Making Plumeria plants

One of the easiest plants to grow is what I think of as a classical Hawaiian plant.  One that is used to make the lais that people wear.  The plant's name is Plumaria, also know as a Frangipani.  This plant thrives in subtropical climates and produces a delicious smelling flower.  Absolutely beautiful.  We have many of these plants around our home and they were getting too big so it was time to prune and turn the cuttings into new plants.  I ended up with about 50 cuttings which will soon become a full size Plumaria plants.   Some of the plants I had at home were well over 6 feet tall.

 

Florida Bee Farm ... AND Nursery

Last week a representative from The Florida Department of Agriculture inspected and certified the Florida Bee Farm which means we're officially a legal nursery that can grow plants and legally sell them.   

Not completely sure where this is going but the direction we're heading is interesting and might be fun.  My nephew is also interested in growing things ... especially peppers and he will be working with us too.  It's nice seeing young people passionate about gardening.  The new greenhouse setup seems to be working well which means we should have plenty of healthy seedlings growing into healthy plants soon.   At least that's the plan.

Last week I found an ad on Craigslist from a professional landscape company that was giving away a thousand plant pots of various sizes so I completely loaded the truck bed full of free pots.  It's amazing how many free resources are available.  Yesterday the Bee farm received about 4 yards of free mulch from the county which was loaded by them into my truck.  Unfortunately it wasn't very good quality mulch, especially not the type I would put around my plants.  However it did work well for using in the walkways around the planting areas.  

Redoing our Florida Greenhouse

The last hastily constructed Florida Greenhouse that was built did a decent job starting seeds and protecting them during the heavy relentless rainy weather.  However it really wasn't very efficient and didn't get enough sun.  As I'm going to be planting many plants from seed in the future it was time to construct a better structure that will make planting from seed more efficient.

Testing the seedling sprinklers

After considering several designs, my son came out and came up with the best solution.  Working together, we got 90% of the structure up in a little more than an hour.  The final framing and building a plant bench I completed the next day.  Additionally I created an automated irrigation system to control the moisture the seedlings get on a daily basis.  Because it gets pretty warm in the sun and you don't want to skip a day of watering if you can't get to it for some reason.  Automatic watering is the key to successful gardening I'm convinced.  Last year I often spent several hours a day watering and even then it just wasn't consistent enough.  Consistency is important.  You go out of town and skip a few days your garden will look terrible if it doesn't rain.

Last month many seeds were planted and they are all doing very well.  We planted a raised bed cucumber, bean and pumpkin section that was started with seeds and it's being watered daily with an automated watering system.  So far so good.

Florida Greenhouse (Cukes, Pumpkins & Beans on the right)

Seedlings checking out their new temporary home

Pure bliss

The Bee Farm is like a full time job for me.  One that I get a great deal of satisfaction from.  The to do lists are never ending and a lot of triage goes into the mix to determine which tasks get priority.  And of course my attention deficit disorder (ADD) is always kicking in throughout the day to pick off other less important tasks.  Oh and this will be my official excuse why I haven't blogged much lately.  The ole too busy excuse.  Hopefully there will be more time in the future for blogging because it's enjoyable going back in time to see how things progressed.

So the other day when I went out in the late afternoon to get a few things done at the Bee Farm.  Then, I found a nice spot in the shade back by the butterfly and bee garden and just relaxed.  Taking in the butterflies and bees of all types enjoying the garden flowers.  Very relaxing, almost like meditation when your mind is calm and focused on the flowers, butterflies and bees.  And then the most delicious smell in the world started wafting my way.  The fragrance of wild honey / nectar from the hives.  It's my favorite fragrance of all and it's hard to describe.  It's heavenly.  With a slight breeze blowing every so often that wonderful fragrance would put a smile on my face.  So very grateful for all of it.  Living life in gratitude is one of the best ways to achieve happiness and internal peace.  It's so easy yet so many people struggle to find it.

Here are the views from where I took in the Bee Farm in this moment.

