If you put a request out there, sometimes it is answered before you’re even ready!<\/p>\n
Later yesterday, after I spoke with JR (Githens’ Bee Farm: 831-663-2433), he called to say he was going to pick up a swarm of bees – he wanted to know if I wanted them!<\/p>\n
I hurried over in the early evening with my boxes. But he just handed me the bucket he had vacuumed them into! “Here”, he said, “Just dump them into your boxes when you get home. Evening is a good time.”<\/p>\n
By the time I arrived home with the bucket it was 7pm. My husband was home feeding the kids, tired from work – but still willing to help and take photos of the bees (he’s so wonderful). I was hungry and I still had to dump bees into my boxes, a prospect that seemed a bit scary to me. With no one to help, would I know what to do? Would they get mad and aggressive?<\/p>\n
I got the boxes ready, and with my husband taking photos, (I’ll post them as soon as I get a chance) I gave the bucket a shake and heard the thump of a lump of bees falling to the bottom of the bucket. I hope they’re still alive, I thought. I cautiously removed the lid and there was still a mass of bees on the lid and filter. I placed that in the empty box I had put on the top of the hive, and shook the rest of the bees from the bucket into the box. That was easy, they fell in one big clump, and started exploring the honey scented frames of comb, still coated with honey after the extraction we did almost three weeks ago. But when I tried to brush the rest of the bees from the filter on the lid, they started dive-bombing the net around my face – obviously angry. Maybe, hopefully, the queen was somewhere around there and they were defending her.<\/p>\n
I made the mistake, I think, of using Bee Quick which is an herbal, supposedly non-toxic spray that repells bees. I sprayed a little on the lid to try to get them to fall away and into the box. They didn’t seem to move, so I propped the bee box lid over the bucket lid and left to eat dinner, thinking – especially because it was getting dark – that they would eventually make their way down into the box and toward the delectable honey. They don’t swarm at night.<\/p>\n
I was right. Later, after dark I went out with my flashlight. They were still making quite a racquet with their collective buzzing, but most had moved down into the bee boxes. There was a clump of dead bees on top of the frames though – maybe casualties of my Bee Quick spray.<\/p>\n
I removed the bucket lid and tucked them in, under the lid – stopping to give them a little blessing to thrive in their new home. And they would need it with the battle they would be doing with the local homeboys (or girls in this case) – the robber bees.<\/p>\n
As expected this morning – late after the drippy fog lightened up – there seemed to be robber bees buzzing around the hive. They’ve been there every day this week, even though I closed up the hive days ago and there was no way to get in. Now there is an about 1\/2 inch opening for the new bees to get in and out of. I even put a bunch of grass in front of the hole, as Mr. Carrier in San Jose<\/a> suggested, to thwart the robbers. As the sun came out the activity increased. It was very hard to tell which were robber bees or if any of the new colony in the box were coming out at all. I hope they can fight off the robbers – good luck girls!<\/p>\n I’ll let them settle in for about two weeks, then open the box and look at the frames for sign of laid eggs or larvae or a queen.<\/p>\n See Video Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you put a request out there, sometimes it is answered before you’re even ready! Later yesterday, after I spoke with JR (Githens’ Bee Farm: 831-663-2433), he called to say he was going to pick up a swarm of bees … Continue reading