Elmer's Bees Part Three - Finale

Ceebs and I showed up ready to collect bees on a nice cool morning.  Ignore small camera on the tripod.  It was ready and on but someone forgot to press the button to activate it.  No video this time.  I was able to seal the gap between the super and Bee Vac sections ahead of time, that is the blue tape..  We had good suction.

It was like a jungle in there.  Elmer likes his palm trees and things were pretty dense.

That is our target, dead center.

The bees entered a drain hole on the black bucket and had filled the white piece full of comb.  Once we started this went rather quickly.  I put the palm tree on it's side and Ceebs handled the Bee Vac.  (Once someone moved the main intake hose from the exhaust hole and put it where it belonged.)  The bees went in quickly and I handled comb.  We ended up with six or seven frames with plenty of brood and some honey/pollen. 

Plenty of brood in the comb. these bees should stay when the hive is set up.  We did see on small hive beetle but it fell off.  That is not a surprise, this hive was directly on the ground and beetles need to return to the earth to complete their life cycle.   Any beetles in the earlier hive will die off, my hives are on concrete and there is not way for them to reach earth to complete the cycle.   I alert the new owners of these bees.  Not a big hive but they had swarmed a time or two according to the empty swarm cells we saw.

 

The bees seemed rather calm once we had them in place.  That may change when the hive is set up. It is that E-ticket ride down the vacuum tube that may annoy them a little but they should return to being the nice calm little hive they were when we gathered them up.

Ceebs stowing the last of the gear.  Once again I had a great person on the Bee Vac so I could do the "stand up -not kneeling job" aka put comb into frames.  I love that and appreciate it.  We needed another set of hands for a photo but this will have to do.   The bees should be off to their new home later today.  Thanks Ceebs.

 

Another Bee Rescue for Backwards Beekeepers.

Off to more Bee Adventures as the Rescue Hot Line lights up with calls.

Elmer's Bees Part Two

"The Bee Vac is loaded.  I am ready to go in, Sir.

The target loaded with bees.  They were so thick and not moving in the morning chill that I looked closely so be sure they were alive

Steve Rosales doing the hard work sucking up the bees.

The comb starts to show up as the bees are sucked into the hive box.

Steve starting to remove the comb.

Carefully collecting as many bees as possible before putting the comb into frames.

Because the comb was in a round container on it's side, it was very difficult to determine which was the correct way to orient the comb.  There were some empty queen cells that served as a guide on a couple of pieces.

I did not save any drone cells, I cut off most of the honey.  There was not a lot of it.  I will use and empty hive body as a feeding shim and give back to the bees tomorrow.

Extra drama, just to the left of the lower bee is a small spider.  I happened to look as it was running circles around that bee and trying to wrap it in silk.  It slowed the bee for a while until another bee came over chased the spider away.

The empty container with only some honey left inside.  The house owner will move it close to another hive that remains so those bees can clean up the honey.

This is the next project.  There is a hive of bees under this palm tree.  They enter a drain slot in the black bucket.  There did not appear to be many bees and we were going to put them in a nuc.  Once again things were not as expected.  The white bucket stand went a few inches into the ground and it is full of bees and comb. Just like the earlier job but not quite as large. A much bigger job than planned so we left them for today. Elmer's Bee's Part Three will be this weekend.

The bees orienting themselves to their new home.  When we removed the bees from the planter they were not the least aggressive.  Apparently they did not like the E-ticket of the Bee Vac.  They were not aggressive but decidedly upset when I put them into the hive.  Later in the evening I will remove the Bee Vac top and bottom. These bees could abscond but there is a lot brood in the comb included in the hive so they are more likely to stay. 

This was a relatively simple removal but it would have been much harder without Steve's help which I appreciate greatly.  The Mighty Bee Vac worked okay at first but was much better when I put blue tape around the junction between the Vac top and bottom and the hive body to strengthen the seal.  That added enough suction that Steve had to reduce it at one point.   The bees were very gentle even when I was slicing through larvae as I cut the comb to fit the frames. 

Look for more of Elmer's bees over the weekend.

Another rescue coming from the Backwards Beekeepers Bee Rescue Hot Line.

