Swarm!

    If the past 6 months of beekeeping got my toes wet, the past week has me fully submerged.  I opened the door to my first beekeeping class and was met by a room full of graying men swapping tales.  I nervously made my way to the open seat in front of the class, looking totally out of place, and listened with rapt attention as an experienced keeper shared how to rear queen bees.  I was the curious, new student with hand constantly raised.  I took many notes and was thrilled to be in the “classroom” learning something new.  I left with an idea of how to split my beehive, which was showing signs that there might be a swarm (it had queen cells, drones, and was stuffed full of bees). 

     I spent all weekend splitting my hive and acclimating a new queen bee.  I was down checking on my hives often, so I happened to see FOUR newly hatched queen bees get rejected from the hives.  One queen, I tried to contain to see if another beekeeper needed a queen, but I foolishly dropped her as I carried it across the yard and she was lost.  One I put into a little queen box, sealed it with cooked sugar, and put her into my new hive.  Today (3 days later) I poked a hole through the sugar so she could crawl out of her box (where she was safe from rejection), and I saw her crawl down into the hive… NOT being attacked and NOT being thrown into the grass outside the hive.  Win.

     Today, despite the hive split, I looked out the window and saw a cloud of bees by a nearby bush.  Vera and I went down to inspect, and sure enough, we saw a bough dripping with bees.  A swarm.  I ran inside and watched a youtube video about how to catch a swarm, gathered my supplies, and successfully caught my first swarm!  My elation and feeling of accomplishment are comparable to the feeling after giving birth.  What a lot of adrenaline and nerves!  I am still shaking.  My swarm bees are in a nuc (small, temporary hive box with, in this case, 4 frames), and I’m looking into securing a hive for them to live in.  So, this week I went from having one colony of bees to 3! 

Thank you, Vera, for documenting the swarm and swarm catching.  Enjoy:

     In the next year or two, if this were to keep up, I could have 9 hives … or nucs of bees to sell.  I hope these sweet, fascinating insects continue to thrive.  What a blessing to work with them.