Part Five: The Beekeeping Journey has Many Twists and Turns, Surprises and Regrets

What a month July has been, full of highs and many lows.

The past few months have flown by, and we managed to add four (out of five) of our medium boxes to our hive. After an inspection in early July, we were especially excited to see the quick progress made on building comb and filling out the newest box in just a week's time. It was time for our first honey super!

Twist #1: Kha-bee-si swarms

Psych! In early July, about nine days before what we now calculate was the Swarm Day, we had found fresh eggs and a happy- and healthy-looking Queen Kha-bee-si. We spotted a couple of queen cups, but found nothing inside of them, neither eggs nor larva, so we scraped them off. We were pretty happy with our colony's progress and figured they'd need a honey super within a couple days. Throughout the week, tons of bees were bearding and hanging out on the front porch of the hive. It was about 90° and humid, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary to us. We added a super with undrawn frames during the week, then left on Friday to spend the weekend at the lake.

We returned Sunday and had planned to do a sugar roll on our hive to establish some data on Varroa destructor mite counts. (We still did the sugar roll and found no varroa mites.) We opened the honey super and saw almost no activity in the new box, which was somewhat of a shock to us since they had been drawing out frames left and right the week before. Still, we held on to hope.

The uppermost brood box had some bees, but again, not nearly as many as we expected. We began inspecting frames. Everything was drawn out, but we started really panicking when we got through 7 frames and saw only capped brood, older uncapped larva, nectar, and pollen… no eggs. Same deal with the second and first brood boxes. Kha-bee-si was gone. Left behind were 7 capped queen cells (3 of which were either damaged by our lifting out the frames or I scraped off because I thought I was preventing an anarchist uprising or something… I still feel bad about doing that).

Our initial reaction was panic. We thought for sure that we had squished her on our last inspection. We were confused about why new queens were being made and, in the moment, couldn’t even fathom that they might have swarmed. They hadn't even lived there that long! Why would they leave?

After much speculation and debate, we decided to give Kha-bee-si's legacy a chance to continue and wait for the hive's natural re-queening. We waited 2.5-3 weeks from the calculated swarm date to open the hive and check to see if Kha-bee-si Jr. (new name to come) had successfully emerged, gone on her mating flight, and come back to get to work laying eggs. After the drama that unfolded later on in July (read on for the juicy details), we checked the hive and located what appeared to be a mated queen... and fresh eggs! Yay!

We aren't sure what we could have done to prevent this swarming, aside from adding more drawn out comb. We had the best intentions when we added the honey super but it may have not have been added soon enough. To the bees, 10 undrawn frames aren't really considered extra space, so it wouldn't have dampened any already-existing swarm plans. Could've, should've, would've. We'll take this as a learning experience and hope to do better next time. Hopefully Kha-bee-si (and her swarm) were found and hived by another kind beekeeper and will survive the winter.

Twist #2: We adopted a second hive

At Betterbee, we learned of a couple of hives that needed rehoming. Tim and I weren't planning on moving up to two colonies until next year, but I'm quickly learning to take our plans and throw them right in the Hudson River. The bees don't care about our plans!

So, we agreed to adopt one of the hives, which began this year as a spring nuc and, at the time of the move, had 3 full honey supers. A huge change from what we had been working with!

While we were away at a weekend wedding, fellow Betterbee staff members, aka The Midnight Bee Movers, wheeled in the new colony that we now affectionately refer to as "Big Girl." The new hive was (temporarily) placed so that the entrance faced a different direction, lest Kha-bee-si's virgin daughter go out on her mating flight and get lost trying to find her way back to the right colony.

Tim and I returned home on Sunday to find two hives in our little apiary on the river.

Twist #3: Kha-bee-si (or maybe Big Girl) cast a secondary swarm onto the ground about 50 yards from the apiary

My neighbor told me she saw what looked like a giant mass of bees flying in the middle of our yard the day after the new hive was delivered. Great, we thought, Kha-bee-si swarmed again and all is lost! At this rate there wouldn't be any more bees left in our original hive.

On Monday evening, Tim suddenly stopped the riding mower and called me over. Indeed, one of the hives had swarmed, and there was a little clustered ball of bees right in the grass! We couldn't tell if this was a cast swarm from Kha-bee-si or Big Girl (or possibly even some other hive from some unknown apiary). Let the panic ensue.

The following morning, our mentor, Nancy, and I left work to check out the ground swarm. We brought along a Pro Nuc box and did a mini-version of the Taranov manipulation by placing a white pillowcase leading up to the opening of the Pro Nuc. After spotting the (apparently) virgin queen, and picking her up and placing her inside the box, the rest of the bees followed suit and marched right into the box. We placed undrawn medium frames in the nuc, along with one deep frame of capped/uncapped brood and honey from Big Girl, to help them get established and encourage the bees not to leave again. I popped the lid a day later and found bees all over the deep frame of resources and one of the medium frames already drawn out and filled with nectar.

Only time will tell if the virgin queen in the little swarm goes out and mates… and if we'll have 2 or 3 hives to prepare for the harsh northeastern winter.

Final thoughts… we have many!

August is going to be another crazy month, but this wild ride keeps life interesting. At the end of August, all of the Japanese Knotweed surrounding the apiary will bloom, so we need to be ready to handle that flow. And we need to have low mite counts and happy, healthy colonies by then. We also aren't allowed to go away for the weekend again, because that's when the bees decide to take off!

We sure have our work cut out for us!

Your Betterbee-ginner Beekeeper,
Quinn

A Year in the Life of a Beginner Beekeeper Series

Part One: Tackle Your Fear by Experiencing the Wonder of the Honey Bee
Part Two: Plan and Prepare for Your Bees
Part Three: First Hive Inspection
Part Four: Ask Experienced Beekeepers Questions, Get Helpful Answers 
Part Six: Newspaper Combining, Drone Culling, and Honey Harvesting, Oh My!
Part Seven: Preparing for Winter 
Part Eight: Lessons in Mites and Moisture
Part Nine: The End of a Decade, The Beginning of Something New
Part Ten: Winter Feeding & a Heart-Wrenching Loss
Part Eleven: Eagerly Awaiting Spring
Part Twelve: Exiting Winter Isolation & Kicking Off Mite Management