My neighbor had another bee swarm. Three in the space of eight days! I missed the first two, but she called me as soon as she spotted the latest and I got to watch our friendly neighborhood expert deal with it.
Here’s the swarm:
Maybe this is nothing new to you. I know quite a few readers of Living Freedom keep bees. But I’ve never seen a swarm, so I was fascinated — along with all the little neighborhood boys and pretty much everybody else who happened to be home at the time.
I always thought swarming bees massed themselves onto some object. A car grille. A tree trunk. Or the eave of a house. But that entire beehive-shaped mass is made up solidly of insects. Can’t imagine the ones at the center were very comfortable.
The neighbor whose yard this is has five hives. She doesn’t do any of her own bee handling. So she called in Richard, who lives down the street and has 30 or 40 hives. While waiting for him, she set up a pair of sawhorses and topped them with boards to make a working platform.
After prepping the hive, the first thing Richard did was press the hive box to the bottom of the swarm.
When he stepped back off the platform, the bottom of the swarm was no longer smooth and beehive-shaped. It was jagged. Thousands of critters had transferred into the box. So far, everything was calm.
Apparently the queen wasn’t yet among the new residents, so the bees in the tree were inclined to remain there. At that point, Richard walked behind the tree and gave it a vigorous shake. Thousands more bees cascaded down into the hive.
A few hundred, though, just got mad. Richard dashed off to the back of the yard, pursued by furious beasties.
I’d asked him earlier why he wasn’t wearing any special bee-handling gear. Was it because (as I’ve heard) swarming bees are very docile?
“I never wear gear,” he said. “I just get stung.”
Still, I think he was a little surprised at the bad temper of these guys.
“Italian bees,” he said. “Apis mellifera ligustica. More aggressive than most.” (Wikipedia disagrees about Italian bees being aggressive, but apparently some of their hybrids can be vicious little cusses.)
By then over half the swarm was down. But Richard said the queen was still probably not in the hive. So this time he grabbed a 12-foot fruit-picking pole and gave the remaining segment of the swarm another shake. Down the rest of the swarm fell in an ugly brown mass. All into and around the hive.
That worked out better for Richard, though I think a few more still got him. He already looked like he had chicken pox and I was wondering about the cumulative effect of bee stings.
But now the queen was inside and the remaining bees began an almost military march into the box.
This took a while and I didn’t wait around to see how Richard got the hive out of there. Since he arrived in a passenger car, I’m not really sure how he transported the hive further out into the country where he’s been moving his swarms. Not in the passenger compartment, I hope! But given his bravado with bees, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Even knowing very little about beekeeping, I assume that Richard’s methods aren’t exactly what you might call best practices in the industry. So if any of you apiarists want to chime in with “don’t try this at home” advice, feel free.
The weird thing is that neither Richard nor the neighbor with the swarm ever harvest any honey. They just keep bees for what they (only half jokingly) call “humanitarian reasons.”
It’s great. But I tell ya, if I were ever going to endure all those “slings stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” I’d at least want to get some sweet goodness as a reward.
I’m no prophet, but I’d be willing to bet Richard will someday succumb to those bee stings. His system surely can’t take it forever.
How far away were you standing to take those pictures? I’ve seen one swarm, and was told to “get out of here” when my son and I came out of the house to see. The owner was my landlady and she was in full battle dress to handle it.
Pat, as I understand it, one becomes more or less immune to the venom after being stung repeatedly. I think the same is true of people bitten by snakes over a long time. A serious overdose can still be a problem, I’m sure, but the day to day stings wouldn’t.
Long ago, when my boys were small, a swarm of bees got into our attic and build themselves quite a hive. We called a local bee keeper, and he came with the full regalia, smokers and all sorts of other things. He got the bees out easily, but we had to hire someone to come and remove the comb they’d constructed, as well repair the torn vent screen so they couldn’t get in again.
To paraphrase the old saw “There are old beekeepers and bold beekeepers, but no old, bold beekeepers.
Fascinating stuff and great pics Claire. Kudos to Richard for the great work – but I am not fooled – the pros always make it look easy!
My anecdotal understanding of bee stings is that a person either becomes more affected, or less affected, over time if one gets stung a lot.