View in front of me

View to the left

View to my right

To top it all off, the morning was spent walking the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and swimming with my beautiful wife.  Talk about a perfect day.  Just one of many reasons I often refer to myself as the "lucky guy".

Black Widow spiders and Honey Bees

Recently while browsing several beekeeper facebook groups I noticed several beekeepers mention finding Black Widow spiders hanging out by their hives.  In particular, underneath the hives.  This caught my attention at the time because several times in the last year I found Black Widows nesting underneath two of our hives.  One of them had a poor unfortunate honeybee wrapped up in it's web.

And then during the last inspection one was discovered above the inner hive cover under the top cover.  Safe in a screened in area protected from the bees but hidden in a sneaky place where it could possibly snare a curious bee that managed to sneak under the hive cover.  Needless to say this spider is no more and the hive is safe again.

But still it's a little disturbing. I don't like spiders to begin with and Black Widows are my least favorite.  Another good reason to wear heavy gloves while handling the hives.

Gentle Honey Bees again

Yesterday was hive inspection day and the influence of the new queens was quite apparent.  The bees are once again a joy to be around and are quite patient and gentle. 

Back in July when I opened up the hives it was quite chaotic with my bad attitude bees.  After doing inspections at least 50-100 stingers would be embedded in my gloves.  The bees would follow and harass at quite a distance.  Just working in the garden or even pulling into the bee yard would bring out the bully guard bees looking for trouble.   Thankfully, that has completely changed with the re-queening.

Now I can work in the gardens without concern and opening up the hives is a calming almost spiritual experience once again.  All 5 hives have plenty of new brood and seem to be thriving.  It looks like they've been dipping into their honey and nectar reserves but the fall nectar flow will be starting any day now so the supers should be filling up with honey again.  No stingers in the gloves, no pelting of bees against the veil and guard bees quickly lose interest when you walk away.  This whole cycle of passive to aggressive to passive was quite an informative lesson in understanding bee behavior.  The aggressive behavior was a combination of several factors.  The summer heat, bees protecting their honey, animals trying to breach the hive, and being queenless will ramp up a colony's apprehension level.  But I think the primary reason for (extreme) aggressiveness is when the a queen mates with an africanized drone to start producing brood (baby bees) with those genes.   My hives have experienced all the above mentioned factors which makes the Bee Farm more prepared for the future.   And as in most lessons, experiencing them firsthand is much better than reading about it in a book or online.   The first year of beekeeping is the toughest they say.  And the most educational.

Mini Greenhouse

This is the time of year in Florida where you should already have your seeds planted to get ready for the fall growing season.  Last year I tried growing various plants from seeds with mixed success and many lessons were learned the hard way (of course).

What I learned is the seeds need a place to grow where they won't get too much moisture and will get enough sunlight but not so much that it roasts them.  One option that was used put plastic covers over the containers with seedlings.  It worked somewhat ok but turn your back on this setup for a moment and you'll find cooked seedlings or seedlings covered in mold.  What I've been considering for some time is to build a miniature greenhouse type structure.  Something that will allow sunlight and also protect the seedlings from rainstorms.  A structure that's well ventilated but one that can be closed in somewhat during any cold spells that we may get in the winter.  Also the structure had to be made with all the pieces of lumber and scrap wood I had laying around the beefarm.

Mini Greenhouse

Happy seedlings

After considering dozens of designs, I ruled out a free standing structure because I didn't have enough 2x4's for that.  I could have driven to the store and picked up a couple but I wanted to get this project rolling.  And by attaching the structure to the shed, it required less lumber as it was able to use the shed for one side.  Plus the shed sheltered it from wind.  The final greenhouse came out better than I imagined and works great.  The only regret is I didn't make it 3" higher because I keep banging my head when I go in and out.  Oh well.

Greenhouse made from recycled materials

Everything is growing like mad on the BeeFarm.  Seedlings are starting out nice, Okra is over 5' tall and producing quite a bit of okra.  Moringa trees have skyrocketed so we can start harvesting Moringa.  Citrus trees are doing well and a new group of wildflowers are blooming in the Bee and Butterfly Garden. 

