Latest / Honey Bee Obscura Podcast / The Wayward Swarm, Part 3 (283)

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The Wayward Swarm, Part 3 (283) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

• 0:01
  Jim Tew: Listeners, I know we've talked about this swarm a lot, but this swarm has been a unique one.
• 0:07
  Jim Tew: This will be the third week in a row that we've talked about the swarm
• 0:13
  Jim Tew: Well it's still here.
• 0:15
  Jim Tew: These bees made a life and death serious mistake.
• 0:20
  Jim Tew: I got my longtime friend and beekeeping associate Jason Farrell with me.
• 0:24
  Jim Tew: Jason's been on podcast before.
• 0:27
  Jim Tew: He's a good beekeeper.
• 0:29
  Jim Tew: All he needs is some bees.
• 0:31
  Jim Tew: Jason, say hi.
• 0:32
  Jim Tew: Hello.
• 0:34
  Jim Tew: Jason's agreed to do the ladder work.
• 0:37
  Jim Tew: If there's any ladder work to be done, so let's go look at these bees that
• 0:41
  Jim Tew: I've been hanging here now for almost five days.
• 0:46
  Jim Tew: Listeners, I'm Jim Tew, and I come to you once a week here at Honey Bee Obscura, where I try to talk about something you do with just blank talk being.
• 0:59
  Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast.
• 1:09
  Introduction: Join Jew Tew, your guide
• 1:11
  Introduction: Through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.
• 1:18
  Introduction: Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees.
• 1:25
  Introduction: Whether you're a seasoned beak
• 1:26
  Introduction: Keeper are just getting started.
• 1:28
  Introduction: Get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.
• 1:34
  Jim Tew: Squeezing through some bushes.
• 1:38
  Jim Tew: Listers, I don't know how to soften this for you.
• 1:44
  Jim Tew: Jason, how can we soften this for them?
• 1:48
  Jim Tew: There's dead bees everywhere.
• 1:49
  Jim Tew: There's dead bees on the ladder, dead bees on top of the ladder.
• 1:54
  Jim Tew: I can see bees literally twisting in the breeze.
• 2:01
  Jim Tew: There's one bee flying.
• 2:02
  Jim Tew: It's 40 degrees.
• 2:05
  Jim Tew: Jason, there there are some bees alive.
• 2:08
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah
• 2:10
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, they're actually they're more active now than they were a few minutes ago.
• 2:15
  Jason Ferrell: I think because the sun came out a little bit.
• 2:17
  Jim Tew: Listeners, I guess what what are we trying to do, Jason?
• 2:19
  Jim Tew: Just to
• 2:21
  Jim Tew: Feed them?
• 2:23
  Jim Tew: Or do you know which till you get up there?
• 2:25
  Jim Tew: Yeah, I don't know yet.
• 2:27
  Jim Tew: Jason's going up the ladder.
• 2:29
  Jim Tew: A task that I guess I'm no longer qualified to do
• 2:33
  Jim Tew: I think this is a lighter of lost causes.
• 2:36
  Jim Tew: I don't think you can get high enough to give them honey.
• 2:40
  Jim Tew: You see listeners, what's happening here is it's 40 degrees, lightly raining
• 2:46
  Jim Tew: And the temperature feels like 33.
• 2:51
  Jim Tew: That's what the bees are experiencing.
• 2:54
  Jim Tew: And we can't shake them.
• 2:56
  Jim Tew: If we break the cluster, they're going to die for sure.
• 2:59
  Jim Tew: There's all kind of old paralyms and detritus.
• 3:04
  Jim Tew: conflicts, disruptions, so you can't get a box under them and just shake
• 3:12
  Jim Tew: I had said before I would try to put a honey frame on an extension paint rod and see if that'd move over.
• 3:20
  Jim Tew: But these bees aren't going to move anywhere.
• 3:23
  Jim Tew: And could it get any worse?
• 3:25
  Jim Tew: Not much, because this this cold temperature is not going away.
• 3:29
  Jim Tew: It's going to be staying for a while.
• 3:33
  Jim Tew: We're thinking.
• 3:37
  Jim Tew: Not much to be done.
• 3:39
  Jim Tew: How about a bee vacuum?
• 3:41
  Jim Tew: I got a bee vacuum but I'd have to string an extension cord for about 80 yards.
• 3:45
  Jim Tew: I don't know if I if I guess if I got every extension cord on my property it might make it, but
• 3:51
  Jason Ferrell: Might be worth a shot.
• 3:54
  Jim Tew: Alright, so we're gonna try a bee vacuum.
