The third hive is one I am especially proud of because it was a wild swarm that I caught and hived myself back in July. My husband Roger spotted the bees one day, way up high in a tall tree. At first I was concerned that one of my hives might have absconded, but all was well with my bees. Nevertheless, the wild swarm was too high for me to take any action. Two days later, however, I looked out the kitchen window to see a tornado of bees swirling around by our fruit trees. The noise was incredible! I was afraid that someone would come walking by and call the police or something!
About an hour later, though, all was calm. I walked outside and discovered that the bees had settled in a calm cluster on a low limb of a peach tree. The swarm was about 2.25 feet long and about 10 inches across at the widest point. Swarming bees pose very little threat to any living thing. First, the bees are all full of honey. Before they leave one home, they fill up for the journey and for setting up a new household. Second, they are singularly focused on just staying by their queen. So, when a friendly beekeeper shows up with a lovely new 2-bedroom colonial hive with a white picket fence (ha-ha), they are perfectly happy to move in. So, that's what I did. First, I had to frantically search through my bee hive equipment (called woodenware) to cobble together a hive box for them. I only had a few frames of beeswax, though; I hoped it would be enough to keep them happy and busy until I could go buy some more frames. Then, I suited up and headed out to the orchard with my pruning shears.
With all the care I could muster, I trimmed off all the extraneous branches around the swarm. Then, I anchored one end of the shears against my abdomen, took hold of the branch with my left hand, and cut off the branch right below the swarm. I was now holding the entire swarm in my left hand! It was surprisingly heavy and as I moved, the mass of bees waved back and forth, rather like a curtain in a breeze. Slowly I lowered the branch and held it over the empty hive. Then, I gave the branch a vigorous shake or two to dislodge the bees into the hive body. Just like that, I became the owner of THREE beehives! Woo-hoo!
Now, here's the dilemma I face. This third hive, my very own swarm, does not meet the criteria for being able to make it through the winter. The queen is excellent--she's laying lots of eggs and obviously stimulating the bees to do good work, but in the short time I've had them, they have not built up sufficient stores of honey and pollen. I could try to help them limp through by feeding the hive sugar water and a pollen substitute (based on soy flour as a protein source). Or, I could combine this hive with one of my other two hives. If I combine hives, it means I have to destroy one of the queens first, a task I don't look forward to because I am really terrible at finding my queens and because it's sad.
I guess I will make my decision this weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment