of fuel one third of the chamber full. Fuel will vary, based on region and what you have access to.  Dried wood shavings, pine, pellets, etc all work fine. Some say one quarter full, but one third is good. Light it up with your match or lighter. Let it catch on fire a bit. You can hold it momentarily parallel to the ground so that the flame moves up across the surface area. When this is going, and there is a flame across the surface, start pumping the bellow. When the flames have a nice ember color, and it starts to grow taller than the smoker, quickly add more fuel while continuing to pump the bellow until chamber is full, be careful with your hands. The smoke should be white and cool to touch. It should not feel hot. If hot, retry the process from the beginning. You will use your smoker until the end of your beekeeping career, so to keep it from building up tar around opening lid, just scrape off the stuff.

The hive components quality is most important to your bees. Your hive boxes should be flush with the bottom board and to each other. As this will keep other insects from getting in there, less weather damage, and bees won’t spend energy on trying to seal it up with propolis. It is recommended the hive faces the morning sun and not the afternoon sun.  We all in Texas know how hot it gets here. Again, bees can focus their energy into growing the colony and making delicious honey, instead of trying to cool themselves all afternoon long. The hive facing the fence works too.

Getting Started with Beekeeping

I’d like to begin by welcoming you and congratulating you for your first steps into becoming a beekeeper. It’s an exciting venture and wonderful personal skillset to learn. When I first started beekeeping, it was out of curiosity. Then it became a personal drive of its own, as many of us have been blessed with a passion for taking care of nature and the cycle of life. I think you will find this an ever-rewarding experience. 

First, my thoughts about what to do when starting beekeeping? Like I say in music, “Your first lesson is free, that is, pick your instrument.” With beekeeping you’ll have to line up your first hive or hives depending on what you wish to handle. In this blog, there’ll be a bunch of  tips for both beginners and experienced beekeepers. I’m always learning. Personal growth is something to be proud of and I’m happy to share what I’ve learn with you.

For beginners, get two hives to start with. This way you can compare hives, have reference points, use the stronger hive to help the weak one if that’s the case. Make hive splits to grow your hives. Don’t harvest honey right away. Be observant, study patterns, and take notes, refer back to them. E.g. inspection date, hive number, number of frames full of bees, brood, honey, pollen, queen breed, growth progress, status of hive, location, feeding season, how many bees flying in and out, pollen on their legs, queen present? (you can tell by seeing fresh 1-3 day old eggs in cells if queen is not seen). Get my hive inspection checklist here.

The ugly truth is that you will lose hives over a period of time. This happens seasonally, it happens randomly, for other factors you may not be aware of, it happens instantly, it happens when you least expect it, when you least want it to happen, and of course, by beekeeper error or lack of skill. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. Talk it out. There are gains and losses; it’s part your experience. This will make you a better beekeeper.