Our first swarming May 30, 2013

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Dearest, I was going to wait a few more days before to tell you about the latest news on the lives of our friends, the bees, but since I have many things to tell you, I don't hesitate to accept the invitation of Marida asking me with apprehension how they are, having regard to the cold and rain of recent days.

Crazy May

I just start answering the question of Marida: "How are the bees with all this cold weather and with the rain that continues to fall?" ... The bees are doing well, they're really of great workers! When you check a ray of sunshine, even if it is still cold and the snow covers the peaks of Mount Ramaceto a little higher than Nun t'adescià, our foraging workers start immediately to work in search of nectar and pollen to take back to home. And when it rains, as tireless workers, the bees give a great deal to do in the home taking care of the larvae and the "queen mother", cleaning the house and building new cells for the new brood and honey. Being all tight in the hive, they also give a lot to do to build "queen cells" to raise new queens feeding them with "royal jelly." The future queen will allow the emergence of a "swarm" of bees, rejuvenating and halving the population in the hive. As for all living beings, spring is the breeding season, and so also the "superorganism hive" thinks to multiply.

Our first swarming

For the beekeeper, not always the swarming is a fortunate event: bees, before swarming (ie leave the nest in large numbers along with the old queen), gorge on honey stored in the hive, so they have the energy and food reserves to form the new colony. So the hive of origin remains with little honey, and the beekeeper stays badly disappointed ... For this reason, one of the skills of the beekeeper is to prevent this occurance, and, as you know, I'm certainly not a seasoned beekeeper...

Here's how it went ... Last Thursday I went out early from work to do some shopping and still find shops open. Arrived at Nun t'adescià lunchtime, I let myself drag as always by the irresistible urge to go take a look and say hello to my new friends, the bees.

As soon as I approach walking along the path, this time I see, however, an unusual movement. Immediately, I think it's due to the long-awaited sunny day and the flowering of the acacia trees, but when I'm just close to the hives, the buzz became deafening, and on the top of an oak tree I note the classic "cluster" of the swarmed bees (imagine a 10,000 bees, one over another, hanging from a branch). Do not tell you the excitement ... forgetting the pangs of hunger, fear of losing the swarm, I press on toward the house, I prepare in haste an old hive still not entirely clean, I prepare five frames with wax foundations, I take the higher scale that I have, the saw and the pruning shears, I dress to the nines and I go back to the bees.

They are very high, I seem they are on a unreachable point, but I'm not discouraged, stubborn as I am. I put the extendable ladder and I lengthen it to the maximum (about 7 meters). I begin to remove branches and shrubs that would made it difficult to rise, and I climb up the oak ... Meanwhile the bees have calmed down, and are now all in a single cluster arranged around a branch.

Arrived at the end of the scale, I'm forced to climb with their feet on the main branch from which starts the branch that holds the swarm ... swaying dangerously ... I pluck up courage and start cutting the branch with the saw, while, with the other hand, I hold up with fatigue the branch with the bees, knowing that probably it suddenly will collapse. And so it is ... but I can hold it, even if it brings down on one side. In acrobatic way I start to get off ... bees soar with a buzz in a swirling flight ... I continue to go down from the branch, then slowly, rung after rung, the ladder. Now I'm down to earth, I still tremble the knees for the effort and ... fear.

With some definite strokes on the branch, I drop the swarm hive. I pose the branch on the hive and, while waiting for the bees in flight reunite together in the new hive, I go to take home the super frames and cover. It don't take more than 5 minutes ... but when I return, the hive is empty again and the swarm is back on top of the tree, but this time even higher.

I don't understand what happened, is it possible that the queen flown again, returning from where she left? I am not discouraged, I go home and take a queen excluder (a network through which the queen is unable to go because larger than the other bees) to put sull'arnia soon as I caught the swarm, and I shut the front door of the beehive with the metal entrance reducer (what not to do).

I repositioned the ladder, re-cut some of the other branches that stood between me and the swarm, while I ascend slowly. The swarm is waiting for me silent congregated around the new branch and looks at me with a challenge ... I look at him from below, perplexed ... this time I have to climb even higher, at about 10 meters, and the vertical branch that holds me is getting thinner and ... rocking ... I begin to cut, this time the branch gives a crash, but I keep it. I start in get off branch after branch, peg after peg, I lean the swarm on the hive with all the branch, I put my feet on the ground, I shake the branch and ... zac ... I close the roof of the hive with the queen excluder ... "This time do not fool me," I think to myself. In fact, the bees seems a bit at a time enter in the hive to reach the queen, although many continue to fly around to me.