Bee and Butterfly Garden

Oranges

Okra growing like crazy

Papaya trees are starting to settle down after the transplant

Visitor to the Bee Farm

While working at the Bee Farm the other day we had one of our cool neighbors stop by with her Macaw which was a rescue bird.  This is the lady who rescues animals and owns hedgehogs, flying squirrels (occasionally) and a few other exotic animals as well as the "Magic Cat" who occasionally stops by to inspect the Bee Farm.  The story behind Magic Cat was explained on an earlier blog entry.

I was lucky to hold the Macaw for awhile while visiting with the neighbor.  An interesting bird for sure.

Macaw visits the Bee Farm

A nice diversion from yard work

 

New Beekeeper Assistant

After a week of getting the garden ready for fall, it was time to open up the hives and see how the new queens were faring.  My nephew expressed interest in beekeeping so we both suited up and I gave him a tour of the bee hives and answered questions.  It's always fun telling new-Bees about life in the hive.  There's plenty of interesting subjects to talk about in the life of a bee.  And my nephew seemed to enjoy helping out and observing the bees and the hives.  And for me, it was nice having an extra set of hands available.

First time in a hive for my assistant

The bees seemed to be doing all right for this time of the year.  At the local beekeeper meeting I heard that many bees in this area were running low on honey as this is a slow time of the year for nectar, but mine seemed to be doing pretty good.   Some of my bees had very little brood but there were queens.  One hive had a ton of brood though.  I still put a couple feeders on hives and only pulled a few frames out of each hive for inspection to be as unobtrusive as possible.  The lack of brood in the hives will work itself out I'm sure.  And I'm pretty sure I saw stick eggs in those hives.

The good news is the ant problem is solved for now.  There were a couple ants on a few lids but most of them were pretty clean.  Zero hive beetles were found but there were wax moths in the diatomaceous earth in the lower trays.  Hopefully the diatomaceous earth will do it's job and eradicate the wax moths.

But all in all the hives all looked well and the bees were much much calmer.  Queenless bees get agitated easily and now all the hives have queens so that's making a big difference.  After opening all hives we walked away and none followed us.  A month ago I would have had 200 bees attacking me still at 100 yards from the hive.  But that was pretty much from one particularly mean hive which is no more.

A House for Bernard (our Lion) and Summer Gardening

With all the rain we've been experiencing plus the fact that lions are in the news lately, we decided that our lion Bernard (distant relative of Cecil) should have a covered shelter to get out of the rain if he wants.   Plus where he was previously hanging out got so overgrown with flowers and weeds that he was pretty much hidden.  A watch-lion needs to be seen, not hidden like a cowardly lion in the undergrowth. 

Bee farm watch-lion (Bernard)

Happy with his new home and his proud mama

Now that the sun is shining, it was fun working in the garden again.  We pulled weeds and transplanted a few potted plants and moved several others.  It's amazing how some of our plants grew so much in the last month.  Our Okra is doing well and is quite healthy. 

Okra

My two Moringa and numerous Papaya plants are also doing well.  Unfortunately in the heavy rains, I lost a dozen or so Papaya's that fell over in the water saturated soil.   But most of them are still doing well. 

Moringa and Papaya plants

A few months ago at a rally against Monsanto I was given some seeds that I mistakenly thought were Moringa plants.  When they sprouted, they didn't look at all like Moringa so I went to a gardening facebook page and asked what the plants were.  Turns out I received a handful of Tumeric seeds that are now quite healthy and ready to go into the ground.  Yvonne transplanted them into our new Tumeric garden.  Tumeric root and Moringa plants are loaded with excellent nutrients and are very good for you.

Tumeric garden

It really felt good getting out into the garden and working.  It's such good therapy getting your hands dirty while working with plants and the earth.  Our bees were very good and seem to have really calmed down now that they have good weather.  The Queenless hives are now back to normal with their new queens and gardening around the hives no longer brings out the guard bees.