• 3:59
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, I mean it's not
• 4:03
  Jason Ferrell: It's not as once once I'm up here looking at it closer, it's not as bad as it looked from a distance because from a distance what we were seeing was uh
• 4:12
  Jason Ferrell: A lot of dead bees hanging off the bottom of the cluster and the cluster itself was uh
• 4:20
  Jason Ferrell: Not really showing any signs of life, but now that the sun's been out for a few minutes, I see bees in in the cluster moving around.
• 4:31
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, it might be
• 4:33
  Jason Ferrell: Might be worth a shot to try to get the bee vac out.
• 4:36
  Jim Tew: Alright.
• 4:37
  Jim Tew: Alright.
• 4:38
  Jim Tew: Come off the ladder and let's get the bee vac out.
• 4:40
  Jim Tew: This is going to be like uh
• 4:44
  Jim Tew: Building a bridge to nowhere.
• 4:46
  Jim Tew: Yeah, well, I mean what else can we do, right?
• 4:50
  Jim Tew: I haven't had the bee back out in three or four years
• 4:54
  Jim Tew: Listeners, we're gonna shut the microphones down while we get set up.
• 4:58
  Jim Tew: So expect a bit of a breakup and disruption while we shut the mics down and then turn them back on.
• 5:08
  Jim Tew: Listeners, we're back.
• 5:11
  Jim Tew: It has been an absolute hellish 80 minutes.
• 5:14
  Jim Tew: I've got enough extension cords strung out
• 5:17
  Jim Tew: Jason's climbing a ladder.
• 5:19
  Jim Tew: He shouldn't be climbing.
• 5:21
  Jim Tew: I guess I should be making pictures so we can explain to the emergency room squad what happened.
• 5:26
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah
• 5:28
  Jason Ferrell: Might move this ladder over a little bit.
• 5:30
  Jason Ferrell: Yep.
• 5:30
  Jason Ferrell: Get a better angle on them.
• 5:33
  Jim Tew: I was trying to think how we could use this other ladder, this A-frame, to brace the long ladder.
• 5:39
  Jim Tew: We can't shake the cluster.
• 5:40
  Jim Tew: We got a vacuum set up.
• 5:42
  Jim Tew: Which was no short part of a miracle.
• 5:48
  Jim Tew: And Jason's trying to move the extension ladder over
• 5:54
  Jim Tew: We've got the vacuum tube set up.
• 5:57
  Jim Tew: It's gonna be a long fall and ironically Jason and I did this years ago
• 6:08
  Jim Tew: And we killed the swarm because of the fall was so long that tube fall killed them.
• 6:14
  Jim Tew: So with that in mind, we're trying to run a general vacuum.
• 6:17
  Jim Tew: I'll be the combat photographer.
• 6:21
  Jim Tew: You ready?
• 6:22
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, I think the only thing worse than climbing an extension ladder is climbing an extension ladder while wearing a bee veil.
• 6:29
  Jason Ferrell: Right.
• 6:29
  Jason Ferrell: On a rainy day.
• 6:30
  Jim Tew: You didn't mention that.
• 6:32
  Jim Tew: All right, listeners, here goes the vacuum.
• 6:44
  Jim Tew: It's a big swarm, listen listeners.
• 6:47
  Jim Tew: losing some bees.
• 6:52
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• 6:58
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• 7:03
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• 7:07
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• 7:26
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• 7:29
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• 7:33
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• 7:37
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• 7:40
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• 7:54
  Jason Ferrell: That might be all I can get from here.
• 7:58
  Jim Tew: What's happening to the vacuum?
• 8:00
  Jason Ferrell: That I don't know.
• 8:01
  Jason Ferrell: It's a I it I that might be all the I can get from here.
• 8:06
  Jim Tew: Is the vacuum line plugged?
• 8:08
  Jim Tew: I don't know.
• 8:17
  Jim Tew: It's just burning out because it's on low voltage.
• 8:20
  Jim Tew: Problem.
• 8:22
  Jim Tew: They're gonna start coming back out of that tube when I do this.
• 8:35
  Jim Tew: How much vacuum do you have?
• 8:37
  Jim Tew: Oh enough.
• 8:38
  Jim Tew: Jason, my vacuum's burning up.
• 8:40
  Jim Tew: Okay, turn it off then.
• 8:44
  Jim Tew: Smell it burning.
• 8:45
  Jim Tew: Okay, that's no good.
• 8:48
  Jim Tew: What do we do?
• 8:49
  Jim Tew: Let it cool down or or what?
• 8:52
  Jim Tew: How they looking?
• 8:53
  Jim Tew: Can you see?
• 8:54
  Jim Tew: I can't see them.
• 8:55
  Jim Tew: Okay
• 8:57
  Jim Tew: But I'm afraid that well they're in there.
• 8:59
  Jim Tew: Good.
• 9:00
  Jason Ferrell: They're where I want them to be.
