Article: Swarm in New York City

An article, with slide show, about a swarm in Little Italy in New York City. I love these stories and the relative calmness of all those involved. We might yet be able to live with bees!

Forgot To Blog Last Week

Time ran past me last week and neglected to blog about the goings-on in Beelandia. Here are the highlights:

• Reversed the three boxes on Bee Glad... 
• One of the remaining nucs sent out a swarm that landed in the same red maple as the last swarm. This time, however, we were unable to catch this one.
• Added a third box to the hive that is yet unnamed.

Hopefully, I will be a bit more responsible in blogging through this week's inspections.

Yesterday and Today's Inspections

Yesterday was dedicated to inspecting all the nucs, the swarm we caught the day before, the new hive set up last week from one of my other nucs, and Bee Glad... .

The four nucs I looked into were teeming with bees. They were getting to the point of overcrowding, and, thus, possible swarming. I removed a frame of capped brood from each 5 frame nuc (without attached adult bees) and set them aside, suspecting that the newest hive might just need some strengthening. By Friday all these nucs should be in hives on the Kendall farm if all goes as planned.

The swarm Monta, Joyce, Paul and I caught the day before was placed, branch and all, in an empty cardboard nuc that night. I retrieved the branch and channel locks yesterday, put in 4 more frames and opened up the entrance. I am surprised how fast the bees build comb sometimes, as the swarm was already building comb on the cardboard inner cover. This swarm also goes to the Kendall farm.

The inspection of the newest, nameless hive (hint! hint! readers) indicated, as I suspected, a rather weak hive. So I placed the capped brood from the nucs into it.

Bee Glad... is probably my strongest hive. It contains a large population of adult bees, plenty of brood in all stages, and good deal of pollen and nectar. It must be reversed fairly soon.

Today, I inspected Lib-BEE-taria, and Worker Bees.... I will have to admit that I was wrong about Lib-BEE-taria. The hive is not queenless but does contain a laying queen as is evident from eggs and young larvae in a number of drawn frames. Perhaps this hive superseded their previous queen and the new queen needed sometime to mate and lay eggs.

Worker Bees of the World Unite is strong. They are storing nectar into the honey super, using all three boxes for a nursery, and are, gentle to beat! This hive will need to be reversed soon as well.

Slideshow: Monta and Wes Capture Their First Swarm

Click on the photo for a slide show of Monta and Wes' first bee swarm capture (with help from Joyce and Paul).

The swarm issued from one of the nucs that has not yet been picked up.

Lessons Learned

Yesterday's adventure with the swarm reminded of things I should already be aware of. The chief lesson: All the recommendations and "rules" of beekeeping are based on probabilities, not guarantees. The interaction between the bio-physical realm and human social constructions (e.g. apicultural techniques) is very complex, impacted by many factors, some of which we are only beginning to understand. The bottom line in all this is that I can't (and maybe shouldn't) control honeybees completely. But my experiences yesterday have taught me some specific lessons:

1. "First season " honeybees may swarm. It may not be likely but they can!
2. Carniolans are more likely to swarm than my Italian bees, even when I take the same precautions. I need to be more diligent.
3. Looking for swarm cells in a top bar hive is a little different than in a langstroth.

And Monta and I Wondered Where the Swarm Went...

The Astro-Padre game today was delayed on account of swarming bees...

SWARM!!!!

  

As Monta and I were eating a rather late leisurely breakfast, we heard our son, Eli, colorfully exclaim that thousands of  honey bees were flying about our backyard beyond Beelandia. The two of us, with our daughter, Eme, ran out to join Eli, and discovered that what Eli was observing was  a swarm of bees leaving one of our hives and taking a rest stop in a thornless honey locust tree in a neighbor's yard. 

Eme, Monta and I took immediate action. Eme and I put together a bait hive in an unused deep and the three of us ran off to the neighbor's house to ask for permission to leave the bait hive there. The neighbor was calm and cool about the whole situation. She had heard about the decline in the bee population and was only too happy to allow us to catch the swarm. (It was just too high in the tree to cut down.) 

Monta and Eme kept watch on the swarm while I checked Beelandia. The swarm seemed to have issued from Plan Bee..., the top bar hive filled with carniolans. When I got to Beelandia, this hive was still very active with two afterswarms here and there on the plants. By the time I assessed the situation with the hives, however, the initial swarm flew off and not into the bait box we left. Monta ran about the neighborhood  trying to discover where the swarm might've gone to but could not find it.

We were philosophical about the loss of the swarm, figuring we gave something back to "nature". I did place one of the afterswarms in a double nuc box, along with some brood, drawn comb, and honey from the other carniolan colony. We will see what happens with this nuc.

Video: NYC Swarm

The only thing that concerns me about this video is the way the announcer subtly reinforces negative stereotypes about the bees... However, it is good seeing bees reinhabit urban areas.

Video: Disturbing Video and Comments

This video and the comments it has received on youtube are rather disturbing and depressing, but it does demonstrate the need for more "bee" education, as well as, environmental/ecological awareness. The comments, mostly by what seems to be male posters, do seem to support the contentions of ecofeminism, however.