My DayValley Moment

JP · March 10, 2008, 11:37:29 PM

Caught a very nice swarm today shook them in a cardboard box. Added a drawn out frame and smeared a lil' lemon grass oil for good measure. Took 'em home and preceded to place them in a medium, atop a deep that was housing a small queenless hive I had removed a few weeks ago. Did the newspaper combine. This small hive that I had removed had a queen cell and they in fact had made a queen, which I didn't think they had. Wanna know how I knew? She was piping!!! What a beautiful sound when they pipe! Anyway, because time was the essence, and the queen in the bottom deep was small, I decided to do the combine anyway, and let the queens duke it out. Besides, I didn't have anywhere else to put them at that moment.

Everything was going well, until my DayValley moment. I had walked to my truck for something and noticed thousands of bees in the air, buzzing loudly, what a beautiful thing, a magical moment for sure. Ya know when I see bees swarm I am devising a plan for capture, but one day, I will just sit back and take it all in, and let them just do there thing, while I simply experience the experience of swarming. Its truly a magnificent thing to behold!

My redneck moment began when they settled in my ligustrum 14' up. My sister n law wanted to kill me for doing this but I put the ladder on the tailgate of the truck and did a balancing act, bad leg, bad back and all. She said she was on pins and needles and she was not taking pictures, period! I wish I had some pics of that episode, you'll just have to trust me when I tell you, that I went redneck on them bees, while of course the whole time I was thinking of Brendhan.

Got them back in the cardboard box and placed them in the deep this time. Saw no sign of the small queen she may have been killed, I don't know. Anyway, after dumping them in the deep, things were going pretty well, except for the fact that about 25 bees would not let the queen go, kept her in a ball atop the frames for an hour. I tried several times to pull them apart and saw her a couple of times, she was the same one from the swarm because her butt end was golden with a black tip. And she was piping away! After a while I had had enough and pryed them apart enough to enable the queen to slip down between the frames. I left and when I came back this evening, all was well.

...JP

http://picasaweb.google.com/pyxicephalus/March102008

mgates61 · March 11, 2008, 12:04:05 AM

Great pics JP. Wasn't sure what U meant about the "ball" until I saw the pic. Cool.

Mike

Flygirl · March 11, 2008, 12:14:04 AM

Wowie Zowie!! Cool pictures!! Thanks for sharing...I hope I have such an exciting time ;) FG

poka-bee · March 11, 2008, 12:22:26 AM

Great Pictures JP!! It's good for us new-bees to see how a clump-o-bees looks! I also didn't really understand about the ball till that pic. I really liked the one from across the top where the bees looked like planes at the airport! How heavy was that box full of bees? It's hard to imagine until you actually start handling them..soon..soon...soon!

JP · March 11, 2008, 01:06:18 AM

Poka, my guess is that it weighed about 3 and a half lbs.

...JP

Cindi · March 11, 2008, 01:13:47 AM

JP, wow, you never cease to amaze me. I loved looking at those pictures. Watching someone dump a cardboard box of bees into a hive is such a beautiful sight to see, it is simply amazing. What an adventure you went through today.

When the queen is being balled by the bees, she is usually injured or suffocated. You were lucky that she got out of the cluster alive. You must have intervened enough times and often enough that the girls didn't have a chance to do her harm. Good show!!! I have seen my bees pack out a queen once. I knew it was my fault, I had disturbed them on a really bad day and they must have balled her to death. She was dead the next day. Sometimes the bees will think it the fault of the queen when their hive is disturbed. I don't know how often this occurrence is, but I have heard of it happen and it did happen to my colony that day.

Yeah!!! Your adventures are great to follow along, and it surely sounded like a DayValley Moment for sure, hee, hee, wonderful day, keep those pictures comin' on, they are wonderful. Cindi

JP · March 11, 2008, 01:26:08 AM

Quote from Cindy:

When the queen is being balled by the bees, she is usually injured or suffocated. You were lucky that she got out of the cluster alive. You must have intervened enough times and often enough that the girls didn't have a chance to do her harm. Good show!!! I have seen my bees pack out a queen once. I knew it was my fault, I had disturbed them on a really bad day and they must have balled her to death. She was dead the next day. Sometimes the bees will think it the fault of the queen when their hive is disturbed. I don't know how often this occurrence is, but I have heard of it happen and it did happen to my colony that day.

My response:

Cindi, what you say makes a lot of sense to me. Those bees seemed to be relentless with their balling her. When she would pipe I felt like she was crying out. They seemed so tight on her but as I observed them they weren't or didn't seem to be hostile towards her. I looked to see if there was any biting going on, didn't see that. I also had the feeling that the swarm perhaps didn't want the queen to leave again because they were content to be where they were, so they decided to ball her tightly. One things for sure is that its truly amazing that life for them is all about that one royal specimen.