All hives re-queened and creatures of the night

Since all of my hives were feral hives, the State of Florida requires you to re queen them within a reasonable time.  Not all beekeepers follow this but I felt it should be done for my hives.  I chose a queen breeder in Ohio that specialized in Italian Cordovan queens which is a gentle genetic line of honey bees.  Plus those queens are a beautiful yellow color that stands out.

The re-queening was somewhat difficult while experiencing the worst weather we've seen in the 20 years we lived here.  Finding the existing queens for some reason was difficult for myself and another very experienced beekeeper that was helping.  In between monsoon downpours we would quickly look  through some frames until we had to close it back up.  Felt bad for the poor bees that put up with our intrusions.

On one particularly difficult hive where we just could not find the queen, I was taught a technique he called the "shaker method".  Basically a last resort effort to find a queen.  This entailed shaking all the bees off the frames and putting the empty frames in a brood box off to the side.  Then take another empty brood box with a queen excluder taped to the bottom and shake all the bees into this box.  Even shake the bees that are on the base into this empty box.  Place the box with frames on the bottom board/base and then place the box of bees (with queen excluder) on top of the box of frames and close it all up.  All the nurse bees in the box of bees will go down through the queen excluder to work with the brood in the frames of the lower box.  Several bees will be stuck in the top box including the queen and drones.  I did this and two days later went in and found the queen on the excluder.  Then this hive was ok to be re-queened.

On another hive I found the queen after a lot of intensive looking.  Very happy so I installed the new queen cage and then closed everything up.  Then while moving the caught queen I accidentally opened the clip holding the queen and she flew away.  She would likely fly back to her hive so I immediately slipped a queen excluder above the entrance to prevent her from returning and also preventing the new queen from getting established.  And that worked just fine other than the fact drones couldn't leave or return for 2 days.


The queens all come in their own little cage with several nurse bees.  The cage has an entrance capped with a plug of candy.  If you were to put a new queen directly into a hive, the worker bees would immediately kill her.  By leaving her in the protective cage for several days, her pheromone  scent permeates the hive and the worker bees get used to her .. all the while eating away at the candy plug to open the entrance of her cage.  Often the queen and her attendants with her will also nibble away at the candy on their side of the candy plug.  Usually only takes a couple days.

Yesterday was the second nice sunny day we've had in a long time so the hives were opened and  queen cages were checked.  Sure enough all the of cages were opened.  And the bees were like a bunch of excited little kids running in and out of the cages.  They just love that strong queen pheromone smell.

A friend suggested I put a few mouse traps on the hive to see if we have any animals coming in the night to try and access the hives.  Sure enough the traps were snapped when I arrived yesterday and one hive had the entrance reducer pulled out about 8 inches.  Some critter was trying to reach into the hive.  They were able to pull it out since the entrance reducer was loose from the temporary queen excluder.  Now that the queen excluder was removed that will hopefully not happen again because the entrance being wide open also started a massive bee robbing war.  Plenty of dead bees on the bottom board and a pile on the ground out front.  This time of year bees robbing hives is common.  Hopefully the reinstalled entrance reducer will make the hive easier to defend against robbing.

I've heard that your first year of beekeeping is the hardest and I believe that statement.  It's the year where you learn so many lessons .... often, the hard way.  It really is a lot of work but it's worth it.  These bees are fascinating and nobody .... and I mean nobody has them completely figured out. 

Gargoyle road trip home

Yesterday was the day to return the Gargoyle that was formerly a beehive to it's owner.    Since it was a couple hour drive with tolls and all, I waited until our niece needed some furniture delivered to her new college apartment in Orlando.  The bed of the truck was pretty full so my nephew and I strapped the Gargoyle to the open tailgate and ratchet strapped it securely to the truck.