With me, it was “less affected.” My brother kept bees, and I helped him sometimes. I probably got several hundred bee stings (at some point I did like your friend and stopped wasting time on protective gear). By the time I stopped participating (he got rid of his hives), they hardly seemed to swell or itch at all.
Pat — I was maybe 20-25 feet away in the long shots. Much closer when I took the initial picture of the swarm and the final “march” of the bees into the hive. Richard was unconcerned; in fact, he invited me closer to have a look.
Sawbuck — Yes, he absolutely did make it look easy. Well, except for that one moment where the bee gang put him on the run! But even then he was so casual about it. I was definitely impressed.
Tom and ML — Immunity wouldn’t surprise me. But then neither would death-by-bee-sting. Richard sure did look funny there for a while. Red blotches all over his face.
I keep bees.
Bees are aggressive only when defending their hive. Bees foraging on flowers don’t sting unless provoked, and don’t pursue.
A swarm is hiveless (homeless). The old queen and a bunch of bees hang in the swarm while scout bees look for a new home. Since they have no hive to defend, swarms are normally quite docile. I suspect that’s why your beekeeper was surprised when the bees began stinging.
Stings are part of the hobby. A very, very few people develop allergic reactions, but that is quite rare.
Most people who claim allergies to bee stings are not. Stings cause intense local pain, then itching and swelling. That’s the point, to drive away anything attacking the hive. True allergy risks anaphylactic shock, which can be life threatening.
Beekeepers rarely develop arthritis. Some people suffering arthritis get relief from “bee venom therapy” where they are deliberately stung.
Death by bee sting is extremely rare; roughly 50 cases per year in the US. Most of those are in very young, very old, or very sick people. Lightning kills about twice that many per year.
A healthy adult will survive 1000 stings. That kind of massive attack is generally associated with Africanized bees, which are a problem in Texas and the South but have not (and probably never will) made it to the great Northwet.
Lots of beekeepers work without gear. When my hives are reasonably gentle, I wear a veil, to avoid stings in or near my eyes, but no gloves. With a better sense of touch I can handle the frames more gently, and the bees are less disturbed and less likely to sting.
When the hives are “spiky” I put on full garb, but it is hot and bothersome, and changes the pleasant, almost meditation-like experience into something that resembles work.
Thank you, S. Very good reality check.
I must admit that never in the world would I have imagined bee handling to be a meditation-like experience. Now I’m intrigued more than ever.
Your description of Richard’s approach to the swarm is entirely consistent with “best practices.” Swarms are valuable and the few times I’ve come on one I am often away from home and my gear. Shaking the swarm into a cardboard box and then taking it home are SOP. I’ve driven 6 “shook swarms” (bees purchased by the pound so that I can quickly set up new hives” over 200 miles with the bees in the back seat. Again, hiveless bees don’t sting.
Believe it or not, you can ship bees through the mail. The post office workers invariably call my home in near panic. “Come get your bees, their escaping from the cages!!!”
What’s really happening is that the 2 or 3 pounds of bees inside the cage are accompanied by a dozen or so of their sisters, who cling to the outside for the entire 1,000+ mile journey from the deep south to their new home in my New England backyard.
When you put the new queen inside an empty hive, then open up the cage with the 3 pounds of bees, some fly around for a bit. Then they settle down and march into the hive with exactly that military precision that you noted. It is a delightful display that I always enjoy.
“Come get your bees, their escaping from the cages!!!”
Oh, that’s funny (though I imagine not so much to the postal workers). And fascinating. I knew bees were shipped by mail but all this about “shook swarms” is new to me. I wish I’d managed to get pix of the bees cascading into the hive. It was both incredibly ugly and very impressive.
And yes: military precision. Nearly scary in its order and discipline.
I was impressed with Richard, but actually even more impressed with the bees themselves.
Do try this at home. Get some training, of course.
Bees are beset by imported parasites, toxins from homeowners who seek perfect lawns and gardens with massive doses of pesticides, and a variety of other maladies.
In truth, bees have become almost completely dependent on beekeepers. Since the introduction of the Asian mite a few decades ago, there are almost no feral hives at all. Like cats and dogs, if you see a honeybee, it probably belongs to someone. A swarm that takes up residence in the woods is unlikely to survive.