Honey 'n Beans

These are Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans and there is a story attached to them. This recipe is from Lonnie Gillette who posted the recipe and story on Camp-Cook.com

 The Story from Lonnie Gillette: "I call this recipe Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans in honor of my good friend Don Mackey. He and I spent much time in Blodgett Canyon in the Bitterroot Mountains while we were growing up. He went on to become a Missoula Smoke Jumper and was killed in the Storm King Mountain Fire in Colorado. A bronze statue memorializes him about 1/4 mile up the canyon trail and you can read about his death in the book, "Fire On The Mountain" by John Maclean. Raise a glass to Don prior to comsumption."

Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans

Combine the following ingredients in a large mixing bowl:

3/4 lb. bacon ends & pieces or thick cut bacon, trimmed of excess fat and fried
1 med. onion, chopped and fried with bacon
1 16oz. can pork & beans, drain excess liquid but do not rinse
1 16oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 16oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 C. ketchup
1/2 Tbl. honey mustard
1/2 Tbl. cider vinegar
1/4 C. brown sugar
1/4 C. molasses
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground pepper
1 shot of bourbon

After mixing thoroughly, transfer to a bean pot or 10" dutch oven and bake at 350 F for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. Stir once or twice during the cooking process and a little water can be added to obtain desired consistency or if the beans are drying out.

The beans as they went into the oven ( this is can be done with charcoal but I am inside today.)  A new high end organic food store, Sprouts, opened down the road so I got my supplies from them today.  That meant making a few adjustments to the recipe.   I did not have honey mustard so I added Dijon and some of my own honey.  I resisted the temptation to add garlic but I did toss in a small can of chopped green chili peppers.  Sprouts is too organic for Pork & Beans.   I used canned Great Northern beans and doubled the molasses and brown sugar.  Then I added another 1/3 cup of honey, just because.  Found the Wild Turkey American Honey last week.  It is little too sweet for my tastes but it served as the bourbon called for in the recipe. That shot of Wild Honey on the stove, that was for the Chef and a salute to Don MacKey.

Pour your own and join me in a toast.  Slainte!

Elmer's Bees - Part One

There was a message off the Bee Rescue Hot Line about bees in a pot in Palos Verdes.  I should know better but I envisioned a pot next to a swimming pool or something.  For all rescues you need to assume the 6 feet up is really 10 ft, or bees are actually wasps.  Callers are usually afraid of the bees (wasps) and accuracy is not important when they call.  Elmer was correct about bees in a pot but it is in an overgrown back yard behind vineyard stakes and old pallets.  So much for the imagined pool side quick up.  It had been hot so I showed up after 5PM.  There was not enough time to collect these bees on the first visit..

Bees and comb.

 

Bees on top of bees,

But there were bees, no wasps this time, lots of bees, a container looking to be solidly packed with bees and comb.  This is too big a job for one person.  This pot is 18"-24" across and about 15" deep from the bee mas to the bottom of the pot.  I could have removed the entire container but my truck was full of bee gear and I was not really interested in taking the pot to my house.  The operation is on hold.  Next Monday Steve Rosales and maybe Ceebs will join me in collecting these guys.  This looks like a job for the Mighty Bee Vac.   There is also a smaller hive under a potted Sago Palm sitting on piece of sewer pipe.  That one should fit nicely into a nuc.

Look for Part Two next week.  In the mean time I may be assisting Ceebs do a collection at the LA Zoo as the Buzz keeps on going.. 

Ceebs Water Meter Bees

Over the Easter Weekend there was a call to pick up bees from a water meter in Lakewood.  I was doing other things and did not make the call.  One of the other Backwards Beekeepers, Ceebs, knew the person who called and said she would collect them on Monday.  I let her know I would show up to assist in the removal.

Put on a bee suit and every one hides or everyone shows up.  The entire neighborhood was there, including a few of the boys who got a short lecture about throwing things at bee hives.  I had to remove a few stones and newspapers off the water meter when I arrived.  It was all done in a gentle way.  That is Michelle in the bee hat, she made the original call to Bee Rescue and is a friend of Ceebs.

And here comes Ceebs.  We were lucky, these were extremely calm bees and no one got stung even though some spectators were very close. The home owner is on the left.  She took a lot of pictures for school.

There were only three small combs on the concrete lid.  I held it while Ceebs cut them off and dropped them directly into the hive box along with any bees.  A couple big thumps on the concrete and most of the bees were in the hive.  The young locals are checking one of the pieces of comb,they were very good students.  That piece went to the home owner who is a 2nd grade teacher and will have a tale to tell.  Ceebs is also getting someone to make a presentation to the class.

