Grays Harbor Bees

Back in the swing...

Tue, 31 May 2011 15:17:25 -0700

Just a note that I am back at it this year. Life’s twists and turns had me out of the harbor the past couple seasons, but I am back at it this year. Hopefully I will have some interesting bee news before long.

First Swarm of the Year

Mon, 25 May 2009 20:07:51 -0700

Spring comes late to southwest Washington, particularly in the last few years. Springtime is swarming time for bees, but the delay in spring weather means summer is more often when bees get busy around here.

A family in Central Park had a large swarm settle about eight feet off the ground in a hazelnut tree this afternoon, so we went and picked them up. Coincidentally, Central Park was where I took my first bee call last year.

Winter Comes to the Apiary

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:44:22 -0800

There is not a lot to write about over fall and winter, as the bees pretty much stay inside the hives, clustering for warmth. On the warmer days, I briefly open the hives to add sugar for them to eat, but there is little bee work to do other than that.

The bees are going to have a harder time keeping warm this week, as temperatures are projected to stay below freezing for the next six days. Today it snowed quite a bit. Both conditions are unusual for this area.

Last Inspections of Summer

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:57:20 -0700

As summer comes to a close, our adventures with bees wind down. Once the weather cools and the rain begins to fall, there are few opportunities to work with the bees, other than the occasional quick check to make sure they are not starving or diseased.

Today’s inspections may be the last major look through the hives before fall weather sets in, so I took a good long look for any potential problems. The good news was that most of the hives are looking very strong. I found only one problem and even came across some unexpected good news along the way.

New Hive Inspections

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:54:17 -0700

We have two new hives at the apiary, one put together over the last couple of weeks from a cut-out in Curtis, a swarm in Wishkah, and a queen from a log cut-out in Hoquiam; the other containing most of the straggler bees recovered after the log removal. We intend to keep the Curtis/Wishkah hive for next year, while the Hoquiam stragglers will be split up and parceled out to two other hives in the near future as reinforcements. I’m keeping a close eye on these hives to make sure the first builds up sufficiently to survive the winter and so that I know when the second is ready to combine with other hives.

The Hoquiam Straggler Hive

Hoquiam Log Cleanup

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:08:39 -0700

A few days ago I removed bees from a log out in the woods North of Hoquiam (link). Because there was no power on site, I was not able to run my bee vacuum, which meant I left a lot of bees behind. Normally, the vacuum is only an expedient, but when removing bees from rough surfaces like those of a hollow log, it becomes indispensable.

Eventually, the bees I left behind formed a ball and settled in a new location. The loggers called me back to get them out of the way, so I packed up my gear, including a new 800 watt inverter, and headed out into the woods. What I found there was a surprising 5 pounds of bees! I had already taken about four pounds and didn’t realize just how many bees there were in this hive.

Hoquiam Log Removal - Part II

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:54:59 -0700

Here you can see the progression of cutting sections of comb out.

Hoquiam Log Removal

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:26:22 -0700

I got a call yesterday from a logger working in the woods out north of Hoquiam. They had cut down a good sized tree with a hive in it. I thought I was done doing removals for the year, but since the bees were goners anyway, I packed up my gear today and headed out into the forest.

What I found when I got there was a log much bigger than anything I had ever cut. Luckily, with a borrowed bee suit, the loggers were game for doing the cutting.

Attack on the Curtis Hive

Sun, 7 Sep 2008 15:46:27 -0700

We’re in a dearth right now in Southwest Washington - a time of the year when few plants are producing nectar for the bees to harvest. Because the hives are still trying to build up stores for winter, I feed them sugar syrup, which they store away just like nectar. I fed the bees about ten o’clock this morning and by noon I noticed some strange behavior around the Curtis hive. There were a lot more bees than normal and they were acting agitated. I didn’t actually see any bee combat at the entrance, but I decided to reduce the entrance to a very small gap, just in case there was some robbing going on.

During a dearth, strong hives of bees will invade weak hives and steal their stores of honey. In nature, this is probably the end of a weak hive, since many bees die defending the hive, the queen is often killed by the robbers, and the stores are stolen. In the apiary, robbing can be controlled and it is possible to save a hive from robbers, but prevention is worth a pound of cure. Once robbers get in, they are persistent.

Well, I should have taken the signs more seriously. By three o’clock, there was a huge cloud of bees around the hive. I opened it up to see what was going on inside and bees exploded out of the hive - far more bees than should have been. In addition, the two quart feeder that I had filled five hours before was empty. Bad news.

That is no bee!

Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:18:54 -0700

One of the challenges of bee removal is that the average person’s definition of a bee is often different than a beekeeper’s. When most people think of a “bee,” they think of any number of critters that fly and sting. When a beekeeper says “bee,” he is probably talking about a honey bee or, at the most generic, talking about another insect that belong to one of the families that are true bees. The result of this communication barrier is a lot of “wild bee chases” for a bee remover.

This is the first of a series of articles I plan to do, covering the various social wasps that masquerade as bees in Western Washington. You might wonder what exactly a wasp is. A wasp is a member of the family Vespidae, which belongs to the Order Hymenoptera. Hymenoptera includes both bees and wasps, showing that they are closely related.

Let’s take a look at the big, black menace of late summer: the bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata).

Wishkah Swarm Update

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 16:52:43 -0700

I brought home two new hives in the past two weeks; one from a cut out in Curtis (link) and another as a late season swarm (link). Today I inspected both hives to see what kind of progress they are making.

First up, the Wishkah swarm hive:

Swarming Out the Wishkah

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:29:32 -0700

One thing you can’t escape in beekeeping is the unexpected. Tonight at 6:30, I took a call from a woman out near the Wishkah school who had a swarm of bees that had been hanging off her fountain for three days. The first surprise is having a swarm at all this late in the year. The next surprise is that they sat there for three days while it rained on and off. Rather than let them sit out another night in the rain, I hopped in the car and went to get them.

Curtis Hive Update

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:19:05 -0700

Last Wednesday, I cut a hive out of a house in Curtis (link). I’ve left them alone since, other than feeding them and a very brief inspection to make sure they were settling in. I was delighted to find during that quick inspection that I got the queen, since I didn’t spot her during the removal. My goal is to combine this hive with another weak hive before winter, but I am holding back for a few weeks, so that I can evaluate the quality of this queen. The queen in the weak hive is poor. Assuming this one is better, I will put the other queen in a nuc to keep her as a spare and let this queen take over the combined hive.

I opened the hive today for a more thorough, frame by frame inspection and I was happy with the progress. The bees are taking sugar water at a good pace (which you can see in the above picture) and have started to fix the cut-out combs to the frames. They have also stored quite a bit of nectar/sugar syrup in a short period of time.

Last Removals of the Year - Part II

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:04:46 -0700

This was a good sized hive, but a bit of a puzzler. There was almost no brood. This is not all that unusual at this time of year, but all the brood was capped and not a egg to be found. I carefully looked at every comb and poked through clusters of bees but never saw a queen. What I did see was a whole lot of honey.

This hive was also quite old. The owner said a swarm entered earlier this year, so odds are these combs have been home to more than one colony of bees. Some of the comb was really dark and dense; probably four or more years old.

I was not too disappointed, as I had planned to combine whatever I got today with my weakest hive and I definitely got some good reinforcements, but it is always nice to get the queen.

Last Removals of the Year - Part I

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:04:45 -0700

A couple weeks ago, a man out in Curtis in Lewis County called me about a hive in his house. I had been holding on to a job in Raymond down in Pacific County, waiting in the hope of getting another job in the area before traveling two hours round trip to remove a very small hive. Curtis is far out of my normal range, but added to the job in Raymond, it made for a full day of work.

As you can see from the picture above, this fellow had tried to remove the hive before. I give him his macho due for attempting DIY bee hive removal, but he learned what many people learn; if you don’t get the whole hive, the bees will simply expand in a different direction.

Mystery Bees

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:00:25 -0700

Today, while doing some clean up around the bee yard, I noticed an unusual number of bees flying around in the brush nearby. I went in to check it out and found a tiny swarm of bees. Where they came from is a complete mystery. None of our hives have any queen cells and none have swarmed recently, so this can’t really be an afterswarm.

Preparing for Winter - Part III

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 18:35:31 -0700

In the picture above, you can see the combination of the old Italian hive and the Ocean Shores swarm hive. A piece of newspaper separates the two and the bees will chew through it. Making them take the time to chew through the newspaper will allow them to become accustomed to the scent of the new queen, so that they will not reject her.

Preparing for Winter - Part II

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 18:02:42 -0700

So, the old Russian-hybrid hive and the North River hive have become one. Those old Russian bees will go extinct over the next couple of months. As the North River queen lays eggs and her progeny hatch, the Russians will dwindle away until one day only North River bees remain. I will cross my fingers that her genes are up to the task.

Preparing for Winter

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:21:53 -0700

Winter can be a tough time for bees. Once the last of the fall flowers are gone, bees must survive the rest of the year on the honey and pollen they have stored. Since this was a particularly cold, rainy year, the bees had only about four months to collect enough to make it. Our bees have it even tougher because so many hives are new this year or have been started from swarms or cut out from structures.

To get the bees ready for winter, I am combining them together into fewer, but stronger hives. Today I set out to inspect twelve hives and had seven when I was done.

Humptulips Aftermath

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 14:09:32 -0700

On Wednesday, I removed a hive out in Humptulips and came out pretty well, but I left a lot of bees behind. I went back yesterday and today and collected a good number of bees each trip. I’ll probably make one more tomorrow. You can see the stragglers clustered up next to where their hive used to be in the picture above. So, back up the ladder again...