Saturday, July 7, 2012

Catching Up

Sorry for not posting for so long, but life has only gotten busier since spring. Well, let's move on as they say. 

One week  before Mother's Day, I was at church helping with our annual Patch the Pirate play when Maggie got a call from Mom. Evidently there were 2 huge swarms of bees, one on a stump and one on our dog's backyard pen...both close to the ground which makes it easy to recapture.  (Last year's swarm was 15 feet up in a tree!)

Thankfully Mom came and picked me up so I could get home and hive them. We were also thankful that our neighbor, Mr. F, a former beekeeper, came over and helped Dad (who was still on crutches recovering from a snapped Achilles tendon) capture the swarm on the stump. Mr. F had helped us with our first swarm last year, that we later found out was my hive!
When I got home I went right to work and popped the cover off the north hive. This hive is a hive of New World Carniolans.  Because of the warm winter here in southern Maryland they had become a huge hive with wall to wall brood!  The once highly populated hive was now down to a medium sized hive of bees. That and the decreased activity at the hive's entrance was enough to satisfy me that we had found our thief! 

I suspect there were two reasons for the swarm:  the 80-degree day and the overpopulated hive. The swarm was followed by an after-swarm (a Beekeeper term for a second swarm from the same hive). The above photo shows me returning the bees that Mr. F had already captured for us back the into the hive after I added a deep and a few supers to give them more room. Even with all that extra room, they swarmed again two weeks later...if that gives you an idea of the size of the hive.     

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