A bee swarm portal has opened up here,
Causing neighbors confusion, anger, and fear
How it appeared there, I just don't know
But the swarms, they continue to show
A few last week, and one today
This is their place, I must say
However, it's not my fault, I'll have to state
They were here before us, not one that we did create
As for me, well, you won't see ME weeping
We've just taken up lots of beekeeping
Approaching the annual "running out of beekeeping equipment" date. 😬
(Bees follow the rule of exponential growth and decay: you either have WAY TOO MANY BEES or NOT NEARLY ENOUGH BEES -- in spring they grow by the power of two or more, but they also tend to drop in half in winter). #beekeeping
Hmm, left an empty nuc (small box) at a property with a beehive and a swarm flew into it and moved in yesterday or today, LOL. Had bees scouting my bag, so left an Amazon box baited with a single frame, in case there are others around... #beekeeping
Hmm, they mention using pheromones and a swarm of bees as a "radical idea" to attack enemies for the military in "The Men Who Stare At Goats", LOL. (It would work, but you can't cart around beehives, really) #beekeeping#movies
This is a nice cool apiary to work in. It faces south but is in dappled shade. After the flat area there is about a 40ft drop through oak trees to the valley floor #beekeeping
Yesterday I did move a frame almost full of capped brood, honey, pollen, and bees into the 'empty' hive.
This morning there were guard bees doing their thing and really checking over any bee that showed up, there was robbing yesterday from the feeder dripping and running out the entrance but nothing serious. I reduced the entrance to make guarding easier and noticed some pollen coming in which was surprising.
Mercury News: When bees swarm in the Bay Area, who you gonna call? These heroes. Inside the daring, ultra-competitive work of the beekeepers who race to collect loose swarms.
In today's bee drama, there are two separate group of bees attempting to claim an empty box we set up to capture any new swarms here. Their advance parties spent several hours playing "King of the Hill" (err..
Queen of the Hill) and wrestling each other out of the box. Too cold for a swarm to fly in, but not too cold to have a bee battle! #beekeeping
There are few food combinations closer to the source and local than avocados mixed with honey produced from the blossoms of the exact same avocado trees... #avocadoes#honey#food#beekeeping
There's generally a couple of very large, ripe avocados that have fallen near our hives in avocado orchards. The growers tell us the avocados are 30-50% larger near hives (they LOVE beehives for that reason). However, pickers will not pick the avocados very close to the hive, so... there's always a few that have fallen off a nearby tree in the hive zone. I've gone as far as snagging some honeycomb from a hive and dropping it into a ripe avocado, and there's lunch! #avocados#honey#beekeeping
Removed captured swarm of bees from my backyard... So the "bee swarm showing up" clock gets reset. The question now is now long until the next swarm... 24 hours? 48 hours? Longer? (there does seem to be a bee swarm portal back there--thus, how we got into beekeeping). #beekeeping#beemudatriangle
New 5-frame nuc picked up & installed yesterday. We've also relocated the location of the colony/hive to the garden area where it is easier to get to & it is warmer in the winter. Now I'm going to research & learn all about treating for mites. #beekeeping#beginner#bees 🐝🐝🐝
Cleared the backyard of swarm of bees. Plus swarms from last week. Now the question is how many days it will take for another one to show up. (last year, it was usually 24-48 hours before a new swarm of bees would reappear). #beekeeping