wild honey
It’s been a little over a week since Amanda told me about this feral beehive. Her sister-in-law, Adriana called her one day, saying she had a neighbor who had a beehive on their land that they needed “gone by Saturday”. Amanda continued, “They're going to throw it on their weekly brushfire.” With Saturday only a couple of days away, Amanda paid a visit to the reluctant landlords of these endangered bees.
The hive was the result of an enthusiastic prospective beekeeper, we’ll call them Neighbor Two, deciding to try to catch a swarm on Neighbor One's land. They asked Neighbor One, if they could nail some bee boxes and frames into a tree on their property. The answer was, “Sure.” So up the ladder they went, hammer, hammer, nail, nail and voila! Swarm bait! Neighbor Two was successful in catching a swarm, and then returned to wrap the boxes with ratchet straps and bring them down safely from the tree. Now I’m betting at this point, that Neighbor Two did a little research and learned that maybe they had bit off more than they could chew, or just wasn’t really interested anymore, because they left these ratchet strapped boxes of bees right there at the bottom of that tree, all summer long. Hating the idea of bees going on a bonfire, Amanda brought the hive, still strapped together to Adriana's yard. She removed the straps and cracked this wonky, feral hive open.
The top box was a medium honey super. All 10 frames had no foundation. There was one frame with a small piece of brittle comb zip tied to the top. None of these frames were drawn with comb. Not even partially. She removed the box and set it aside The second box was a deep. This box had lots of bees and it appeared to have fully drawn comb with many frames of honey, she noticed that one of the frames was missing and the bees had filled the space with comb.
She texted Amy our beekeeper friend, “What do I do?” Amy quickly responded, “Don’t bring that to your yard, its likely a mite bomb.” Without the routine mite treatments, it was likely the mite load was very high in this hive, and bringing in to one of our yards near our hives the mites could easily over run our hives that we’ve worked so hard maintaining all summer. As she was telling me this story and showing me all of the photos of this hive, my brain was going a mile a minute. I knew I wanted to try to save it, but there were so many issues. We started to kick ideas back and forth and before the evening was over, we had a plan.
The blue box is the new deep, and the rotten box is on the ground. The frames were foundationless and there was one full frame missing. They made comb to fill the space anyway, as bees do. This creates a problem with moving the frames out of the box, the comb would surely break and fall apart causing loss of honey which is one of the biggest assets this hive has is its honey stores.
A few days later, we visited the hive. We brought with us a proper bottom board with screen, and an inner and outer cover. We brought a replacement deep box as the existing one was rotten from sitting in the grass. I carefully moved each frame from the broken rotten box to the new one. There were many pieces of comb that separated and fell from the frames. As we moved them from box to box, we placed the pieces in the new box as carefully as we could not to disturb the honey. We looked for a queen and never saw her, never saw eggs or brood either but this is expected this time of year. There was one frame that looked as if it may have been a brood patch that had broken out and been cleaned up. There are oodles of bees in this hive.
The first frame was a medium, in a deep box, again if you look on the bottom of the frame those industrious creatures filled that space at the bottom, when I lifted the frame out of the box is left chunks of comb and oozing honey at the bottom of the box.
The one frame I suspected had been brood, there were a few odd, capped cells and the rest of the area is clear, they were filling that section with nectar.
When we got to the last two frames we lifted and moved them together as one. The comb on both frames was so connected it seemed the safest way. As carefully as we worked it seemed like the honey was pouring out from the bottom. The bees were getting very agitated at this point. I was stung through my glove through the white near my wrist, and they were very loud in my ears. I felt tense, for a couple of minutes I thought, “This is crazy!” It was actually the first time I thought of them as feral. “These girls are wild, they are probably loaded with mites, they are aggressive to boot. I don’t know if I want them in my yard! What am I doing?!” Then I would breathe a minute and tell myself, “I’m learning, that’s what I’m doing.”
The two frames we moved together. The queen may have been between these frames too. There were so many places for her to hide. We both felt that the hive appeared to robust to be queen less.
One fat frame that is two combs deep. I wondered if our queen might be hiding between these two combs, I would!
Once the bees were situated in their new house, we needed to do an alcohol wash. With no brood to sample from we chose to scoop bees that were left in the bottom of the old box there was just enough, into the alcohol. I set the jar aside and we put the inner and outer cover on. We were shocked! The wash showed sixty to seventy mites. It is recommended practice to treat any hive over three mites in an alcohol wash. We have sixty or more!
Peter Cowen, The Bee Whisperer lives a half a mile from where this hive is sitting, and I was imagining at that moment that Peter would recommend exterminating this hive. There’s no way these bees weren’t visiting his hives sometimes. I had no idea how he would do it or suggest we should do it, but I was sure these girls would be goners. I was wrong. We drove up to Peter’s and he strolled out to greet us and he was smiling while he listened to our tale. When we were finished and asked our question, “Are they a complete loss?” Still smiling, he said, “No, they might make it.” He went on to suggest we feed them and treat them chemically for mites, and sooner the better. He was so encouraging, “The worst thing you could do is leave them. You’re doing something. Good luck to you!”
Over the next couple of days, we filled feeders with sugar water. On Saturday the 28th, I did an oxalic acid treatment. (more on this later, I still need to do our hives at home) I will repeat the treatment later this week. Then the following week we will winterize the hive and cross our fingers! Reflecting on the whole project to date, this is what we came to. The worst outcome would be the whole hive dying, whether from mite infestation, starvation or freezing. At this point it is all out of our control. We did something, and we did our best. The best outcome would be, the bees survive, we get honey, we get more bees, and we get all the experience and knowledge gained no matter what the outcome. We cannot lose in either scenario.
Achievement Unlocked! Oxalic Acid Vapor Master!
Thank you for stopping by again, Check back in another week or two for oxalic acid (OA) treatment instructions and information on winterization of the hives! All Bee Blessed! until next time!
-Mel