Ceebs smoking the bees still in the meter box.  She had scrapped out all of the comb pieces but some bees still stayed there not wanting to leave. . Later she used a bit of plastic to scoop many of the the bees up and encourage them to go into the hive.

Much of the time was just waiting for the bees to move in so we moved the hive right next to the meter.  One at a time many of them came to their new home.

This how we know the queen was in the hive box.  These bees are "nasonoving", tilting their abdomens up, releasing a special pheromones that say "The Queen Is Here!"  and fanning their wings very fast.  This occurred in any of the exposed areas of the box.  .

At this point the work is done,Ceebs replaced the hard top cover with a screen for ventilation,,She had included a couple frames with old comb on them which the bees seemed to like very much.  Before we left she put in the other empty frames so the frames would not be sliding around in transit.   Every thing was strapped together and then covered with a sheet.  There were a number of bees still trying to get into the hive but time was running out. 

The bees should be in their new home today and I hope they stay, these are very gentle bees.  We might have been able to do the entire operation without the bee suit but then we would not have had the crowd.    This was a nice small job that ended up being very educational for a neighborhood.

Moving On

I was at a vintage trailer rally in Ojai, CA this past weekend and found this in a thrift store.  These are labels from Biggers Bees, an apiary run by George Biggers in the 60's and 70's.  He appeared many times on TV showing off his bee beard and was a favorite of Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Last week I thought I had sealed off the hive from ants.  I returned yesterday to discover they had crossed the moat on debris in the water and found the single tiny break in the band of Tanglefoot.  Since this will be a continuing problem with honey left in the combs, I decided to clean out the hive.  I removed all the comb and all the ants I could find after I had fixed barrier problem.  I put the hive back together and put out the Space Available sign.  Maybe someone will move in now with the ants gone and no wax moth damage to fix.

This is the first batch of comb, my wax melter is not that big.  It will be a long job.  The honey still in the comb is not capped so I do not plan on trying to salvage it.  I shall see if I can adapt the solar cooker I have to increase the amount of wax I can process.  This method works but will be painfully slow give the amount of comb it can hold.

There are some of the queen cells I removed.  The one on the left had two queens,  Most located on the bottom of the frames but a couple were mid frame

Once this was done I took a chance, wearing only the hood, I popped the lid off the twitchy bees and added another super to that hive.  It is now five high and I surely do not want these girls to swarm.  I had the top off for less than three minutes but I still had a couple guard bees come by and yell at me.  No stings and I retreated as soon as the top was back on.  

Demise of A Hive

My smaller hive, aka the Playa Vista bees, have never been strong since they swarmed last June.
 I checked on them periodically but did not venture deep into the hive.  They seemed okay the last time I looked about six weeks ago.  They had an ant attack then which I cleaned up and looked inside.  The top super had empty comb and the next super was about the same but there were bees in the bottom, a good number were on top of the frames. 
The ants were back again yesterday.  After cleaning them off and filling the water moats I decided to look inside.

This wad of wax moth web completely filled one of the frames in the top super.

 

These frames were clean the last time I looked.  Now they were half eaten and full of wax worm detritus.  There were worms through out the top two supers.  The bees in the hive were long gone.  The only bees were scavenging honey and pollen.

Too bad the resident Black Widows did not deal with the wax moths.  Smush time..

One of the evils on the comb.

The bottom frames seemed to be clean of worms but some had fallen to the bottom board

After filling the water moats, both base blocks got good coats of Tanglefoot inside and out.

Some of the comb was dark and some was lighter but the bees kept coming by and checking for honey and pollen

There were a number of empty queen cells,not all of them were on the bottom of the frames.

 After carefully inspecting all the frames for wax worm and continuing to sweep off ants, I put the hive back together.  There was no evidence of robbing, the comb was intact except for the wax worm messes.  The old hive just left and the worms moved in with the ants close behind.

Next to the vent in the middle you can see an interested spectator waiting for more wax worms to be tossed out.  The bird hung around a long time and then started picking bees when I was leaving.

I had been tempted to put one of the swarms I captured recently into this hive.  It is a good thing I waited.  They would have left very quickly.  Now that it is much cleaner maybe a swarm will come looking for a home.  If not I will go out an catch one.   In a few days I will take the hive apart again and check for wax worms again.  The small ones can hide in small spaces.