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02/11/2006 Archived Entry: "I am the pol pot of beekeeping"

Mass bee genocide.
Leonard from the beekeeper association in my area was finally able to come by and tag up with me. My schedule has been so hectic that I had to cancel my three other attempts to meet with him.
Let's go over the facts. I did have a queen cell on my feral colony. It did not take. There were not enough bees and the small hive beetles had decimated the hive. The 4 frames and the queen I picked up about three weeks ago are doing fine. The queen in laying eggs and the hive is strong. So after discussions with Leonard and reading through the bee forum I basically have destroyed the hive that I took out of the boat.
Here is what happened. The bees that I bought were placed in a cardboard nuc box. Since the cardboard nuc box was much cheaper to ship overnight. I had them do that about a week before I left for San Fran. I kept the bees in that until I got back. Yesterday I assembled the wooden nuc box and painted it. I had planned on putting the bees out of the cardboard version of it and into the wooden version of it.

Leonard and I agreed that my orginal hive was dying and in about another week or two the bees would be all but gone. While they were making new comb, the hive beetles were quick to eat it. And with no queen the colony was in a weak state. Instead of moving the bees I purchased into the box with the orginal bees we would move the orginal bees into the nuc. However just the bees. We did not want to transfer anything but the bees.

So what I did was I literally went into the cardboard nuc took the frames out and put them into the wooden nuc. Now I have one group of really mad bees. However why settle for one group of mad bees when you can have two. So after getting the cardboard nuc bees into the wooden nuc I went for my orginal colony and took out each frame and brushed off the bees. And banged the frame on the corner to motivate the bees that kept hanging on. Banging your frame is a hell of a way to piss of bees but it worked. I repeated that with each frame and the box and now I have completly removed the bees home.

I move the wooden nuc box to where the orginal bees were and placed branches in front of the hive and also placed branches where the cardboard nuc use to be. So now I have two very angry groups of bees flying around trying to orient themselves to home and one group is trying to move into where home was. The bees in the wooden nuc view these bees as robbers and are trying to stop them from coming in. Basically they will either accept my orginal bees or they will kill them either way the remains of the orginal colony that I took from the boat will not exist in another two weeks becase the last of those bees will have reached the end of their lifespan.

I am going to buy a colony from Leonard and use that as my second colony. I want to have two hives so that the two will work with each other.

I have to admit it kinda sucks that the orginal colony will vanish through attrition, but I don't regret moving them out of the boat. Exterminators would have just killed them and I wouldn't have had a chance to enjoy the bees. I have learned a lot. And when I went into this I did not have very high expectations of success. But I would do it again in a heartbeat. I still have one colony and I will have a second soon and I will be very happy to raise those bees and get honey and wax from them. I also have the ablity to say that I have been in a wild bees nest and removed it. Not everyone can say that. Not everyone would probably want to. Maybe not everyone is as crazy as I am.

Stay tuned to this channel for futher updates on bees in my neighborhood.