Gargoyle at a rest area along I-4

Needless to say it was quite a site going down the road.  For some reason nobody wanted to be behind us with this bizarre looking Gargoyle staring at them.  We did get a few thumbs ups and were even followed into a rest area by some guys who wanted to know what that was in the back of our truck.  Maybe they thought it was attached to whatever was wrapped in the blue tarp.  The lady who owned the Gargoyle was glad to get it back as it was a 28th wedding anniversary gift from her sentimental husband.  My kind of guy.  And she was such a nice person but even so, I told her I'm doing no more bee removals from heavy steel Gargoyles.

After getting home, new queen bees arrived.  I spent the next couple hours dodging monsoon rains while in the hives.  I had one of the best and most experienced beekeeper I know help me through the rain and darkness working on the hives to requeen.  I was pretty worn out by the time I got home after 9:00 pm.  Every time we opened the hives, the rains would start and let loose.  Toward the end we rigged up a tarp to somewhat help.  But looking for a queen with a flashlight is not very easy.  Especially with my eyes.

Five Queens a "piping"

Five new Italian Cordovan Queen Bees arrived via UPS yesterday after traveling from Ohio.  Fortunately they all looked healthy and active despite being held an extra day in a warehouse due to a screwup by UPS.

The first thing I did after opening the box was to give them all a few drops of water and honey.  Then I noticed the high pitched noises that new queens make.  Kind of like a trumpeting sound it's called "piping".  When there's several queens in a hive after queen cells hatch, this sound is heard ... a battle cry of sorts you could say.  Turn the volume up in the video and you should be able to hear the piping sounds.  Pretty cool.

Not only did we think it was cool, our cat was fascinated by the piping bees.

Beekeeping tip of the day - Propolis

While inspecting one of the hives recently, I noticed the fine aluminum mesh screen covering the hole of the inner hive cover was almost completely sealed with propolis.  Since a feeder was being added to this hive, the screen needed the propolis removed.  The reason for this fine screen mesh is to keep out sneaky hive beetles that creep in through the top of the hive.  The other part of this anti hive beetle strategy is to seal underneath the screened bottom board with a slide out tray of  diatomaceous earth and fine mesh to allow ventilation.  Since implementing, we've gone from being infested with hive beetles to having zero in all hives during the last 3 inspections.  I didn't expect the results to be this dramatic.   It pays to NOT listen to conventional beekeeper books that are basically ignorant of hive beetles habits and their bag of tricks.     

But back to the inner hive cover with the propolis covering the aluminum screen.   Scraping the propolis is impossible and will tear the screen in no time.  Water doesn't work and using any solvents or chemicals is not an option when trying to achieve a completely organic chemical free hive. 

The natural solution actually turned out to be quite easy.  A heat gun was aimed at the wire mesh and a small container was placed underneath the inner hive cover to collect the dripping propolis.  As the propolis heats up, it drips into the collection container.  Simple and efficient.  And it only took a minute or two.

Hungry Bees

The last couple days we had very wet weather complete with numerous lightning strikes.  Not at all conducive to working with the bees.  The frames that we extracted the honey from were wrapped up nicely and then placed in heavy duty plastic containers waiting to be returned to the hives.  I didn't want to wait too long before giving them back to the bees.  The comb is already on the frames and there's still quite a bit of honey and nectar on all of them. 

Cooling a batch of sugar water in the sink

Yvonne cooked up a big batch of sugar water that will be fed to the bees.  This time of year the nectar flow is very minimal and foraging is difficult for the bees.  The second nectar flow will start in a month or so, but until then it doesn't hurt to give the bees a little help. 

Bee Wagon loaded down

Once I got out to the Bee Farm I began building more frames to fill the honey supers that were to be installed.  The wet frames (ones from the extraction) would be divided equally between the hives so they all have a good base to start building as well as nourishment.

New Bee Workbench quite handy

As soon as I started taking the wet frames out of the bags, quite a few bees materialized to take advantage of the sweetness.  All sorts of uninvited guests also showed up to the party including a few wasps, flies and ants.  After the wagon was loaded up with the supers and feeders I started inspecting the hives and immediately noticed a problem.  The nuc that was dropped the other day had a large crack on one side (the back door I was wondering about).  Fortunately there was an empty spare hive available to transfer those bees into  even though their numbers were on the small side.  They were not at all happy to be transferred again but it had to be done.  For their patience I rewarded them with the biggest feeder we had.