They are fascinating and extremely beneficial insects. There are beekeeping clubs literally everywhere, with friendly bee keepers who are glad to teach the hobby. Look up one in your area and attend a meeting. Or find someone offering home-grown honey for sale and ask them about beekeeping.
I started after reading several books, but during the first year I kept bees I took a 5-day course in introductory beekeeping offered by the Eastern Apicultural Society every August (after the harvest is in for most beekeepers). It was extremely helpful to learn from professionals in both classroom and bee yard, and a lot of fun to meet fellow beekeepers.
“Come get your bees, they’re escaping from their cages!!!”
Their versus they’re. My bad.
“A swarm that takes up residence in the woods is unlikely to survive.”
Why is that? I’m aware of the catastrophes that have plagued bees, from mites to pesticides, but why would “wild” bees be in more danger than “owned” bees, since even owned bees aren’t given a lot of special shelter or attention? Curious.
The mites generally kill feral hives. While there are breeding efforts underway, nearly all bee hives require some sort of pest control. It can range from miticides to more holistic and organic IPM (integrated pest management) techniques, but hives that are not inspected and tended regularly will almost invariably weaken and die.
The fact that your neighbors have had 3 swarms from 5 hives, and don’t do their own beekeeping, suggests that they have weak queens. A queen bee produces a special pheromone on her feet. As she walks about the hive laying the 1,000+ eggs a day a healthy queen should lay, that pheromone tells the hive that they have a strong, healthy queen.
But a queen has only so many eggs to lay, and she produces less of the pheromone every day of her life. When the levels get too low, the hive decides that it must swarm.
Swarming are how bees create new hives. The old queen is put on a starvation diet by the workers (the workers are really in charge, whether they realize it or not) so that she can fly. The workers start raising a bunch of new queens by feeding royal jelly to selected larvae. Once the old queen is down to flight weight, she takes off, with roughly half the hive following her. The first new queen to hatch kills the other queens, takes a mating flight, and gets to work laying eggs.
A hive with a queen older than 4 years is very likely to swarm. Most commercial beekeepers re-queen their hives every 2 or 3 years. As a hobbyist, I’m not as concerned about the cost of queens, and generally requeen my hives every year, sometimes two if the queen performed very well the past summer.
Back when I kept bees there was a “no pest strip” type of device the beekeepers put in hives that kept the pests down while (apparently) being tolerable to the bees. Maybe that is why their survival in the wild is poor (although I think some manage it). Also I think if the swarm is later, the bees don’t have enough of a honey flow to build up supplies for the winter. Bees from captured swarms often need feeding; I recall some talk back then that taking a swarm was a waste of time for that reason.
At the end i got a single sting to the neck that made it hard for me to breathe; antihistamines took care of that, but shortly after I quit. I quit mostly because I did not want to intensively manage the bees to keep them alive against pests.
Yeah, that “no pest strip” contains a miticide. It’s toxic to bees and people, but used as directed they work pretty well.
I worried about residues in the wax and honey. You’re supposed to use those strips only when there isn’t an active nectar flow, but beekeepers are like everyone else: some are careless, some are lazy, some get busy, some forget, some never RTFM.
I used formic acid, it can be purchased in pads that you place on top of the hives. There is a balance between high enough concentration to knock down the mites and making the bees so uncomfortable that they flee the hive, but it does work, and formic acid is a natural part of beeswax and honey.
It’s good practice to use screened bottom boards with a sticky board underneath. Periodically you removed the board underneath, count the mites on the board, and treat only when they exceed a threshold. The sticky boards are sold with little square printed on them so you can count the number of mites per square inch without going over the entire board.
There are efforts to breed bees that are more vigilant about spotting mites and removing them. Today’s bees are more resistant to mites than they were 20 years ago, but still have a long way to go. The honeybees in Asia long ago evolved to live with the mite, but as an introduced parasite, our North American bees had few natural defenses.
Ahhh. Fascinating.
I hoped this post would draw great comments, but this is better than I expected.
BTW, of the three swarms my neighbor has had this month, the second was “incoming.” Bees roared in like a tornado (so my neighbor told me) and moved into one of her five hives. No beekeeper intervention required. But I guess as you say, S, that’s yet another sign that her hives are weak. I didn’t know beekeepers had to give so much special care to their hives.