• 9:02
  Jim Tew: And they're very quiet.
• 9:04
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah
• 9:05
  Jim Tew: Want to go pour some honey on them.
• 9:08
  Jim Tew: You got two-thirds of them.
• 9:10
  Jim Tew: Of course the queen would be the very last one.
• 9:12
  Jim Tew: Naturally
• 9:16
  Jim Tew: We're burning up the vacuum on low voltage.
• 9:23
  Jim Tew: We'll see if I can get them out.
• 9:26
  Jim Tew: There's a good chance they're dead already.
• 9:29
  Jim Tew: Of course they're in horrible shape.
• 9:32
  Jim Tew: There's a lot of bees in there, Jason.
• 9:35
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, there is.
• 9:35
  Jim Tew: I'm gonna dump them out right away.
• 9:37
  Jason Ferrell: Okay
• 9:39
  Jason Ferrell: Hey they're alive mostly.
• 9:43
  Jim Tew: Yep, I'm just jumping it straight out because there's too many bees in the package
• 9:49
  Jim Tew: You want a can you pour a little bit of honey on them?
• 9:56
  Jim Tew: Trying to shake them out.
• 9:58
  Jim Tew: They're all stuck together
• 10:00
  Jim Tew: They're mostly dead.
• 10:02
  Jim Tew: We don't get them out of this cage.
• 10:03
  Jim Tew: They're gonna be all dead.
• 10:05
  Jim Tew: Jason and listeners, I have never worked this hard.
• 10:09
  Jim Tew: for a lost cause swarm in my entire life.
• 10:15
  Jim Tew: I'm just gonna dribble some honey on them
• 10:18
  Jim Tew: Because I know they're hungry.
• 10:21
  Jim Tew: Don't want to make them too messy.
• 10:25
  Jim Tew: Alright, back to shaking bees out
• 10:29
  Jim Tew: Listeners, there's I've just shaken out six pounds of bees.
• 10:34
  Jim Tew: Or I'm trying to shake them out.
• 10:37
  Jim Tew: There's so many piled up on the top of the deep.
• 10:43
  Jim Tew: I don't know listeners, I've never seen bees look like this.
• 10:45
  Jim Tew: They're just a mat of weak bees.
• 10:51
  Jim Tew: The ones that I can see are showing a lot of interest
• 10:54
  Jim Tew: I put them on top of an empty deep.
• 10:58
  Jim Tew: This goes down as one of the largest, dumbest swarms I've ever seen.
• 11:04
  Jim Tew: Didn't happen to see the queen in there, did you?
• 11:06
  Jim Tew: I I've been looking, but No, I haven't seen her.
• 11:12
  Jim Tew: Yeah
• 11:13
  Jim Tew: I'd I'd like to give 'em more honey, but I don't want to just soak 'em.
• 11:17
  Jim Tew: Right.
• 11:19
  Jim Tew: I I guess I better put the top on.
• 11:21
  Jim Tew: There's they're starting to fly now, which is kind of a good sign, but
• 11:25
  Jim Tew: Kind of a bad sign because they don't know where they are.
• 11:30
  Jim Tew: Jason that they that vacuum may have been
• 11:34
  Jim Tew: Heating up because it was full.
• 11:36
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah, that's what I I was thinking after we got that out
• 11:42
  Jason Ferrell: That was a lot of bees.
• 11:43
  Jim Tew: Are you going back up?
• 11:45
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Jason Ferrell: I was gonna try to go up this side, see if I can get them because at this point most of the ones that are still up there are on this other side of the tree.
• 11:56
  Jason Ferrell: I might be able to move the swing the extension ladder around But I might be able to reach them from the stepladder too.
• 12:08
  Jason Ferrell: I don't know if I can try to get
• 12:10
  Jason Ferrell: Some more off of this side.
• 12:13
  Jason Ferrell: You think the vacuum's ready to go live?
• 12:18
  Jim Tew: Flip it on and see what you think there.
• 12:19
  Jim Tew: If you got the
• 12:21
  Jim Tew: power draw.
• 12:28
  Jason Ferrell: Not a whole lot of vacuum to it.
• 12:30
  Jim Tew: Alright.
• 12:30
  Jim Tew: You know that I've never emptied that canister
• 12:34
  Jim Tew: Since I've owned it.
• 12:36
  Jim Tew: What's the chances of the damn canister's full?
• 12:41
  Jim Tew: It's fine.
• 12:43
  Jim Tew: That doesn't seem full.
• 12:45
  Jim Tew: No.
• 12:50
  Jim Tew: Tell me tell me when you're having fun.
• 12:54
  Jason Ferrell: Wow, this is uh
• 12:56
  Jason Ferrell: Good old fashioned beekeeping right here.
