Earth Day – Bees In Trees

It’s been a while but spring is underway and it’s getting to be the busy season with bees. We only had one hive pull through winter successfully. With that, we attempted to split that one hive and I also ordered two nucs which would put us back at four hives total going into summer. I have the equipment to run four hives and rather than try to store the equipment it would be best to have bees in boxes. The split was an exciting first. There were a lot of bees and brood in our one hive so we removed some frames to create a second hive with a purchased queen. My mentor was there to show me how to make a split…the new box with the new queen was removed from our apiary to prevent bees from returning to the original hive. The new box will return in about three weeks. This split will only cost the price of a new queen (about $35). The cost of a nuc is running about $200 so it’s significantly cheaper to be able to take strong hives and split them rather than being forced to purchase new nucs. The two new nucs should be ready for pickup early next month. 

Now, all that being said…if you are able to catch swarms that would be the most economical. Swarms are free bees! And would you believe one landed in our backyard today. Swarm season is upon us and I had been working to prevent my strong hive from swarming which is also in part a benefit of splitting the hive. Now when we were in the hive a few days ago there were some swarm cells and some supersedure cells (new queens in the making because the hive isn’t sold on the current queen). We saw the queen in the hive and left her and the supersedure cells. Time will tell what will be in that hive. I slapped a super on it today because the black locust is also in bloom. Hopefully all is well in that hive and the swarm that landed in my backyard today is NOT bees from that hive. A quick peek confirmed there are still bees in that hive and the hive is still very heavy when hefted (lifted)…I’m hoping those are all good signs. 

So, this swarm that was literally buzzing in as I was headed out to put a super on my one hive lands in a tree in my backyard. Not too high off the ground. When I first see this swarm I’m a little sick because there’s a chance, they are MY bees! It’s a bad feeling seeing bees in a tree if they are yours and are supposed to be in a box! Nonetheless, we have to try and get them. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Luckily everyone was home so I had four sets of hands to jump in and try to secure these bees. Our drone quickly lifted boxes and gathered tools. The queen was kind enough to leave her room to snap some pictures and take some video. The little beekeeper had run off to play but after my first failed attempted he was called home to suit up and lend me a hand. I botched the first solo attempt and luckily the swarm just moved a few feet to another tree close by. I thought it very unlikely that we would get a third try so the little beekeeper and I worked very carefully to trim the branch the swarm was on. From there I tried to shake as many bees as I could from the branch and into the box. We then put a cover on it and watched. The bees weren’t flying away so we hope we successfully got the queen into the box and the others followed on in. I’m really hoping these bees will stay in the box. What an Earth Day memory that would be! Fun fact…I believe it was Earth Day 2021 when we picked up our very first two nucs to officially begin our beekeeping adventures! 

So that’s our spring update for 2024 and our first swarm story. This will be our third spring keeping bees. We continue to learn and hope to minimize our management mistakes this year in preparation for a plentiful honey harvest. 

Happy Earth Day…stay tuned for status updates on the hive, the split and the swarm. Fingers crossed we have more bees than we know what to do with. 

-WorkerBee 2021