So first things first, I brought home my KTBH and set her up in the garden.
This is my new favorite corner of the garden. There are bare black currant bushes in the lower left, my tapped maple tree, and then of course my hive.
It was super warm today (and warmer tomorrow!) and the bees were flying like crazy. I put a feeder like the one on my fire escape into the hive and hoped the bees would find it…and then I got impatient and opened the hive up and took some bars out…and then I got impatient and put it on top of the bars in the hive and went to lunch.
When I came back there were a million bees on the feeder – so I carefully picked it up and set it back down into the hive.
For a while I just left it there with a few bars out and the bees were coming and going through the roof. Then I put the bars and the roof back on to see if they would get the hint and they did!
Bees at the entrance!
I also bought myself some hothouse tulip bulbs at wholefoods last week that just bloomed – since the day was warm enough, I put them out to see if the bees wanted some pollen. Turns out, they did!
This was pretty exciting to me. I love spring bulbs and I have some daff & crocus out front – and will plant these in a bit. I might, though, make a tradition of buying hothouse bulbs to treat my bees with before anything is really up. They seemed to be super into it.
Backtracking to the “I went to lunch part” – my cousin came to take me to lunch – tomorrow is my birthday – and as we were headed to her car, bee-type-motion caught my eye – and I finally figured out where the bees are living!
That hole is the hive entrance. From what I’ve observed, read, and what my beekeeping instructor has told me – they probably have built a hive in the wall of this house. It’s been abandoned for years and is just starting to be worked on. I wouldn’t be surprised if it threw a swarm early, but they’re still going to have to get them out of the wall…Mel seems to think that removal on this scale (with the assistance of the contractor) isn’t outside of my skillset…I have watched a bunch of videos on the subject and it looks crazy, but I’ll try anything once – and I do have a whole bee suit!
This is what he says : You should wait until the weather is warmer , more than just one day of warm weather. If they are in the wall, you might be able to talk the contractor into letting you take them from within the wall from the inside, especially if they are planning on ripping the plaster out. IF THEY CAREFULLY OPEN THE WALL, you can then move them into a bucket. This will also make it easier to make sure you have the queen. Let me know what you plan to do and maybe I will be able to come over and help. They are more than likely in the wall between the studs and have built comb out, so there is probably honey which you can maybe tell the contractor he can have some of it if they help you capture the bees.
Tomorrow is both my birthday and a full moon, so it seems like a good day to go try to talk to the new neighbors…at the risk of being that weird girl down the block who wants to rescue the bees living in their walls…
I should probably figure out how to work my smoker soon if I’m going to try this.
Sweet Honey in the Rox 