Gargoyle hive with new honey super and feeder

Half way through the work I looked down and noticed I forgot to zip up my head net.  All along my neck was completely exposed and bees could have flown right up into my headnet.  Fortunately I was pretty gentle with the bees up until then and hadn't done anything to alert the hot hive yet.  I quickly zipped the headnet snug.   And then that little voice in your head keeps suggesting that one of the girls snuck in and was walking around on the inside of the headnet admiring the view from the inside.   For a few minutes I was absolutely sure there was a bee in the headnet and would have bet money on it.  It's really not a big deal because worst case scenario is you get stung once but still it's kind of a mental thing that noodles around in your mind while you're working.

Besides the weather cooperating, everything went off fairly smooth and the bees are feasting tonight after several days of being cooped up trying to stay dry in their hives.

Just when you think you got it all figured out

Yes, when you finally think you got it all figured out, the universe steps in to humble you and knock you back down to your knees.  I'm really getting good at this humbling thing and the knees are getting sore : )

Today was moving day for the final group of bees in our backyard.  The Nuc had quite a few bees and they were beginning to become an annoyance due to their cantankerous attitudes.  Unless I wore protective covering, I couldn't work in the backyard or mow the lawn.  Time for another road trip to transport them to the Bee Farm.    I stapled #8 hardware wire over the entrance and placed the Nuc into a large plastic container.  Once they were in the plastic  container, it hid the nuc/hive from those in the air (except one...) so they could be loaded into the truck without flying escorts.

Everything seemed nice and smooth and I was getting a little over confident.  Once I got to the Bee Farm, the container was carried over to the new bench behind the hives.  When I opened the plastic container, the box was full of bees .... apparently there was a back door I missed or they found a way to squeeze around the stapled hardware cloth.  No matter, in a minute they will be sitting on the stand in their new location.

I haven't used these Nucs except when they were installed, so I really didn't think much about what I was doing.  So I gingerly lifted the nuc out of the plastic container and started toward the stand.  The propolis (glue the bees make) stuck the cover to the heavy nuc for a few seconds.  And then the cover separated from the nuc and it crashed to the ground without the cover on as a zillion angry bees came bubbling out !  As I stood there with only the cover in my hands, my brain registered the fact the the lip of the cover IS NOT a handle.  What started off sooooo smooth ended up in complete chaos.  Just add this to the long list of lessons learned the hard way.   As usual, quite humbling once again.

Needless to say I didn't stick around and after getting the Nuc positioned on the stand I quickly retreated to my truck surrounded by a paparazzi of bees that desperately wanted to let me know how very unhappy they were with my clumsy actions.  Not that I blame them ...

Killer Bee Honey - Delicious

Since the rain won't stop, it was time to bottle the honey from last weeks bee removal of Africanized Honey Bees.  It's recommended to leave the honey to settle for several days to remove the air bubbles.  We use quite a bit of honey in our diet and this came at the perfect time as we were running low.  The flavor of this honey is out of this world.  Absolutely delicious. 

Delicious honey

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention about the removal last week.  A few days later at the beekeepers meeting I was talking with the lady (Marti) in the bee removal video, and she told me that when she went to bed that night whenever she closed her eyes she saw bees swarming around her and it took her a long time to get to sleep.  It's funny she mentioned that because I had almost the same thing happen to me.  When I went to bed that night I told my wife I kept seeing bees relentlessly swarming around me when I closed my eyes.   It was so strange but unlike Marti I was (thankfully) able to conk out in no time.

