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Plain Talk: Packages and Swarms (281) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

0:01
Jim Tew: Well hello again, listeners.
0:04
Jim Tew: Jim coming to you here from Honey Bee Obscura.
0:09
Jim Tew: Taking the walk that I always take where I kind of introduce you to the world.
0:15
Jim Tew: Summertime is here, so we're back to somebody having some kind of gasoline engine running all the time.
0:23
Jim Tew: There's no way to get away from it.
0:26
Jim Tew: I had a great time last weekend.
0:28
Jim Tew: I went over to Northwest Pennsylvania Honey Bee Association
0:34
Jim Tew: And Saturday morning presentation, it was a good layout.
0:40
Jim Tew: We met on Saturday morning and had a decent crowd there.
0:45
Jim Tew: Enjoyed talking about bees and then I drove two and a half hours home.
0:50
Jim Tew: So I like to mention them because it was a nice organization and they put up with my foolishness.
1:00
Jim Tew: that I do about being hard to reach.
1:04
Jim Tew: I'm in the yard, got these packages.
1:08
Jim Tew: All right, most of you who listen to me with any degree of regularity know
1:13
Jim Tew: my story for the last years and how I got into a unique situation
1:21
Jim Tew: So the bees went into winter with no preparation.
1:27
Jim Tew: They were just on their own and I assumed everything would die since they had not had
1:32
Jim Tew: my magical healing hand.
1:35
Jim Tew: So expecting everything to die, I ordered five packages.
1:41
Jim Tew: And then, much to my pleasant surprise, they didn't die.
1:47
Jim Tew: Not all of them.
1:48
Jim Tew: Two of them did.
1:50
Jim Tew: I frequently pick up a swarm.
1:53
Jim Tew: So I contacted my supplier and asked to back out on some of those packages.
2:00
Jim Tew: Let's talk about that here in a few minutes.
2:02
Jim Tew: Jim Tew.
2:03
Jim Tew: I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura, where I always try to talk about something you do with plain talk beekeeping.
2:10
Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the
2:17
Introduction: Beekeeping Today podcast.
2:20
Introduction: Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.
2:29
Introduction: Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive.
2:33
Introduction: Into the intricate world of honey bees.
2:36
Introduction: Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.
2:44
Jim Tew: Listeners, can I just kind of talk to you personally?
2:48
Jim Tew: Those five packages
2:52
Jim Tew: cost $700.
2:55
Jim Tew: That's a lot of money to me.
2:58
Jim Tew: Maybe, you know, maybe it's just my fixed income and my old age and whatever, but that's
3:04
Jim Tew: If I spend $700, I usually think about it.
3:07
Jim Tew: It didn't used to be such a chunk like that.
3:10
Jim Tew: Now here's the odd thing.
3:11
Jim Tew: I'm not arguing.
3:13
Jim Tew: That it's not worth it.
3:15
Jim Tew: I mean I don't want to start trying to raise and shake packages and raise queens and control Varroa and do all that kind of thing while fighting an uphill battle all the time with weather and so I
3:27
Jim Tew: I don't I'm not really saying that it's not worth it.
3:30
Jim Tew: I'm saying it's a lot of money.
3:33
Jim Tew: Beekeeping used to be you'd build your own equipment, you'd put them in a nail keg, you'd pick up a swarm and boom, you're a beekeeper
3:40
Jim Tew: and you improvise some kind of protective gear, I don't think that happens anymore.
3:45
Jim Tew: I contacted that guy.
3:46
Jim Tew: He's a friend of mine.
3:47
Jim Tew: We used to work together.
3:49
Jim Tew: He stayed in bees much more than I did.
3:52
Jim Tew: And he said that he had misspoke and/or had ordered actually more packages than he was going to need himself.
4:01
Jim Tew: He was expecting
4:02
Jim Tew: A typical late rush.
4:05
Jim Tew: I don't know if the late rush ever came or not, but he didn't act like he wanted to take those packages back.
4:13
Jim Tew: And since I said that I wanted them, I bought them.
4:17
Jim Tew: But here's the deal.
4:18
Jim Tew: I thought I'd have all this empty equipment.
