Small Swarm, Revisited (190)

Episode 190 – Small Swarm, Revisited

[music]

Jim Tew: Beekeepers, you know the drill. I've got about a 75-yard walk back to the yard. It's going to be a late summer. Hot. Not much of a nectar flow, I'm walking across white dots clover here, but it's not doing anything, there's no bead. Do you remember back in June that I had a short conversation about a strange little swarm that moved down and tried to go cohabitate with wax mobs and I tried to help them, made some changes, and left them alone?

Let me go back right now and have a look and see how they're doing. Got to get through the barn, which always is hot as all get out, and get my bee suit. I want to talk to you for a few minutes. I'm Jim Tew. I come to you once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I talk about something to do with bees. This time I'd like to talk about the small swarm. If you're hanging on, let's see what this thing is doing.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today Podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that will delve into all things honeybees.

Jim: Listeners, I hope this is funny. I hope this ends up being an enjoyable day, but I got to tell you right now, I'm doing something that you [chuckles] probably shouldn't try at home. This may or may not end up being a segment that we post. I'm not using smoke, why? Because it's a very small colony. If there's a flow on, it's minimal. I don't want to be the guy who comes back here and gets uncontrolled robbing started and gets these other colonies turned against this colony that's been fighting to hang on for so long. I'm wanting to see if I can quietly open it and just have a quick look, see what's in there. Give you and me both a report.

Got to zip up here to get in and see if they're going to make it or not. I've still got some time to help them get ready for winter, but it's getting close. There's bees up under the inner cover. It's not a lot. It's a small colony, or I think it is. Last time I said that, my grandson was here and we ended up getting almost killed. Oh, so far, good report. They're probably triple the size that they were back in June. I've got to move slowly.

It's going to be an odd presentation that I'm giving you because if I talk while I'm working the bees but no smoke, they going to come from my breath. If it sounds like I've only got one lung here or something, it's because I'm having to move away and look away when I talk to you, so give me just a second to get one frame out. I'm trying to get out the outside frame.

This colony is happily bigger than I thought. This whole no-smoke thing may not carry the day. Can you hear them? I certainly can. This may take longer than I thought. Just got stung for the first time, so I got to watch out now for the alarm pheromone coming. All right, take a break. I've got to go get gloves if I'm going to do this. I'll be right back. Okay, I'm back. Honestly, you can have a look right now. If you were here, you could say, "This thing is almost on five full frames. What else do you need to see, Jim?" It's much more difficult to do this work with gloves on when you're trying not to antagonize the bees.

Why don't I use smoke? Because there's no flow on. I said that when we started. I'm really concerned that I would get robbing going. Once that is truly going, I can't do anything about it other than just moving this colony. I don't want to do all that. I just wanted to have a look. They seem to have removed the wax balds. There's a big nice queen, she is absolutely beautiful. She's running around like a chicken with her head cut off. She really looks nice. That's really all I needed to see.

We talked to Ann the other day, she said she'd like to mark those queens. Well, when you see them like that, but here I am with the silly gloves on and no smoke. Got full frames of brood, kind of spotty. Got some bald brood that sometimes means that there's wax molds underneath. If you remember from June, this colony was trying to move into equipment that had heavy wax moth infestation. Heavy for my portable hive.

Give me just a second, listeners, I got to get this out. I cannot allow myself the luxury of dropping anything. There's really some beautiful home layout. They have the concentric circles. She's doing a good searching behavior. There's a lot of bald brood here. What is bald brood? It looks like everything is done but it's not kept. I'd like to know what that's all about. I'm holding a plastic frame. I know plastic frames are popular, I use them, but they flex and wreck under a load. I'm going to have to leave this as an unknown.

I don't know why there's a good amount of cells that are opened. The demeanor is okay. Physically the queen was absolutely beautiful, but that doesn't always mean anything, does it, listener? Sometimes you can have a fine queen who just not doing a job. These bees could actually profit from some pollen substitute. They're just moving on to five frames. They may, if they keep this output going, be able to get enough together, enough resources.