Papaya Pantation and a new Hive Stand

The other day I got lucky and was given 60+ papaya trees.  Some were almost 4' tall and some smaller.  All very healthy.  Even though I had a million things going on that day, I changed direction and spent the day transplanting trees and locating them throughout the Bee Farm.  Papaya trees are somewhat delicate and they're always dropping their skinny branches.  Plus they don't like  cold weather.  But the tropical feel of a Papaya tree as well as the delicious fruit is a big reason why we love Papaya trees.   So now we have about 70 Papaya trees on the Bee Farm and we may even get another 20 or so more next week.  Why not?  You can't beat the price of "free".

New Hive Stand

Notice the shade cloth.  It sure makes a difference.

Today was to be moving day for my backyard hive but instead I installed the new hive stand out at the Bee Farm and got everything ready for the move.  Besides installing the stand, anti-weed cloth was laid down and the new work bench was leveled also with anti-weed cloth underneath.   Looks like it could use another load of crushed shell though.  This new stand isn't the ant proof type I originally built for the main stand.  The ant proof stands require using a power auger and mixing cement.  I just didn't feel like doing all that and am interested to see if there even is an ant problem.  The crushed shell and weed cloth may be a good deterrent for the ants.

Shortly after the stand was installed the weather got quite rainy with dark clouds so I'll put off moving day until tomorrow if the weather cooperates.  The good side of the rainy morning is our new Papayas are getting a nice drink without me having to drag the hose around the yard.

When moving day finally arrives for our backyard hive, the hive will be split into two and some honey will be harvested.  A small nuc will stay in our backyard while the main hive moves to the Bee Farm.  The plan is to harvest honey from all our hives.   Several cases of honey containers and bears were delivered by UPS yesterday and are now waiting to be filled.

The next project on the to do list is to create a solar wax melter since the containers of wax that we've been accumulating need to be turned into something useful.  That's what I love the most about beekeeping.  The never ending opportunities to build stuff. 

Re-Orientation of the wayward bees

As dusk neared last night it looked like there would be around 500-1000 bees hanging out in the location of their original hive.  They thought this was still their home.

Bees will exit their hive and immediately go looking for nectar / pollen without first checking and looking around where they started from.  That is unless you place something in the path of the door that alerts them to the fact that something is different.  In my case I put a palm branch.   Yesterday in the pouring rain some bees got through without re-orientating to the new location.

The solution came to me in a brilliant brainstorm.  I built a one way trap out of a few parts I had laying around in my garage.  I used the bottom of the swarm trap vacuum that I built and strapped an inner hive cover with a one way entrance to that.  Inside all of that I placed a little lemon grass oil to make them mellow during the night.  And sure enough it worked like a champ.  As darkness approached, all the bees marched into the temporary home I made for them.  And they couldn't get out.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture - a screen was between hive and camera

This morning as it was getting light I grabbed the trap and moved it back to the new hive location and opened up the box.  At this point I've done all I can do and if they return to the original location they'll just have to figure it out on their own.  And that did happen.  I think many of them figured it out but there were a bunch of lost bees once again out front.  I was going to say something about girls and navigation / getting lost etc.  but I know I'd be getting in trouble from someone in mentioning that it's a pretty common trait for the fairer sex.   I'd be willing to bet there's probably no lost Drones in that group of lost Honey Bees out front.

The great bee war of 2015

Since I was due to be inspected by the state for my initial beekeeper registration process, they bumped me up the list so the inspector could take a look at the dying bees problem and help determine a cause.

And he did come up with a cause and not one that I would have thought possible.  The new swarm I brought in last week decided it wanted some of the honey that the strong hive next to it possessed.  And then the robbing began.  Robbing is a term beekeepers use as bees will often raid weaker colonies to rob honey if their need is great.  The dead bees in front of my strong hive were the bodies of the raiding party who didn't succeed in their plan.  The entire new swarm is dead and their hive is empty. 

Lesson learned:  After catching a new swarm, feed the bees with sugar water until they get some comb established.  I didn't feed them since there was so much blooming and the abundance of pollen and nectar. 

The state inspector taught me a lot and it was pleasure having him inspect my hives and sharing his bee wisdom.