4:20
Jim Tew: You may or may not remember that my grandson wanted some beehives to go to
4:26
Jim Tew: Michigan.
4:27
Jim Tew: So I gave away some of my extra equipment.
4:30
Jim Tew: Now I've either got to assemble some or
4:33
Jim Tew: be close.
4:34
Jim Tew: I used some of the strangest, most motley equipment.
4:38
Jim Tew: I guess in some ways you'd be so pleased with me because
4:43
Jim Tew: I'm taking slipshod beekeeping to new heights.
4:48
Jim Tew: I didn't have anything to feed these bees other than the feeder can
4:55
Jim Tew: What I did was I put a deep on top, cutting off some burr comb
5:03
Jim Tew: One of these will sometimes build comb uphill.
5:08
Jim Tew: And there are no eggs in there
5:11
Jim Tew: Just took a sting on my finger.
5:14
Jim Tew: There are no eggs in the comb.
5:17
Jim Tew: And so I put a paper plate on top of the frames.
5:22
Jim Tew: And I fed them just enough honey to keep them alive.
5:31
Jim Tew: I've broken my own rule, listeners.
5:34
Jim Tew: I should be prepared.
5:36
Jim Tew: Just a package of bees is not really that aggressive, but they're kind of coming for me.
5:42
Jim Tew: So the main thing I want to do today, I'm not going to bother them.
5:46
Jim Tew: The main thing I want to do today is just be sure they're in here
5:50
Jim Tew: They stayed here, they're okay, they seem to have settled down.
5:53
Jim Tew: I came out some days ago, took a bit of a chance
6:00
Jim Tew: and released the queen directly.
6:03
Jim Tew: I'm not even going to look for her.
6:04
Jim Tew: If she's dead, she's dead.
6:06
Jim Tew: I'll combine them and then I'll split them out later on.
6:10
Jim Tew: So there's that one pushed back down to one deep.
6:15
Jim Tew: Jim, why aren't you doing a better job at this?
6:17
Jim Tew: Why are you rushing through this?
6:19
Jim Tew: Because I want you to realize there's one, two, three, four, five, six fairly strong colonies here.
6:27
Jim Tew: And even though it's springtime,
6:30
Jim Tew: There's little dearths that come and go.
6:33
Jim Tew: So maple is long gone, fruit bloom is long gone, and now they're just finding catch-as-catch-can.
6:42
Jim Tew: And I don't want to entice
6:45
Jim Tew: those strong colonies to come over and take the major resources that these package colonies have.
6:54
Jim Tew: I put a paper plate.
6:55
Jim Tew: I've never seen or heard of this.
6:57
Jim Tew: It's just slipshod beekeeping.
7:00
Jim Tew: Several days ago when the temperature dropped cold again, I put a paper plate on top of it
7:09
Jim Tew: And I poured honey that I had.
7:13
Jim Tew: So go ahead and ask me where did that honey come from?
7:16
Jim Tew: Did that honey have American foulbrood or I don't know where it came from.
7:20
Jim Tew: It was honey, it was in liquid form.
7:23
Jim Tew: And that is a
7:24
Jim Tew: old concern but I don't know that I'm worried about it too much.
7:29
Jim Tew: Second colony done.
7:31
Jim Tew: So far two stings.
7:34
Jim Tew: So I'm getting off to a good start.
7:37
Jim Tew: We got paper plates that are going to blow all over the
7:39
Jim Tew: yard.
7:41
Jim Tew: Surprised these bees are as cranky as they are.
7:43
Jim Tew: I guess they're probably a little bit hungry.
7:48
Jim Tew: You remember
7:50
Jim Tew: In a previous podcast, I told you they were robbing out that dead equipment that had a lot of honey in it.
7:57
Jim Tew: I should have tried to protect that honey because I could really use it now.
8:04
Jim Tew: And all that happened was the strong got stronger.
8:10
Jim Tew: So the honey now is in these strong colonies.
8:14
Jim Tew: You heard that propolis break?
8:17
Jim Tew: They are going to come for me.
8:19
Jim Tew: Got to let these bees calm down.