Oh man, I'm glad to be out of there before I got hurt. There was more bees there than I was expecting and that's always a good thing. I'm happy to have more bees that I'm expecting compared to the alternative. I might put on some of that pollen substitute to see if I can get these cutlass colony build up and help it get through the winter. I've got plenty of honey. You won't think less of me, but I don't always extract all that honey out. I can just give so much away and fair amount of work to do something that you're not going to do anything. I don't try to sell it anymore. All right, I'm getting in trouble here.

I've got plenty of honey that I can really support these and get them into a single deep. Standby. I'm going to move back to the shop where the air conditioner is on. I'm going to move away from bees that I open without any smoke, and I'm going to see if we can finish up this discussion. Standby.

[music]

Betterbee: Did you know that Betterbee has been the main sponsor of the Beekeeping Today Podcast for the past year. Betterbee is all about selling high-quality products. We stand behind and educate beekeepers to help them grow and succeed. Our free catalog features a 12-page center section packed with tips, tricks, and helpful info to guide you through all seasons. Get your free print copy of the Betterbee catalog at betterbee.com/catalog.

Jim: Okay, listeners, the walk back to the shop and then to pontificate, commiserate, do whatever it takes to see where we are on that or where I am. That's the swarm size that I was poo-pooing. When Ann and I were talking specifically about these small swarms, are they worth it or not? If you're a big guy with a lot of bees, they're not worth it. If you're a small guy playing like I am, it's an adventure. Let me get inside, get set up, start up again.

I don't know if you can hear it or not, but I'm not turning the air conditioner off [laughs]. It's not a 1 degree out there and I'll just ask you folks to listen over the buzz if you can hear it. Well, that was easy enough. You see, that's my kind of beekeeping. I didn't have to lie to smoker, so I don't smell all stinky. I didn't have to do a lot of work. I don't have sticky hands, but there's more bees there than I was expecting. I thought there'd be a lot more spotty brood and whatever ever. In retrospect, the colony has a chance if I keep working with it.

Now, I have said time and again that the bees don't need us, that we're just kind of a hanger-on individual, but this colony could use me. It didn't show the best judgment in swarming fairly late and then moving into some equipment that had some wax moth issues at it. it really had to fight for life to get this going. I stepped in. Sometimes you would say that I should let well enough alone, let the bees and the wax moths sort it out, but I came in on the side of the bees and I took out the worst frames of wax moths and gave them a frame or two that was not so badly infected for them to work with, and they took that on.

As I set back at the yard, this would be a possible colony that late in the season. Could actually profit from more-- just about a half of square of pollen substitute to give them a boost so they can keep cranking out that brood at a time when there's kind of a pollen dearth here. They had a little bit of honey. They're living kind of, what would you say, mandible to mouth or mouth parts to mouth. They're hanging on. They could profit from me giving them a frame or two of honey, but I got to open big colonies for that. Big colonies are going to have a much more intransigent attitude. Let's don't go rushing into that.

Tonight when I'm dozing off, I feel pretty good about this little beehive. I can actually be a helpful beekeeper in this case. Otherwise, this colony doesn't have a great chance. It has, in fact, almost no chance of surviving the winter, but if I step in, rearrange their whole living structure, give them at least a full deep, they're in a five-frame nuke right now, add that little bit of pollen substitute and then give them two or three frames of honey and then hang on for the fall flow that's just around the corner, they might be positioned enough to make it.

I didn't use smoke because I didn't want to get robbing started. I apologize for not having my gloves on, but honestly, it's really hard to run cameras and audio equipment when you got those clumsy sticky gloves on. I tried to go without it. They're not going to have any part of that. We're done. Thanks for walking along with me. It was just a pleasant little quick bee trip that I enjoyed doing and I enjoyed having you along with me. I look forward to talking to you next week. Until then, I'm Jim telling you bye.

[00:15:11] [END OF AUDIO]