Bee Jail and a new Tree "nuc"

One problem with all these bees around is you're bound to occasionally get that over zealous guard bee who makes it her mission to drive you as far away from the hives as possible.  Once they start buzzing you and hitting you, it's just a matter of time before you get stung.  And there's not much you can do to talk her out of it.  I've tried using a spray container of soapy water which somewhat works and is a good way to get soapy water in your eyes when the wind is blowing.  Usually they keep coming though.  So several weeks ago we had visitors to the Bee farm - a couple beekeepers and gardeners.  One of the beekeepers had a really cool method of dealing with guard bees on a mission.  She said she puts them into "bee jail" and explained that she uses a butterfly net to catch the bee and then lays the net on the ground and tells the bee she's in bee jail until she calms down. 

A honey bee serving time in bee jail

So I bought a butterfly net and sure enough one day I had one of those pesky guard bees trying to bully me around my garden.  One swipe of the butterfly net and I caught her and was she mad.  I watched as she did contortions in the net for awhile and I was able to get nice and close to her and explain she needed to check the attitude and calm down.  Then I put the net on the floor of the shed and went about my business.  She was there for an hour or so and calmed right down.  Eventually she was able to get out of the net and fly back to her hive.  At that point I was wondering if she would be out for revenge or maybe she was rehabilitated and back to being a productive honey bee citizen.  And sure enough she learned her lesson and I haven't had an encounter with a guard bee since.  Even while doing some gardening around the hives.  It's a great idea and it actually works !

A few weeks ago I did a bee rescue from a large fallen tree in a local park and ended up keeping the chunk of tree with the entrance to the hive.

Nuc using a natural bee entrance in a tree

Last week it was turned into a nuc and added to the apiary. The piece on top with remnants of comb is covered smooth with propolis and looked too cool to discard. Ought to be interesting to see how the bees like it.

Nuc built into a tree

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.