• 12:58
  Jim Tew: Yep, this is good old fashioned idiotic beekeeping.
• 13:02
  Jason Ferrell: A gray Saturday morning.
• 13:05
  Jim Tew: Yep.
• 13:06
  Jason Ferrell: A swarm that's a little too big and a little too high up in the tree.
• 13:10
  Jim Tew: I wish I could put that ladder under your ladder to brace it.
• 13:14
  Jim Tew: Yeah, you and me both.
• 13:17
  Jason Ferrell: All right.
• 13:25
  Jason Ferrell: All right, turn it off.
• 13:30
  Jason Ferrell: No vacuum.
• 13:32
  Jason Ferrell: Now I'm gonna I'm gonna switch around to the other side here
• 13:41
  Jason Ferrell: Sorry about all the racket, Jeff.
• 13:52
  Jason Ferrell: All right, fire it up.
• 14:01
  Jim Tew: We're gonna lose in the vacuum.
• 14:03
  Jim Tew: Yep.
• 14:09
  Jim Tew: Oh well I guess we're done Jason.
• 14:13
  Jason Ferrell: I mean we got we got a whole lot of them Jim.
• 14:17
  Jason Ferrell: Yep
• 14:18
  Jim Tew: I mean there's still some up here, but man, I I would need to do a little more pruning to even Yeah, there's not there's hardly a half pound left up there, but
• 14:28
  Jim Tew: I'm sure we got the queen.
• 14:30
  Jim Tew: Yep, that's optimistic thinking.
• 14:32
  Jim Tew: I'm sure we got her too.
• 14:33
  Jim Tew: Yep
• 14:37
  Jim Tew: I'm gonna have a quick look.
• 14:40
  Jim Tew: Everyone knows it flies out when they go back over there.
• 14:43
  Jason Ferrell: Yeah
• 14:45
  Jim Tew: Let's see if I can find an inner cover.
• 14:47
  Jim Tew: I don't know what else to do.
• 14:48
  Jim Tew: If I use a queen excluder, I just restrict them
• 14:53
  Jim Tew: Even though I went straight to a queen excluder.
• 14:57
  Jim Tew: Never fails.
• 15:00
  Jim Tew: How about a mis misappropriation of a slide rock?
• 15:04
  Jim Tew: Sounds good to me
• 15:07
  Jim Tew: I'll sleep well tonight, Jason.
• 15:09
  Jim Tew: How much did you say you were gonna pay me for this?
• 15:12
  Jim Tew: This is worth about three thousand dollars.
• 15:16
  Jim Tew: And I'll I'll eat the cost of the
• 15:18
  Jim Tew: of the $300 vacuum.
• 15:20
  Jim Tew: Alright, take the lid off.
• 15:23
  Jim Tew: Listen, I'm putting a slatted rack on.
• 15:26
  Jim Tew: And now I'm putting another deep on
• 15:29
  Jim Tew: Because every time we open the box bees come flying out.
• 15:33
  Jim Tew: Alright.
• 15:38
  Jim Tew: You know, let's just oh yeah.
• 15:41
  Jim Tew: Let's just do that.
• 15:42
  Jim Tew: Yeah, that's not a bad idea.
• 15:46
  Jim Tew: Oh yeah.
• 15:47
  Jim Tew: And then that.
• 15:48
  Jim Tew: Alright, put the top on.
• 15:49
  Jim Tew: Yep.
• 15:50
  Jim Tew: I just put the cages in there upside down on the slided rock.
• 15:55
  Jim Tew: Because every beat that comes back is going to fly we keep saying it but it's not what I want to happen.
• 16:01
  Jim Tew: Every beat that comes back is flying right over to the swarm site
• 16:06
  Jim Tew: Well, except the Queen, she's Yeah, I I saw her in there.
• 16:09
  Jim Tew: She was smiling and happy.
• 16:11
  Jim Tew: Listeners, this is about a three and a half hour long
• 16:15
  Jim Tew: segment with a vacuum running for most of that time.
• 16:19
  Jim Tew: I'm sure it's just going to be one of the most exciting things you've ever sat through.
• 16:23
  Jim Tew: Whether or not these bees are going to survive, I do not know
• 16:28
  Jim Tew: But they're 95% down.
• 16:31
  Jim Tew: We couldn't reach the others.
• 16:34
  Jim Tew: And I'm dead tired.
• 16:35
  Jim Tew: I got to go string up 80 yards of extension cord and take a burned up.
• 16:42
  Jim Tew: shop back back which did work I might add so at this point I'm gonna say bye Jason tell the listeners bye bye listeners bye listeners I'll see you next week one way or the other till then Honey Bee Obscura listeners
• 16:57
  Jim Tew: Thank you.