Chez StanMinn Communiqués: They Swarmed

I went back to Ohio (insert Pretenders soundtrack here) last month mainly to help my parents move into their new home.

But that's an entry for another time.

What I'm writing about with this one is what was beginning to happen before I left and what inevitably did when I returned.

Those bees swarmed!

You know, those bees we JUST got back in April?

The ones I don't know wth I'm doing with?
A bunch of bees I've yet to post about how I even got to come live with us?
Well, that's just going to have to wait, too, mostly because I've got a gazillion pictures to pick through to decide which ones are actually blog worthy.

So for now, we jump ahead to the fascinating occurrence of nature-

I'd successfully installed the 2# package (snort) of bees all by my lonesome on April 13th, a Sunday and 2 days after collecting them from Glory Bee.

But had waited a little longer than the prescribed 3 days to see if the encased Queen had been released to do her thing basically because I was scared and still didn't know exactly what to look for.

There hadn't been anything to worry about as she was well on her way to gettin' busy with makin' bees who make the honey, and a bunch of other chores.

In fact, by the time I was leaving on a jet plane a month later, the hive was abuzz (ha) with activity- maybe a little *too* much.

But again, I wasn't sure if all this frenetic action was normal, so I just let it be and kept my distance.

That was the intent and allure of our chosen system- the Warre hive.

Compared to the more popular Longstrath kind, top bars are meant to self-regulate and mimic natural environs, which sounded perfectly suited to us novices.

There was still some concern over keeping up with the feeding.

Just like the Hummers, these bees required a sugar water mixture until the blooms and nectar came in.

But they certainly were sucking it up.

We'd also built the boxes incorrectly (and by 'we' I mean CAM) in that the middle one had a bung hole on both ends.

The legit entrance was a slit on the bottom while above it the Boardman feeder was located, both facing the suggested direction East.

The bees preferred this opening, thus it became a tremendous clusterfuck.

I finally picked up the clue phone by switching it out to the backside, so whereas they continued to use the hole to both feed and access the hive, they were also now utilizing the front, as well.

Trouble was, there were shit tons of them.

I wondered what it would be like when the food jar was removed and the opening plugged?
A mess, for sure.

That needn't be a concern, of course, because those bees know what they're doing.

"Bearding" had begun to occur in mid-May, though I wouldn't realize it had a name or what it foretold.

CAM continued to monitor, feed and keep his distance from the ever-expanding colony so that by the time I returned to Chez StanMinn, they were overwhelming.

Wednesday, June 11th at 2pm I went out to take photos of the box to share with our SHOW '14 guests, warning them to steer clear of Bramble Island.

Mentally I was already cordoning off the area with bright pink tape.

At 3pm when I was about to christen the new hammock season, I detected a pretty loud buzzing sound.

After taking a picture of the ground where my butt had ended up surely not because it'd grown in a year, but because the hammock had been hung too low, I went over to investigate.

There was no way, I surmised, that I'd be able to hear such noise from inside our hive, despite its growing population.

It was just too far away and the creek would have drowned out most of it.

And yes, that'd all be correct.

Because I discovered, with more than a little horror, a huge mass of bees 30-40' above the chicken coop!

Initially frozen, it dawned on me this was a situation and I needed to 'get the rag out' (an OH colloquialism my grandmother used to exclaim which was given rebirth from the recent visit with my family.)

It wouldn't be until much later that I'd confirmed it was, indeed, our bees who'd just made this bold move.

For now, I was all, uuuhhhh...do what now?

Except that there was nothing to do.

Maybe call "Happy Farm" to come try collect them (although they were likely too high up) and perhaps hive them in any spare he might have?
Or just leave them?

Which by default is exactly what happened.

I spent a great amount of time tip-toeing around with binoculars looking into the trees to figure out what was going on.

It was obvious, but my wee brain wouldn't let the pieces snap into place quite yet, so these moments of wonder and fear were taking over.

At one point, even tho' I was on the other side of the yard, I instinctively ducked when a significant section dropped away and flew off across the road.
Perhaps those scout bees discovered Bill's old barn around the bend at the tree farm because contrary to the 24-48 hrs. it usually takes to rehome, our bees were gone in >6.
And they were right on target, time wise (between 10 am - 2 pm), calender wise (from April 15th - June 15th), weather wise (cold rain came in the next day.)
I'm just terribly sorry I wasn't more on top of the phenom- it would have been so cool to actually witness the migration: I'd been right in the middle of it all.

From what I'd read initially off the interwebs, it seemed like we'd failed; that swarming is bad and to be avoided.
Glory Bee's site in particular, had a list of ways to keep this from happening.
But these were groups in it for the commerce of bee products- honey, wax and such.
Not our intent or goal.
We just wanted to save the world.

Ironically enough, I found an affirming site out of Cincinnati, of all places.
I was JUST there!
In fact, the coincidence went even further in that TwoHoneys Bee Co. was closely affiliated with my sister's favorite local restaurant and the glass studio where we'd made nifty pieces over the Memorial Day Week-end Siblings & Spouses Reunion.
Providence if I've ever seen it.

My "chicken" pre-kiln

*These* people said swarming was a good thing, it meant your bees were healthy, but more importantly, that it was a gift for the Earth.
And wasn't that the whole reason we embarked on this project to begin with?

The previous evening I'd removed the jar to refill with syrup food for one of the last times, which is why it's not pictured here- I'm waiting until dusk to replace it. Little do I know what's about to occur...

The upside-down glass jar of sugar juice sits on the shelf

Pre-swarm; both sides of the hive with entrances had been lousy with bees

What a difference a couple of months make; Bramble Island has grown up significantly

A brief interim between swarm activity wherein I document my fat ass on the ground instead of swaying from the hammock

Not a bad collection of photos considering it was all I could do to hold the camera phone up blindly in the sun and hope to capture the dark kite form in the branches