using a plastic planter as a bait hive for honeybee swarms

Eric made and hung a simple bait hive this spring.  The hope is to lure, catch, and transfer a swarm of bees that are looking to relocate anyway from the bait hive into your backyard hive.  Often a healthy hive of well established bees will make a second queen and half of the bees will leave with her to build a new hive.  Before they leave, the bees will scout out ideal locations (high above the ground, hollow, enclosed spaces) and then vote on where they'd like to resettle.  It's a democracy after all.

According to research by Thomas D. Seeley, documented in the excellent book Honeybee Democracy, honeybees most frequently choose cavities with volume around 40 liters (around 10 gallons). Eric thought about buying a 10-gallon plastic planter, but we had a 7-gallon planter laying around, so we used that. Eric covered the top with plywood and attached the bait hive with screws to the tree for smooth removal in case we do need to transfer a swarm some day.

We don't own a ladder taller than 6 ft., so we borrowed a neighbor's ladder to mount the hive. Eric uses a long stick (with a nail on the end) to periodically insert a cotton ball soaked with lemongrass oil into the hive.  The lemongrass oil is similar to queen pheromones which is supposed to entice the scouts.

 

wax moths in the beehive

Well, our honeybee colony's population has continued to decline (though I've continued feeding them) and yesterday I looked in the observation window and discovered that wax moth larvae had destroyed about half of the comb. The adult moth lays eggs in the comb and when the larvae hatch, they plow through the comb, eating everything in their path: beeswax, honey, stored pollen, brood, and even wood.

This is a sign the colony is too weak to defend itself–a strong hive would not let this happen. Perhaps if I had done an inspection of the combs more recently (pulling each one out to look at it), I would have discovered the moth larvae sooner. Then it may have been contained to one comb, as opposed to three.

There's not much you can do about wax moth larvae. I brushed the bees off the infested comb, squished the larvae (would make good chicken food), and saved some of the more intact comb to try to reuse. I put this comb in the freezer to kill any moth eggs.

It doesn't seem likely that the colony will survive the winter. I've been seeing yellow jackets in the hive as well, another sign that the hive is weak. It's possible that the queen is already dead, since I didn't see any new eggs or (bee) larvae in the hive, just a few capped brood cells. Sad, but I feel we did everything we could to improve their chances of survival. At least we have some built comb we can save for future colonies, and we've gained some experience.

To close, some interesting words on wax moths, from Les Crowder and Heather Harrell, authors of Top-bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health:

Although we may not see them, there are wax moths, either latent or active, in all beehives. Pregnant moths have a scent-cloaking ability and slip into the hives past the guard bees and lay eggs. Tiny threadlike larvae then begin chewing their way through the combs, eating cocoon silk, honey, pollen, bee larvae, and beeswax. Wax moth larvae actually are unable to digest combs of clean, pure beeswax and instead thrive on old black combs filled with bee feces and layers of cocoons.

Sometimes we hear of hives succumbing to wax moth, but in many cases this is because all the combs in the hive simply had gotten too old and dirty to house bees, so the bees allowed the wax moths to take over. In a healthy hive, the bees in a colony are constantly weeding out wax moth larvae. If the hive gets sick or queenless and the population of bees diminishes, wriggling masses of wax moth larvae proliferate and destroy the hive. However, if a hive is healthy and strong, the bees can keep them at bay and even use them to remove old, unsafe combs. We consider wax moths to be symbiotic organisms in a beehive, like the wrecking ball that tears down an old condemned building to make space for new construction.

Sure enough, the old combs I had hung from top bars to give the bees a head start were the ones most destroyed by larvae.

moment of truth for the bees

Today, Wednesday, August 14, 2013 is the moment of truth for our colony. That is six weeks after we installed the colony. Honeybee workers live an average of six weeks during the busy summer, so all the worker bees in the colony will have been born and raised in our backyard hive.

The population has dropped to about half of what it was when first installed. This made me very nervous as I inspected the combs the other day, since I had only seen a few tiny eggs during the last inspection. I was relieved to see a spattering of curled up white larvae and capped brood cells:

Not as much brood as I'd like to see, but still reassuring. However, it looks like much of the brood is has domed caps, indicating that it is drone brood. Hopefully there is at least some worker brood, or else we might have an unmated queen, who can only produce unfertilized eggs that become drones. While drones propagate the genes of the colony, they do not "work" and don't contribute to the immediate survival of the hive. In fact, they consume hive resources. Naturally, they are kicked out of the hive in the autumn.

I was reassured to learn that worker bees live 4–9 months through the winter season, and that a colony's population fluctuates: from 60,000–80,000 in the summer to 20,000–30,000 in the winter.

The weeds that make up the majority of our backyard right now are waist high. I had worried that they had gone to seed before we could cut them back. But the other day I was amazed to see a veritable metropolis of bees, like an army of window washers, furiously scanning up and down the stalks of tiny flowers so small I didn't know they were flowers until I saw the bees' interest in them. They were really loving the one weed that dominates the backyard that I haven't been able to identify (see top photo). It made me really glad that we hadn't cut it all back yet. It seems like it would be difficult to time the cutting to be after flowering and before seeds are mature. We may do the cutting in stages, so that we don't destroy all of the potential nectar sources/habitats at once.

The bees are also loving the buckwheat that I dispersion seeded in an area loosely mulched with wood chips:

top bar hive inspection - day 10

The bees had started building comb on four top bars after 10 days. We haven't been able to glimpse the queen yet, and we couldn't spot any eggs or larvae, so we'll have to keep an eye on it in case the queen is dead.

I had to trim a little off one of the combs that was a little crooked. The honey that stuck to the knife is some of the best tasting I've ever had!


We finally removed the old comb that was sitting on the bottom mesh screen. We had originally put it there to attract the bees to prevent absconding. We decided to tie it up to a bar let them build off it. Probably not necessary, but it looked in maybe, just maybe there was some larvae in it. Ribbon works well since it is broad and won't cut through the comb like thread might.


With all the hot weather we've been having (highs in the 90s), the bees have been bearding so I added some roof insulation. I used a 1" thick piece of salvaged polyisocyanurate (yellow, foil-faced). The facing had come off one side, so I wrapped it in sheets of aluminum foil in order to keep foam particles from falling off into the hive. The foil also helps since it acts as a radiant barrier. We drilled some gable vents to ventilate the space above the insulation and below the metal roof, to try to reduce the solar gain. We can plug the vents during the winter.

we got bees!

After giving up all hope of getting honeybees this season, we were able to get a colony from Five Fridges Farm. This colony had been removed from a (human) structure by a humane bee removal company. Because they had already been established and were forcibly removed, as opposed to a captured swarm, they are stressed and it is less likely that they will survive or stick around in our hive. We tried to make our hive as appealing as possible by sewing some old comb to one of the top bars and putting some lemongrass essential oil (mimics the queen pheromone) on the inside.

Doing the swarm pour:


Inspecting the hive the next morning:


For the first few days, there was a lot of activity outside the hive, with maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the colony clustering on the outside of the hive:


I was worried that this was a sign they were getting ready to swarm–possibly leaving with a second queen. After four days, the cluster on the outside was gone, and I was able to see some fresh comb through the observation window–a good sign that the bees have decided to stay!