I take a little time to consult my manuals that recommend me to bring the hive the same evening in its final location (now passed the 17), so that the remained bees lying around come home and begin to orientate.

I'm back to the hive, many bees are inside, many bees are between the entrance and reducer that closes it, but many still out on the queen exckluder or attached to the entrance reducer. I slowly close the hive with the inner cover and the roof, trying to be careful not to crush the bees, and I bring it in the apiary in line with the others. I take off the entrance reducer and I sit down to watch them...

I note that those in front of the door are more and more, also form clusters below, as if they have to swarm again. I brush them slowly by dropping them into the upside down roof of the hive , being careful not to drop them on the ground with the fear of losing the queen. Then shake the lid and shut it inside the hive. I go to another hive, open it and fetch a brood frame with a new honeycomb already formed and I insert it in place of a waxy leaf in the new hive, hoping that this will entice them to back inside.

I close the hives, I sit again and watch...

In a short time a strange thing happens: in front of the door of the hive from which I have just picked up the comb, it forms a huge cluster of bees, almost an equal number of those of the just made beehive.

I wonder "will they prepare to swarm too?" ... I run home and get ready in a hurry another hive used, prepare the frames with sheet waxy, I bring it quickly to the apiary. It takes me about twenty minutes. When I get back, both swarms have returned. At this point it remains only to put the baffle boards to prevent the bees to make honeycombs attached to the roof, having too much space.

Finally at about 18, I can have lunch, happy and hungry more than ever ... the new hive will be called "GasOsa" the first name in the waiting list, proposed from the homonymous Gas which has contributed to the project.

Demetra orphan, part two

Do you remember Demetra? The family, as that I told you the previous time, which I felt like it was left without the queen? About ten days ago I witnessed what I thought a new queen emerging from her cell. I went to do the usual visit to the hives when observing a comb, I see jut out from a real cell, the little head before, then slowly throughout the body, of what seemed to me a new born bee. The air temperature was cold, so, for fear of damaging the new arrival, I quickly closed the hive without looking further. From the outside, as if by magic, then I heard what seemed to me the "song of the queen"... a very distinctive sound, a loud long "zzzzeee", immediately followed by more short and intermittent buzzings. It was exciting, I cannot describe the feeling that I've tried, something similar to the moved, admiration and joy mixed in a cocktail of fantastic taste... Unfortunately, the sequence of events, the cold and rain of the next few days, didn't me allowed to have confirmation that it was indeed the queen and she was accepted by the family. I will tell you...

The supers

The bees have started to occupy the first supers, where the bees store the honey and where the queen doesn't lay because the queen excluder hold she out, but the weather did not allow them to produce enough honey, and so for now they are practically all empty. Unfortunately, the flowers of acacia have already started to wilt, aided by the wind which blowed hard these days and therefore the bee season don't promises to be among the most productive. I had the opportunity to meet my friend Varni, the beekeeper of San Quirico (GE) who sold me the biological swarms, and he confirmed the situation almost "dramatic" for those who have to live by honey (I think he has got a few hundred hives). "They (the bees) are too good ... they can produce honey despite this absurd situation," he said with a tenderness that made me understand how these creatures are able to be loved, and find out what a great person he is, although he is apparently so tough and gruff...

The artificial swarm

Given the large number of real cells available and the large number of families, I created the first artificial swarm of which I will tell you in next time to not bore you too. For now I can only say that it will be called "La Pecheronza" (another name in waiting list, this time brought by Meteo Gas)...

Photos

I am attaching three pictures taken during the recovery of the swarm, the first with me near the hive (picture 1), the second (picture 2) portrays the detail with the bees on the entrance and on the queen excluder, and the third (picture 3) with the tree from which I picked down the bees. In this photo you note the bees still fly ... and the spurs of the cut branches are still attached to the central branch ... finally , imagine me clinging to the slender central branch, on top of the tree, swinging, with the saw in one hand and in the other a branch freshly cut ... understand because in the end my knees were shaking?... :-)

Proverb of the month: Pacienzia ci voli a li burrasche, cà nun si mancia meli senza muschi (It takes patience in storms, you do not eat honey without flies)

Quote of the month: For where is the bee that can claim, This honey was made by me(José Saramago)

Good-bye to all you . Guido

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Category: Newsletter
Published on Wednesday, 22 January 2014 14:01
Written by Guido
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