Yes, beekeeping requires learning to recognize and treat a variety of diseases and pests that afflict modern honeybees. The bees know what to do with regard to honey and raising more bees, but they aren’t capable of dealing with imported parasites and massive use of pesticides.
The steadily cooling climate in New England for the past 15 years has made it much more difficult to keep hives alive through the winter. In Canada it is all but impossible to overwinter hives, and they start with new “shook swarms” shipped from the US South every spring.
Like most things, there are silver linings to even the worst clouds.
The “Africanized” bees that have slowly migrated from South America, north through Mexico, and into Texas and the South are very aggressive and can be dangerous to small children and pets.
But they are vigorous and much better able to fend for themselves than most domestic honeybees. US beekeepers continually breed new queens with desirable traits such as gentleness. Hopefully in a few decades we’ll have hybridized bees that are perhaps a bit more aggressive than today’s but also a lot more disease and pest resistant.
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly.
Very old beekeeping proverb.
The “incoming” swarm means that either that hive was dead or that it was so weak that it could not defend its home. If your neighbors don’t tend their bees, they probably wouldn’t know if a hive was dead. A few bees coming and going proves nothing; they could be robbers or just drifters from nearby hives.
I enjoy sitting to the side of my hives and watching their coming and going. You can see the ‘beeline,’ the straight-line flight path to and from the hive, move from day to day as they find different crops to forage. You can see different colors and amounts of pollen in the baskets on the bees hind legs. There are guard bees who greet and inspect every landing bee. There are young bees taking their first, tentative flights. There are tanker bees ferrying in loads of water. There are undertaker bees dragging out the dead, and housekeeping bees removing dust and dirt. It is an amazing society, highly organized and disciplined.
I few days ago an 87 year-old man about thirty miles away died from over a thousand bee stings. We do have deaths from time to time here in Texas, but it is always an elderly person. Another elderly man was badly stung in another nearby area but got quick care and survived. He said afterward that he was very angry when a car stopped, a man checked on him, and then the man went back to his car. When the EMTs arrived he realized that the supposedly uncaring man had called for help rather than try to do something that he knew nothing about. Sometimes the right thing seems like the wrong thing. The EMTs were there in less than 10 minutes and had the correct antihistamine.
We have a family of beekeepers 15 miles in the opposite direction who have hives in their area and collect and sell honey and also collect honey for the amateur keepers who are reluctant to try to do it themselves. Everyone around buys honey from them since the local pollen in the honey helps with our allergies.
wow. i also enjoyed learning about bees — credit to S’s story telling. all the facts played out like a cartoon in my head. thanks!
I have an online friend in Texas who keeps bees, and as a side business she removes swarms and hives from people’s houses. She uses a device that essentially works like a vacuum cleaner to collect the bees. Since most of the swarms are africanized, this keeps the bees contained and also gives her a bit of distance.
We’ve been keeping for about 5 years now, and it has been an awesome experience.
Some thoughts: I wear a veil but no gloves. Opening up a beehive with 25 to 40 thousand bees inside of it, and knowing that once one stings they all want to sting, well, its a high like no drug can give you.
A swarm is an amazing event. Our 1st was a lot like yours Claire, except that I cut off the branch and let the swarm fall into the box, immediately causing the box to fall off the 6′ tall stand and onto the ground. I had sprayed them with sugar water first, to discourage flight, but only the outer bees were wet. Thousand took to the air. The box landed between my koi pond and frog bog, both of which feasted on “sugar snap bees” as I’m trying to load what I can back in the box. I did end up with the queen, so I was able to have a new hive, but oh the work to get it!
I noticed one of my hives start to swarm one day. You could hear the buzzing get louder and louder. I went down and stood in front of the hive as 10s of thousands of bees issued forth and began circling the hive and me. Picture Neo at the end of the last “Matrix” and you can kinda get the idea. They circled for about 5 minutes until they all found their way to a branch about 100′ up a bog oak tree, out of reach and gone.
Personally, I try to keep happy docile bees, because I have absolutely no interest in finding out how many times you have to get stung before it stops hurting. Nope, no interest at all. Twice out of 5 years we’ve gone the entire season, including extracting, and not gotten stung even once.
Our next adventure is going to be trying it on the other coast.
I was hoping you’d chime in, jw. And having been the recipient of some of your honey (the honey is great; the labels even better), I’m glad you’re going to continue the adventure on the friendlier coast.
