Bees Choosing an Entrance

I picked up these bees last year in a subdivision in southwest London.  It was a secondary swarm - so it was smaller than a football but bigger than a softball--big enough that it was worth taking.

I call this hive Convenient because the bees were very good to swarm only 4' off the ground so it was very easy to collect them.

They been great and productive bees.  I was suspicious that the swarm may have come from an attic of one of the homes in the area.

This idea held with me because I noticed something funny, or say different about these bees compared to my other hives.

They would only come and go from the upper entrance.

I watched them for the longest time and every time I went to the yard they were always coming and going up top.  The bottom platform would be bare or nearly empty of bees.  There would be so many bees at the top they'd be piling onto each other and falling to the platform below.

Did they like the top because it was like the entrance (possibly attic) from their old home?

I gave them an inner cover with a centre hole and then an outer cover with an exit as well--this equipment I already had on hand--and it gives them two entrances at the top.

Now here's the stranger part.  The following spring these bees kept up with this habit.  We all know that the bees in spring would be new bees and that last years bees would be long since dead.  They would have even requeened too.

So why is this habit continuing?  Are they doing it because they don't like the bottom entrance?  Have they learned to go in and out that way from the older bees and so they're copying them?

More questions than answers but it's interesting to observe.

This year they are preferring the top as usual but I notice that they are guarding at the bottom and a few bees do come and go from there.

Water for Bees

 A couple years ago I started putting out containers of water close to the bee yard for the bees.

 

At flee markets or garage sales if I see the large dark blue enamel roasting pans with the white spots--the kind that are large enough to roast a big turkey--I always buy them.

 

I started using them years ago when I wanted to put a container on the ground for water for the wildlife.  I found that plastic dishes would crack with our cold Canadian weather.  But the enamel pans are crack proof and rust proof too.

 

I have about 4 of them set up on an old large wooden box.  They're high enough to stop the raccoons playing in the water... but maybe not to keep birds from having a bath or a drink, but I don't mind them.

 

To stop the bees from drowning I grab handfuls of long grass and lay them on top of the water.  The bees use these as floating logs to land on.  In commercial beekeeping they put their syrup in barrels and put straw on top as a floating platform.

 

Sometimes the grass has roots and it will grow.  Maybe it adds a special flavour to the water. 

 

There's one plant with a small ruffled edge and a purple flower that loves sitting in the water and it grows there.  Either way, the bees use this watering hole consistently.

 

I bring jugs of water from home and top the pans up every couple weeks and more often if it's been hot with no rain.

 

The most satisfying thing for me is that they have water close at hand.  After all they work hard enough so why not make something easy for them.

 

Best of all though is that the bees do not drown in the water.  The grass is very effective at giving them something to cling to.

 

So when you see that garage sale sign or flea market ad, you may want to drop by and check out the roasting pans.

A Great Blog: Hive Assessments and Taking Notes

The Ontario Bee Association sent out their newsletter with a link to a blog called Bee Informed.  This posting on How to do an Assessment of a Hive on inspection is really good.

You can view the blog by clicking http://beeinformed.org/2013/08/hive-assessments-and-taking-notes/.

Abandoned House = Bee Paradise

There are few things nicer than a well built brick home.  Cira 1830's, this once yellow brick home belonged to the Kernohan family.

For about 75 years they ran an apple farm in north east London.  For years our family would buy bushels of apples from them.  I'll always remember the awesome taste of a cold crisp Mac apple.

After a few generations part of the land was sold to the city to make room for a highway stretching from north to south London.  And the apple farm was eventually sold.

Now the outbuildings on the land have been torn down.  They started on the house this week by first removing the bricks.

And guess what they found?

A pretty perfect warm dry place to have a hive, snuggled right between the studs in the walls.

That's where we come into the story.

We got called to see if we could help remove the bees.

I'd never done a house removal before but we were game to try.  I didn't want more hives so I called on some friends to offer to take the bees.  So Vincent offered to take the bees and I said I'd help.

The bees' main entrance was from a smallish hole at the bottom corner of the second storey window.  The bottom of the hive/combs when exposed were at the top of the main floor window.

This was a large hive that had been there for quite some time.  The brood combs in the centre were dark brown with age.  The four foot honey combs on the left were older and golden coloured whereas the honey combs on the right were newer fresh white combs.

Vincent started by cutting the boards on either side of the window and pulling them off.  Then he began by cutting the combs and laying the pieces in a cardboard box.

We put the pieces into a hive, bracing them as best we could between frames.

Several of the brood combs fit very well into blank frames.  We tied them into place in the frames and set them in the box.

The honey combs were 4' long and about 3" wide or more.  These bees had been busy.

It was difficult to sweep the bees into our box.  They weren't clustered together in a mass like a swarm is.  Instead they were spread out all over their combs.  This is where the custom made bee vacuum would come in handy.

But we didn't have one so we couldn't get them all.

