I am now a beekeeper, an avid gardener, horticulturalist, social commentator, peak everything freak and 2012 questioner. I started this blog today because I wanted to share some of my experiences and adventures in beekeeping. The name Bee Stoic came about after a brainstorming session with my wife. I like the name as it has that double entendre and also allows me to expand from just beekeeping to beyond that and into my developing unease with the world and its path toward radical change. The bees to me represent much that is going on or can be seen as a metaphor for what's going on in the world today. I will expand on my beliefs and observations about how the bees are connected to the world and can serve to act as an example for us, but today I want to talk about capturing the wild swarm of bees.
This wild or feral colony of bees was located in a barn north of Madoc Ontario. It was a rather large open hive that had a beautiful selection of white and slightly yellowed comb. The people living at the house told me that the bees have been there for over a year and the hive got quite large over the summer.
Today started out to be cold drizzling and rainy and when I got to the barn, the
bees were all located inside the hive. They were very passive, even when I got up towards them on a step ladder they merely buzzed with mild alarm - none of them came out at me. Without any more training than just looking at a few YouTube videos off I was to try and get these bees out of the barn. The plan of attack that I devised the day before about seeing the bees, was not going to work. Even the method that I decided to choose, did not work and had to be changed halfway through. Quite an experience.As you can see from the picture to the left a hive was secured to bottom of the first floor of the barn. It was snuggled back into the corner between the foundation running south and the foundation running west. My first idea was to try and trapping the whole hive in a box. I tried heating an old uncapping knife and cutting the hive. Instead of cutting nicely, it just cracked and fell apart in my hands.
I Decided take a new tack. I knew that this would be much more difficult than I thought. I decided to cut each section out individually and drop it into a waiting hive box. The bees were really good for all this disturbance, and they stayed really calm. I smoked them a little bit, and then continued with the process. As I worked away, I located some unhatched brood, which meant the Queen had been laying many days ago. I did not see any eggs as it was kind of difficult to see in a dark corner of the barn and I'd forgotten my flashlight. I'd also forgotten to bring a good camera and as a result the pictures are kind of low resolution just taken on my Blackberry.
Anyway I continued to drop the bees section by section into the double mint box that had set up on the floor. The bees still were not that aggressive and didn't go after me. Some were kind of curious since many got stuck to my gloves, and a few did manage to find a way underneath my half jacket and into my belly area. I now know that I need to upgrade to a full suit. stings didn't hurt that much is kind of different than the stings from my other half. The ones that really worried me though were the ones that got inside my hood. I could not for the life of me, figure out how they were getting in. Later in the day I did realize there was an open scene back at the zipper and there was a small cluster of bees on my right shoulder near the zipper for the hood. That explained how they were getting in. None of them stung me on my face but it was touch and go for a while.
At any rate, I got the bees home wheeled him out on a dolly, out to my apiary and set them up. They had been jostled around pretty good on the truck ride down from Madoc and were not aggressive, but not happy. I kept them in the double box set up that I had initially started with. On the bottom was the old double nuc box. On the top was the open super. In the bottom I had the loose comb. I tried to stack it as gently as I could, leaving the brood towards the middle and exposed so the bees could keep it warm and allow the baby bees to hatch out. In the upper super I had empty frames. And some other frames that had set up with just a little bit of foundation at the top.
Later in the day the sun came out and it was beautiful. The bees were coming and going and there was lots of action. I even found a couple of them coming back in with pollen already!
I really wanted to collect these bees because they obviously were able to survive so much of the problems that are going on. I really think that today's bees, especially the commercial ones, are being pushed too hard to produce too much on too little. We are taxing them in so many ways it is hard to see how they won't struggle. There are pesticides used in many of the fields, herbicides used in all the fields. Genetically modified crops that have genes of fish spliced into plants. There is pollution, and chemicals poured on top of them by the beekeeper themselves. Is it any wonder that they're struggling to survive? Are you struggling to survive in today's climate? I think we all are. So I see this as an opportunity to experiment a little bit with some strong bees.
I am going to try to allow them to work as naturally as possible. I'm going to use a screened bottom board hive set up, with minimal or no chemical inputs. If they die then they were not strong enough to survive. I should not be putting antibiotics, anti fungals, and caustic chemicals on them to try to keep them alive. By doing so I would end up keeping an inferior bloodline alive. If they die then they die, so be it.
I also don't want to reuse comb very much. to that end I'm going to use the question strain method to extract the honey at the end of the season. Using this method, I'm sure that the bees will only have comb that is at the most, two years old. I see old comb as a problem. Seems to me that the old comb has so many chemicals in it, whether applied by the beekeeper, or collected by the bee while out foraging. So keeping that would comb just makes the bees concentrate these chemicals. Because of that I am taking a page out of the top bar beekeeping book, and allowing the bees to create the dimensions that they feel are needed. The foundation that so many beekeepers used today is great for getting the bees a quick start, but is also designed to create a certain size that was designed to generate and create a bigger be. Some unofficial observations are showing that the bigger comb is possibly creating problems for the bees as it allows varorra mites into the capped brood and gives them more room to work and manouver into position on the developing pupa.
The problem with using the bee's own comb is that it is very weak and this will not do for commercial beekeepers using a rotary extractor to take the honey out of their frames. Since I'm not a commercial beekeeper, all I want to do is extract a little bit of honey and have strong these going into the next spring, I am going to leave them with a lot of honey, and only extract when they are starting to build up too much. I am also going to use the crush and strain method which is slow and labor-intensive, but again, I'm not a commercial beekeeper.
The sun is going down now, I may take a quick run up to the high sea if they are adapting to their new surroundings. I do hope they haven't taken off on me.
What can we learn from the bees today? Never give up. Never quit, and work your butt off, because you never do know when disaster might hit you in your home. Bee Stoic, take what life is giving you and do the best you can.
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