But the prospect of bee stings being a good drug? Um … okay, whatever you say.
Those honey labels from jw and his wildly creative spouse:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2013/09/05/and-speaking-of-drones/
Fascinating! I was always scared of bees growing up, though the few times I’ve been stung never really bothered me. Here in the high desert we have wild hives that seem to come and go. One summer two years ago bees were always around my chicken waterer, just going endlessly back and forth to wherever they had their hive up the slope. they were never the least bit aggressive toward me or the birds, which was all I cared about. Last winter a bunch started a hive in a valvehouse late in the summer but it didn’t survive the winter. Swarmed too late? I dunno. Interesting critters, but there are too many things here that say hi by trying to kill you to ever want to raise them.
Oh no, no, no, its not the stings that are the high, its the threat and the place you have to go to avoid them!
ps. we ended up picking the one you voted for.
Feral hives seem to do ok here in SE Arizona. Often found in shed walls or between floor joists of old buildings. I don’t know if they qualify as wild hives or not. 4 years ago the wife and I had a run in with a wild hive. It was in a hollow oak near a stream crossing. Didn’t notice it until bees came swarming out. Lively few minutes trying to get my wife and dogs out of the fight. Dogs beat us back to the car. Wife got stung half a dozen times and had an allergic reaction, just short,of anaphylactic shock. Doc said filling her with Benadryl kept in the first aid kit helped. ,I was sound a dozen times, only a couple of itchy spots resulted. The hive is still in that tree, I give it wide birth.
S
when you get your next queens, try getting a Russian or Russian-Carniolan cross. The Russian bees are very much adapted to Varroa and will actually bite them off each other. I’ve had them for two years (the new landlord doesn’t allow them anymore 🙁 ) and they were great. They are cold-heartier than pure Carniolans as well; both of my pure C’s died over the first winter, but when I got the R-C crosses the next year they did very well over two winters.
Also, if you want calm bees during inspections, consider switching to top-bar hives. I did in my second year and what a difference!! After the switch I rarely used smoke and did most of my work in shorts and t-shirt and without a veil.
Top-bar hives are very easy to build yourself and for about half the cost of a commercial Langstroth.
I definitely second the comment about the meditative experience of working with bees!
Kyle,
Thanks for the tip. I have been keeping Carniolans, which are supposed to be winter hardy, or at least need less stores. But the New England winters have been getting colder for 15 years now (summers, too) and every time we have a cold snap to negative temperatures the hives die. The scout bees sent from the cluster freeze to death before they can return with news that there is honey just one frame away.
The bees starve to death an inch or two away from honey. It’s really heartbreaking cleaning the deadouts in spring.
The Carnies are quite gentle and great comb builders, and I produce comb honey. No sense competing with South American bee keeper labor rates or Chinese corn sugar dyed yellow. I sell all that I produce at premium prices and more or less cover my costs, which is fine for a hobby.
I’ll look into the crosses. There was a lot of unfounded hype about the Russians a few years back and it put me off them. Do you have a good source for queens?
News about bees:
Survey: More than 40 percent of bee hives died in past year
Note that despite the grim headline:
– the number of colonies went up
– there were more hive deaths last summer than usual
– I can’t tell if these results reflect the brutal winter of 2014-15.
Even in a good year you lose 20% of your hives. Bees are wonderful creatures, but they are stressed by modern life. As we all are.
S,
I got my packages from a guy in our club, who split his time between NY and NC. He does it on a small scale and mostly for club members. But you can try to get in contact with Sam Comfort, a rather unconventional beekeeper in the Hudson Valley. I’ve met him, he’s a great guy and REALLY passionate about bees (he has a huge bee tattooed on his shoulder 🙂 ). His website is http://www.anarchyapiaries.org . He sells packages, nucs for both Langstroth and top-bar and queens.
Your scenario of bees starving to death an inch away from honey is exactly what happened to mine. The Russians seem to do better even in the extended cold snaps up here. Also, with the top-bar hive there is more airspace around the hivebox when you wrap the tarpaper around it for the winter, so it is better insulated.
Good Luck! I can’t wait to get back into it again!
P.S.: Claire, I don’t know if my first paragraph is okay to publish here (advertising?), if not please remove it.