April 12th brought us 6 new colonies of bees. Kathie Ulinski and Sr. Mary Trainer kindly picked them up in Wilkes-Barre that Saturday morning. Preparation was done with many hands. Hive stands were made, hive frames constructed, hive sites were leveled, wood painted, honey extractor maintenance, etc. All with help from Donna and John Marley, Fred, Mike, Ruben, and Kathie.
The day went perfectly, except for the rain. Not the best day for settling in new bee colonies, but we did it with expert help from Andrea Vettori. Despite the rain, Donna and I assisted Andrea and settled the bees into their new homes. We fed the new bees to help them start drawing out the comb. Not two days later, a funny thing happened. Two of our new colonies flew away, the queen and all. This is known as absconding. The bees were not happy with all the new wood/frames so went looking for another home with that ‘lived in’ feel/smell. The very next day we found the population of another adjacent hive had doubled its population overnight. We had only lost one colony.
The good news is two of our overwintered hives were getting ready to swarm. Each hive had swarm cells (new queens getting ready to emerge). They were creating a new queen and getting ready to take the living queen and about half of the colony to find another home. Again, with Andrea’s help, we were able to find the living queens in each hive and move her and about half of the bees into new boxes. We avoided losing the bees. This left the other colonies just fine as the queen being created would emerge in a few days, go on a mating flight, and start laying eggs. All of this is called an ‘artificial swarm’. Instead of losing a colony, we were able to create 2 more and keep the bees happy at the same time.
As of the beginning of May, we have 10 colonies of bees, and our Apiary is doing well for now. We never take nature for granted though. We rarely interfere with the bees, allowing them to do what they know how to do well. Our goal is to be good stewards to the bees by keeping them healthy and happy by protecting them from stresses such as harmful landscape chemicals, rodents, moths, and mites, and providing an environment conducive to good honey production; not only for us, but for the honeybees themselves.
On May 12th, Donna, Kathie and I were able to remove 14 frames of capped honey from our overwintered hives. On May 13th we extracted 55 pounds of delicious honey with the help of Kathie, Donna and John Marley. On May 27th, we again did a smaller harvest of 22 pounds. The hard work paid off with 2 successful honey harvests and a few more to come. We will be careful to leave plenty of honey for the bees to overwinter.
Without our volunteers, it would be impossible to accomplish what we have done since April 12th. We have the support and encouragement of Dawn and Elizabeth for our needs in keeping the Apiary going. I am still learning after 2 years! There are many tasks at different times of the year. Interested? Let us know by emailing Kathie at kulinski@cranaleith.org.
Did you know? Male bees, known as Drones, do not have stingers. Curious about “absconding bees”? Look it up online and learn something new!
Have a BEEautiful day!