8:23
Jim Tew: These bees are a little bit feisty to be packages.
8:27
Jim Tew: Normally, packages are like kittens.
8:32
Jim Tew: These may be mangy.
8:34
Jim Tew: kittens.
8:34
Jim Tew: Hey, let's take a break and hear from our sponsor.
8:37
Jim Tew: Come back in just a minute.
8:40
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9:08
Jim Tew: I'm using some of the Bee Smart insulated tops.
9:14
Jim Tew: I've got about four of those and
9:17
Jim Tew: So far I'm liking them fine.
9:21
Jim Tew: Here's a honey jar that I put in here and they cleaned it out spotless.
9:26
Jim Tew: You know what they really don't like?
9:28
Jim Tew: They don't like this dark screen on my
9:32
Jim Tew: microphone.
9:35
Jim Tew: So I'm paying a bit of a price here for you to for you to be at where the action is.
9:42
Jim Tew: I'm using the insulated top just because I need tops.
9:47
Jim Tew: I've got to tell you those solid plastic hive bodies, those things just don't go away.
9:56
Jim Tew: They really seem to last pretty much forever.
10:02
Jim Tew: So I've been using them.
10:07
Jim Tew: There it is.
10:08
Jim Tew: Got the brick back on top.
10:11
Jim Tew: They just sit in the weeds.
10:12
Jim Tew: And if you put, you know, just regular wooden hive bodies in the weeds.
10:17
Jim Tew: and clutter, they rot away.
10:19
Jim Tew: And here's kind of a dirty little secret, but the carpenter ants burrow into my expanded polystyrene hives and eat everything up and then when you try to get all the carpenter ants
10:32
Jim Tew: out and take them over to the to the barn.
10:37
Jim Tew: Then the mice move in trying to eat, I guess, the - it was a roach.
10:47
Jim Tew: Trying to eat the larvae, I suppose.
10:50
Jim Tew: I understand why they glue it down so hard.
10:53
Jim Tew: It is really glued down.
10:57
Jim Tew: You know, listeners, you can just tell.
11:00
Jim Tew: I'm not a I'm not a bee whisperer, but I am talking on the colonies.
11:10
Jim Tew: And you can just tell when they really are on a short fuse.
11:16
Jim Tew: The way they respond to the cracking of the hive.
11:23
Jim Tew: I had to let the one cool down.
11:27
Jim Tew: So there's the outer part of the insulator cover back on and there's the outer cover over it.
11:34
Jim Tew: So I was - here's one that's going to swarm
11:39
Jim Tew: It's a nice hive.
11:41
Jim Tew: I don't have anything to do with them.
11:44
Jim Tew: Beekeepers, you remember in one of the previous episodes I came out here in the winter on my first edition of Slipshod Beekeeping and I put duct tape
11:54
Jim Tew: on the hives.
11:55
Jim Tew: There's a piece of that duct tape that's still on one of these hives, still serving as a protective cover
12:04
Jim Tew: Don't know if I can pull that off without being sent to heaven or not.
12:09
Jim Tew: Yep, it came off easily.
12:13
Jim Tew: Now the whole entrance is open.
12:16
Jim Tew: This colony on the left is really looking for any reason to go.
12:21
Jim Tew: Let me go back to the feisty hive now.
12:25
Jim Tew: and see if I can get this off without I just don't want to light a smoker.
12:30
Jim Tew: I hate those things.
12:35
Jim Tew: So far so good.
12:39
Jim Tew: There's the queen cage out.
12:42
Jim Tew: There's the James E.
12:44
Jim Tew: Tew paper plate.
12:45
Jim Tew: There's the third and fourth sting.
12:46
Jim Tew: That hurts at the fingertips.
12:49
Jim Tew: They're stinging me more than I thought they would.
12:52
Jim Tew: It's alright, I'm not using any smoke.
12:56
Jim Tew: So there is the queen cage out and the colony is back down to one size.
13:05
Jim Tew: Please set the paper plates
13:09
Jim Tew: Step back out of the way.
13:11
Jim Tew: These bees over here, the first one I did, it was a rotten spot at the back of the deep I had on there.