We left the hive box out until dark and then closed the bees in for the night.  Vincent would pick them up early the following morning and take them to his place.

It was an interesting experience.  I can see how if anyone is thinking of doing home or building removals they'll need to have a vacuum.

One final note, that house was finely and well built.  It is sad to see that it'll be torn down.

Save Ontario's bees: ban neonicotinoid pesticides - Sign the Petition!

Save Ontario's bees: ban neonicotinoid pesticides - Sign the Petition!

Hello friends and colleagues,

As you may know, the Ontario Beekeeper's Association has been working hard to have the neonicotinoid pesticides responsible for these losses removed from use in Ontario. As part of their strategy, the OBA has developed the attached petition requesting the Premier of Ontario to follow the lead of the European Union and ban neonicotinoid pesticides.

 I am asking you to sign this petition by clicking here  to add your voice to the beekeepers, farmers, environmentalists, scientists, and citizens who want to see an end to this toxic contamination of our pollinators,  wildlife, water systems and land.

 Please circulate this email to all your friends and contacts, or 'cut and paste' this link into your own message:  http://chn.ge/11J53Jc . If you have a website, blog or Facebook page, or if you Tweet, please share the petition on your sites. 

Together we can protect our bees.

Two Messages from the OBA: Ontario and Quebec ally against neonicotinoid pesticides

Below are two messages from the Ontario Bee Association (OBA):

Ontario Govt. creating cross-industry working group

The OBA has been in discussion over the past few weeks with the Ontario Government about their plan to establish a cross-industry working group to address the issues of bee mortalities. OBA President, Dan Davidson has been invited onto the committee and has been quoted in the government's press release which reads as follows:

  " Ontario is bringing together a group of experts to provide advice on how to prevent bee mortalities. The Bee Health Working Group will be comprised of beekeepers, farmers, agribusiness representatives, scientists, and staff from both federal and provincial government agencies. Drawing on a broad range of expertise, the working group will provide recommendations on how to mitigate the potential risk to honey bees from exposure to neonicotinoid -- a pesticide used for corn and soybeans."

Ontario and Quebec ally against neonicotinoid pesticides

The OBA and the Federation des apiculteurs du Quebec have written to their respective Ministers of Agriculture and Environment to immediately ban neonicotinoid pesticides in field crops, and issued a joint press release. "It is time to stop poisoning our bees, our water and our soil", said Leo Buteau, President of the Federation. OMAF has confirmed that Premier Wynne will raise this issue at the Ministers of Agriculture meeting in Halifax on July 17th. We thank her for her leadership.

New Bees Act regulations regarding pests and diseases As you may have seen in our news feed, the Ontario Government has updated the Bees Act to include new pests and diseases.

These additions more accurately reflect the current beekeeping reality, and will increase the protection offered to beekeepers in Ontario.

Thanks to PA Paul Kozak and the OBA board members and other beekeepers who worked diligently on this.

The Swarm that..... Wasn't

 

 I think my problem is in part because of procrastination.  I always seem to be in the midst of dividing one hive when another one swarms.

The procrastination is that the hive I should have started on, the one that was overflowing with bees, seemed like a lot of work so I started on an easier one first.

Note to self:  Don't do this.  Do the super busy hive FIRST.

The strange thing was that as I heard the loud buzz--some refer to it as a roar--I knew even before I looked up that one of my hives was swarming.

A swarm looks different in the air than other types of flight that bees will do.

Orientation flights often take place around 3:00 in my yard.  That's when the house bees come out for some exercise and to practise flying.  Maybe to poop too.  The times change on which hive will come out for orientation and I noticed it's dependant on which hive is getting the hot afternoon sun.  As the sun moves across the yard and lights on the shady hive in a short period of time those bees will come out too.  The orientation flights are a back and forth flight that bees do, starting low on the hive and then moving up and over the hive.  Sometimes the bee will then fly off on a task or repeat the back and forth motion for a few more circuits and return into the hive.

With swarming, chaos flying would be the best word to describe.  The bees are going in every direction in the air.  They circle in large loops, looking and watching for the queen.  They're probably relying more on smell than they are on sight.  You can tell when the queen has come out if you watch their bodies.  They will all begin to turn and face the same direction--whichever way the queen is going.  Then they head to where she's at.

 

 

On this day the bees found direction and started going to that pear tree (again) and at the spot about 25' up (again).  (What is it about that spot?  I think I'll cut the edges of those branches off--if I could reach them--to discourage them liking that spot).

While I was sitting there watching and thinking it'd be nice to have a miracle where the bees would land in a more convenient spot they suddenly turned and faced the opposite direction.

I watched as they faced the hive again and then miracle of all miracles they all returned to the hive.

 

 

Whew!  I guess that'd be a false swarm.

I immediately took the hive apart and did a split.  I could not locate a queen but found fully capped queen cells.  So in this case I did a walk away split by putting two cells in a nuc box which I sold and leaving the other queen cells in the hive.  The bees will work things out.