Hermosa Beach Arbor Bees

 

Several calls came in to the LA Bee Rescue Hot Line looking for help.   The bees were on an arbor under which the kids played.  This turned out to be a very easy capture.  There was a basketball goal handy which I pulled over under the swarm.   I put a nuc on it after removing three of the frames.  Using a bee brush I swept most of the festooning bees into the nuc. The bees were clinging to vines on the arbor so it was hard to tell if i got the queen with so many bees still up among the vines.  I gently scooped as many of the bees as i could.  This had to be done carefully.  If I killed the queen this entire swarm would have been doomed.  The swarm had not started to make comb so there was no place for her to lay eggs.  No eggs meant no larvae to make an emergency queen. 

Look at all the little butts up in the air and nasonoving.

 

Eventually there were a lot of the bees nasonoving and I was confident She was in the nuc and shortly after that the other bees started to get into the nuc also.   I slid the nuc lid over most the top, opened the hole in front and left the bees there.

I returned at dusk and all of the bees were inside.  I closed the lid, plugged the holes and took the nuc home.   It is now resting on my back garden wall.  I hope to get them to a new home today or tomorrow.

This is one of the easier ways to capture a swarm, it was a pleasant operation.  Now to see if the bees decide the nuc is okay as a home for a while.  At least 50% of captured swarms move on, seeking better accommodations.  Such is life for the Beekeeper.

Beach Bees

Rich in Hermosa Beach had bees in his small nectarine tree and called the Backwards Beekeeper Bee Rescue Hot Line and I took the call.

This was in a small garden area amid beach houses on all sides.  It looked like a perfect habitat for bees but the neighbors were only an arms length away.  Someone would not be happy to have to them there and they could not be hidden so they were moved.

The swarm was easy to reach at eye level but were enmeshed in a lot of leaves and branches.

After cutting away a lot of foliage, they were ready to go into the box.

A couple heavy shakes and most of them were in the box,

A lot of the bees were on odd leaves and branches, those were clipped and the bees added to the box. In the process we watched the bees remove one leave I had dropped into the nuc.

A little mixed media work with the Flip Camera.  If possible those videos will be edited and added in the next post.

Using my guest bee veil and gloves Rich got to see the bees up close.

   

The bees were nasonoving and calling their sisters into the nuc

They came crawling in from the odd leaves and branches.

Waiting for a few more stragglers. 

 I took the nuc home covered in a sheet.  Late in the evening I unplugged the entry hole and removed the sheet.  This morning they are still there.  If they remain today and tonight, they will be going to live in the San Fernando Valley.  Being beach bees and used to a cooler climate, it is hard to say if they will stay.  Rich was a good conscientious citizen who wanted the bees to have another chance instead of meeting the exterminator.  Thanks to the Bee Rescue Hot Line the bees will get that chance tomorrow.  This was a good bee day brought about by the Backwards Beekeepers Bee Rescue Hot Line

A Second Chance

The other day I had responded to a call about some bees on an old lamp post.  By the time I arrived the bees had swarmed.   I talked to the owner a while and found out he was going to have some landscaping done near the post. The bee access holes would have to be sealed up but it looked like they also had egress further up the pole.  It looks like the hive in the lamp post could survive and not bother any one.  I went back home, bee-less.

I had a call on Sunday afternoon, the swarm had apparently decided they liked their lamp post better than some tree limb.   They had returned to their original jumping off point on the base of the lamp post.   Fortunately I had left a Backwards Beekeeper business card with my name and number on it.  I had been watching the Masters Golf Tournament which was far from settled at that point., I had plenty of time to deal with these bees..

 

I sprayed the bees with sugar water and used my handy milk jug scoop to collect the bees and pour them into a nuc.  The bees were very calm and none tried to sting me or Tom, the home owner who did not have a bee suit or hat.  The scoop worked very well, better than some of my expensive equipment.

I gradually got the majority into the nuc.  The white nodules on the lamp post are bees wax.  These girls were in a major comb making mode.

I never saw the actual queen but I did spot some bees fanning on top of the frames, a good sign that she was inside.

 

After I had as many bees as I could scoop in the nuc I laid it on the side so more could crawl inside.  This was very effective and we got a lot of them.

The only problem was activity of the bees in the nuc indicated the queen was in the space between the nuc wall and the strip of cardboard that holds up  the frames.  Aside from dissembling the nuc there was no easy fix to the problem on site.   I put a lid on the nuc and closed it carefully to not threaten the queen.  
When I got home I called one of the club members on the "need bees" list and made contact with Kristie in San Pedro.  She came by later and picked them up.  I explained about where I thought the queen was.  She would be putting the bees in a top-bar hive and would not be using the frames any way so the problem should be resolved. 
I got a call from Kristie this morning, she had already been out to do her own swarm collection .  She would be passing those bees on to someone else.  
It is a good thing to share the bees...

A LIttle Night Work

The first job of the day was a modification to the Mighty Bee Vac.  The flip gate where the bee intake tube goes works very well but it could have been accidently knocked open during transport. Stever vary carefully attached a nice brass closure to prevent that from happening.  This was a small job that took a lot of time but was the occasion for very pleasant visit with Steve and his wife Cheryl.

 

When I got home much later in the day there was a message on the Backwards Beekeepers Bee Rescue Hot Line about a swam in a tree in Carson.   That was only 15 minutes from my house and Backwards Beek Roberta was going there.  I offered to assist.

Ron, Nancy, Erin & Patty was very interested in what was going on.  They stayed out with us well after dark,  Ron provided a nice light which was big help.

Since the swarm, rugby ball size, was in a bush we clipped the branches to gain access.  Then clipped a few more so Roberta could jam the nuc up under the hive.  One big yank of the bush and many of the bees were inside.   We waited but could not determine if the queen was in the box.   A bit later and one more yank and we had her and most of her escorts in the box.

 

All in all, an easy capture once the branches were out of the way.  However there are issues with handling bees in the dark.  The main one is you cannot see many of the bees not in the box.   These bees were not aggressive at all but they ended up in wrong places and you could not spot them.  At one point Roberta handed me something I had dropped and that included a bee that nailed me.  Later one was crawling inside my sleeve and got me. After everything was loaded and bee suit off, I headed home with bees in the back of my pickup.  Well, most of them.  As I drove down the freeway something hit one of my fingers, I was able to spot the bee resting on the window which I opened quickly and freed him.  After I got home the dogs ended up capturing a bee that had come in with me.  No more stings but adventures I usually do not have when it is daylight.

These bees will be moving to Hollywood today for their new home.  Here's hoping they decide to stay.  About half of the captured swarms decide they can find a better place.  No guarantees with these bugs.  

Another case closed by the Backwards Beekeepers Rescue (Team Roberta)