...JP

annette · March 11, 2008, 01:39:28 AM

I saw the photo of the queen with her butt up in the air. It wasn't very clear, but you can see her. This is very exciting stuff JP. I hope that one day I can experience something like this.

I am going to get my little nuc out there near the apiary and try to catch a swarm. I'm not much into placing anything up in the trees, so I will just try my luck on the ground.

Thanks for sharing these photos, which I enjoy so much.

Annette

JP · March 11, 2008, 01:49:24 AM

Quote from: annette on March 11, 2008, 01:39:28 AM
I saw the photo of the queen with her butt up in the air. It wasn't very clear, but you can see her. This is very exciting stuff JP. I hope that one day I can experience something like this.

I am going to get my little nuc out there near the apiary and try to catch a swarm. I'm not much into placing anything up in the trees, so I will just try my luck on the ground.

Thanks for sharing these photos, which I enjoy so much.

Annette

Yes Annette, that was her. I took other ones but they were even more blurry than that one. Good luck catching some they are a lot of fun! Glad you enjoyed the pics.

...JP

Cindi · March 11, 2008, 01:51:17 AM

JP, I have a thought and it is just stuff coming from the cobwebs of my mind. When a swarm is issued the queen doesn't really want to go, the workers force her to go, just like the mating flight, they force her out of the hive. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that is what goes on with the bees. I would like to hear comments from others that have more experience and knowledge about this queen thing. The workers govern EVERYTHING in the hive, everything, it is an amazing thought, about how they have her do their will.

I don't think the bees were trying to prevent the queen from swarming again, because they were happy in their new home. They were gonna commit regicide, they had a balling going on and they were going to smother her. They were disturbed and very upset, and they blamed the queen for this. I think that the piping may have been coming from her. It was her agenda to kill the other newly emerging queen. I am not too sure what was going on there with the queen stuff, or who was piping, but I bet it was the older queen, she had access to the frame foundation, you will hear what I mean by this in a minute.

When the queen pipes, it causes a reaction in the colony sometimes where the bees freeze. It is like they have been frozen in time, strange why that occurs, but I have read about it. The queen piping is caused by the queen pressing her thorax on the frame and making a vibration, it causes this piping sound, and yes, it is beautiful to hear. Bees don't like vibration and for the queen to emit such a loud sound, along with the vibratoin, every bee in the colony probably feels her presence physically. You have experienced a very cool thing JP, those kind of experiences are beautiful and you were part of this. Beautiful day, in this great life. Cindi

JP · March 11, 2008, 10:53:28 AM

Cindi, I have seen queens balled before but never so tightly as this one was. Your cobwebs may have untangled this mystery. I could have sworn and would swear that this was the queen in the ball that was piping cause I was right there amongst all the action and I heard her piping over and again, but what do I know. Before I reintroduced the swarm for the second time I went in and inspected the deep and the medium for signs of that smaller queen but maybe I overlooked her. I'm hoping Don and Michael or some of the others with more knowledge about these things can lend a hand and solve this. As I grow more curious now than ever. Cindi, you have raised some excellent points to ponder. It will be interesting to see who the queen is as I go in to inspect this hive in the near future. Until then, piping, how cool is that?

...JP

Cindi · March 11, 2008, 10:56:12 AM

JP, yep, gurus will chime in here for surely. I heard piping the second year of my beekeeping, we thought it was a banty chicken from the chickenyard, that is what it sounded like to me, hee, hee. Wonderful day in this life. Cindi

DayValleyDahlias · March 11, 2008, 11:15:01 AM

Wow, once again amazing pictures...isn't the swarming experience humbling!

Brian D. Bray · March 11, 2008, 11:01:30 PM

If there was a younger (smaller) queen in the swarm chances are that the bees would elect to go with her over an older more established queen that would be more prone to fail. In that instance they would ball the older queen. If the younger queen was lost or damaged during swarm collection then the bees will go with the older queen, otherwise the older queen will be killed by the workers. Check back in a bit, after some comb is drawn, and observe brood patterns and try to find the queen. You may find something different than that black bottomed queen in the fuzzy picture.

Understudy · March 12, 2008, 11:56:45 PM

I am very disappointed I did not see the pictures in the bed of the truck. :)

Other than that it looked great.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

JP · March 13, 2008, 12:27:11 AM

Quote from: Understudy on March 12, 2008, 11:56:45 PM
I am very disappointed I did not see the pictures in the bed of the truck. :)

Other than that it looked great.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

I kept asking my sister n law to take some but she said she wouldn't because she was afraid I would fall, and wanted me down. She would not take the pics! I could have had my redneck moment captured but nooooo!

...JP