13:20
Jim Tew: And now they're all going back to where there was an entrance back there, and that entrance is gone.
13:26
Jim Tew: So they've got to figure out what they're going to do about that.
13:33
Jim Tew: I want to tell you something I think I'm going to try.
13:38
Jim Tew: Lost track of time.
13:39
Jim Tew: I don't know where I am on the time for this episode.
13:42
Jim Tew: I'm going to go to one of the big box stores or over to Harbor Freight and I'm going to look at those awesome
13:50
Jim Tew: oscillating cutters, flush-cut cutters that you use to cut trim mold, to put tile underneath or carpet or whatever you want.
14:00
Jim Tew: I've got one that's a fine, it's a nice machine, it's old, but it's a plug-in model and I'm
14:05
Jim Tew: Way, way away from them.
14:07
Jim Tew: There they go.
14:09
Jim Tew: I got a swarm leaving.
14:11
Jim Tew: So I'm going to see if I can't buy one of those flush-cut cutters to open these colonies that are so propolized.
14:20
Jim Tew: up that you would never get the frames up.
14:22
Jim Tew: Let's walk over and look at the swarm.
14:28
Jim Tew: Do you think I could ever find the queen in this morass?
14:35
Jim Tew: I really hope they don't go to the neighbors' yards.
14:39
Jim Tew: This is how wrong I was.
14:41
Jim Tew: This is how great of a beekeeper I am.
14:43
Jim Tew: I thought this colony was going to be dead.
14:47
Jim Tew: And here it is with 50,000 bees in the air.
14:51
Jim Tew: just flooding out of this hive.
14:55
Jim Tew: This is one of the most stringent forms of mite control you'll ever hear because this will cause a brood cycle break.
15:02
Jim Tew: So I'm not recommending this.
15:04
Jim Tew: They're in the
15:05
Jim Tew: air, they're all around, they're completely unformed.
15:10
Jim Tew: I should be trying to find a box or what?
15:15
Jim Tew: I don't know.
15:17
Jim Tew: I truly don't know.
15:20
Jim Tew: I've gone from some nice lady wrote me and said that if I would send her a shipping address, she would send me a package of bees since my bees were all dead.
15:29
Jim Tew: And here I am.
15:30
Jim Tew: She was so gracious, and I thanked her for that, but I reassured her of it.
15:35
Jim Tew: I had been seriously wrong in calibrating how many of my bees were going to die.
15:43
Jim Tew: Well, I ought to take a break, listeners, and I guess go see if I can find a box.
15:47
Jim Tew: I don't know if I even have one.
15:48
Jim Tew: Now maybe I'll be looking for a nail keg
15:50
Jim Tew: or something to put these in if they land closely.
15:56
Jim Tew: There's a lot of bees in the grass in front.
15:59
Jim Tew: If she dropped into the grass, this is going to be kind of a muddled run.
16:06
Jim Tew: Talked about this before.
16:07
Jim Tew: When the queen comes out, this is only the second time, third time she's ever seen daylight.
16:14
Jim Tew: Because she lives in the dark hive all the time.
16:20
Jim Tew: Get this under control and see if I can save this swarm.
16:24
Jim Tew: You know, listeners, they may be coming back.
16:30
Jim Tew: They have a look like they're actually coming back.
16:34
Jim Tew: I should be getting
16:35
Jim Tew: boxes. I should just be standing here because this is one of those wonder months where you're in the middle of a bee swarm.
16:42
Jim Tew: The bees have no interest in me or attacking me, they're on their own, making their own business trip.
16:50
Jim Tew: All right, I'll let you know what happens.
16:52
Jim Tew: This is Jim at Honey Bee Obscura in the middle of a swarm.
16:57
Jim Tew: Not quite sure what I'm going to do with yet more bees.
17:01
Jim Tew: Got the queens out of the packages.
17:02
Jim Tew: Everything looks good.
17:03
Jim Tew: I got bees everywhere.
17:05
Jim Tew: Thanks for listening.
17:06
Jim Tew: I'll talk to you sometime soon.
17:08
Jim Tew: Bye-bye.