And thoughts on hives

The hives are all quiet today. I got everyone installed in proper wood hives just in time – yesterday it rained and snowed all day, and we’re in the middle of a string of overnight lows in the low 30s. On the heels of a high of 90 the day before. I think now that it might have been good to get feeder shims and baggie feeders into the tops of at least the swarm hives before the cold, but I didn’t and I’m not going to go crack open all the hives and chill everybody for that. It should be in the 50s tomorrow, I may pop some syrup in them then.

I’m considering building a test hive based on the designs of the LAAZY hive, except using all new lumber instead of repurposing Langstroth boxes. I think the Slovenian AZ hive format seems like it has a lot of potential benefits, but the non-Langstroth frames makes it more expensive and less convenient. The fact that a tested Langstroth-compatible AZ variant already exists saves me some planning work. I’m thinking about building one or two hives to test, and if they work well after next season, then I can build more and construct a larger (but still small) half-shed building for them. I think it’s too late this year to realistically get them built and get a good handle on how they perform, but if I get them constructed over the summer, I can have them ready to go for next year’s spring splits/swarms. That should make for some good ongoing content as well, to help encourage me to keep posting. Now I need to start sharing the link to my blog so I get visitors and can stop talking to myself.

And I can’t keep up with it

I thought I was doing better now managing my hives. I got into the existing hives and made sure there was a queen cell but not multiples. Or so I thought. There was another swarm Monday in my swarm tree. I suspect this one may have actually been a wild swarm, as I was outside and there was nothing, then about 15-20 minutes later there was a swarm happily settled in the tree. I got them set up in a nuc box, moved it up the hill Tuesday morning with the other colonies, and got onto procuring additional equipment. I bought two “garden hive” setups (3 medium instead of 2 deep) and I planned to move some bees into the new hives at lunch today. My bees had other plans.

Hive number 2 (the one I thought had the first swarm) just swarmed today. I’m certain of the source this time, as I watched the bees pour out of it. They’re in the same spot in the same tree – this is now 4 swarms in that tree within 2 weeks (5/5, 5/13, 5/16, 5/18), and my 2 hives from May 4th currently number 6. I guess it’s a good thing I have arranged an outyard I can move a couple of them to, as I would hate to sell back down to two and then find out one of them didn’t successfully raise a new queen, or swarmed down too small to be stable. I think my bees may be Carniolans, and the swarminess they’re showing this spring seems to support this. I’ll get this latest swarm into a box today, and hopefully I’ll get a chance soon to post something other than another swarm update.

Swarm again today.

I’m assuming it was the other (larger) existing hive, as it was a big one. Once again, they landed in a tree in the backyard, just a branch over from where last week’s swarm went. Sent me scrambling for equipment – there was no way they were gonna fit in a nuc. The first big shake out of the tree filled the nuc easily three inches deep in bees, and it wasn’t more than maybe 2/3 of the swarm. I got a 10-frame deep set up (my last one on hand) and dumped them in there.

I’m happy to note I have finally seen one of my queens. I ended up clipping a couple of feet of branch down to get the end of the swarm, because bees kept flying back out of my box into the tree – the queen was deep in there among some leaves and I couldn’t get her to shake out. Once I cut the branch and gave it a good shake while securely in the ground, I got the last of the cluster into a box and I was able to find the queen scurrying around. I’m 100% certain I got her into the hive.

They’re definitely keeping me busy. I’m working on arranging my first outyard – a friend on the other side of the subdivision wants to have a hive in his yard. I will probably move last week’s swarm there in the next week or two. They seem to be doing well. Today’s swarm should be able to get a good solid start, and if everything goes well I hope to have enough honey this fall that I get sick of processing it. That seems like it would be a nice problem to have. I had an audience of three for this swarm capture, so I’ll have pictures soon. I’ll update this post when I can add proof I finally actually spotted a queen.

Or something like that….

It’s four years later and I’m back to this beekeeping blog idea. The cutout in 2018 never did really get established, and they didn’t even make it through the late fall. In 2019, I had a small late swarm move into the empty hive, but once again they didn’t really have time to get established and they also did not make it through the winter.

In 2020, a friend had one of her colonies swarm in the spring and she didn’t have an empty hive for it, so she brought it to me. That colony did make themselves at home and built out most of two deeps that year. They survived the winter, and I didn’t manage for swarms well enough in the early spring of 2021, and they ended up swarming. The swarm settled into a tree in my yard, only about 20 feet from the hive (and about 15 feet off the ground). I cut them down and installed them in a second hive – that adventure will probably be a later post. I kept a closer eye on both hives through the summer, and they both built out nicely but since it was a fairly dry summer without great nectar flows, I didn’t try to encourage the production of any surplus honey to harvest.

Both of those hives came into 2022 fairly strong. In mid-April, I thought that the older colony was preparing to swarm, and I got the necessary supplies to split it, but when I got inside I didn’t find as much brood as I expected and I wasn’t comfortable taking half of it. Just a few days later, I did have a swarm – from the newer (and, I thought, smaller) hive. That’s what I get for thinking I know what I’m doing, I guess. Once again, they only flew about 20 feet from the hive and landed in the other significant tree in my back yard. This time only about 10 feet off the ground. I like that my bees are low-effort swarmers. I installed them in a nucleus box, and they’re currently residing in my yard until I make sure all three colonies are happy and queenright before I decide what to do with them. I’ve added honey supers to both and I am hoping to have my first honey harvest this year.

Stay tuned, as I do intend to maintain the blog this time around. I don’t know a lot about beekeeping, and I’m sure that I’ll do (and post) some things that are unusual, questionable, ill-advised or even just plain wrong, but I am learning and I want to share that journey with other beekeepers – maybe someone else can learn from my successes and mistakes.