I have a swarm trap full of bees!!! Viewed with the FLIR One

This is a 6 frame swarm trap which I left alone with a swarm in it to see if it would over winter. It was nearing fall & I didn't want them to have to rebuild comb, so I left them alone as an experiment. It was time to change the camera cards in a couple of game cams & I thought I would justify the FLIR ONE purchase & use it to check out the trap.

Much to my surprise it is full of bees! The display has a range of color combinations I can use. This one shows the entire box hot with the main cluster on the right 1/2 which is normal, as that is where the entrance is. They were flying in & out.

Left side

 Right side

 Bottom view

The Willys MB

It seems I have more hives that I thought I had.

Hives doing well!

Looks like all 8 made it through a very mild although very wet winter. So far. All are very busy today and bringing in pollen.  Here's two of them:

.I decided to get a close-up of the newts mating in the second pond (yes, it's an early spring) and while they stayed too far away, Of course these guys were right below the house and I didn't have a long lens with me.

Honey house

After having bee stuff stored on the porch, in the basement, in the barn, and in in several other places in the house, at last everything will have a a place to go. With the cut outs & swarms, I'm up to ten hives now this year. We harvested from only three, but got 15 gallons of honey from four supers and a deep. Next year should be even better and if nothing else a whole lot easier. I still have to wire it with outlets and hang some salvaged light fixtures, and add something better than a hose for the water line,  I'll tap into the overhead line from the house to the barn, at the pole about 15 feet to the right of the shed. Then racks for frames, a work bench & some shelves.

10' x 20'

Some of the frames were light colored, some really dark. I just let them mix. The honey is much darker than last year

De-Skunking Your Dog

No! You can't go back out.

I wish she'd stick to vole hunting. She's better at it.

It was only a matter of time.  The following formula helped immensely.  I used a drop of canola oil in each eye before washing her, as she must have gotten a nose full first before heading the other way.
Now I guess I should set up the live trap near the hives. I doubt there is just one, so I think I'd better keep it set for the summer.
Even with a liberal spraying of fabreeze, there is still more than a trace in the air. Perhaps our noses will become desensitized in a couple of hours.

Skunks are everywhere—in the country and in the city. If your dog gets sprayed, there are ways you can rid him of the scent without using your entire ketchup (or tomato juice) supply to do it.

Over-the-counter products such as Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover, which is available at most specialty pet retailers, are a quick fix, but if you don't have that on hand, try the following:

Step 1: Keep Fido (In this case Daisy) outside (oops! should have read this first)

While you prepare the de-skunking solution, keep your dog outside after he's sprayed so he doesn't carry the smell into your house. Check his eyes; if they're irritated or red, immediately flush them with cool water.

Step 2: Mix the Ingredients

Mix together:

• 1 quart of 3-percent hydrogen peroxide (available at your local pharmacy)
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1 teaspoon liquid dishwashing soap

Wearing rubber gloves, wash your dog with this solution immediately after he's been sprayed. DO NOT get the solution in the dog's eyes. (If you don't have peroxide, baking soda, and liquid soap on hand, use vinegar diluted with water.)

Thanks to: The Humane Society of the United States

The house swarms! and then this years nuc! Free bees!

Monday the house hive swarmed. 

We saw them just as they gathered together. 

16' up

                                               

I made 3 trips up the ladder.

I didn't count all of them, but it seemed like a lot of bees at the time. Probably half the size of the barn wall swarm last year that I was sorry I didn't have the knowledge or equipment to catch and hive them. That's what got me into bee keeping. Joined the club, took the class, and read everything I could all winter. Now I'm at the stage where I'm really good at thinking I know what I'm doing, and then when I go into the hive, I realize I don't really. In any case, somehow I fumbled around and managed to get them into a deep, while squishing numerous bees when the box slipped out of my hand, the queen somehow survived my assault and decided to stay. Lesson #1: Using an extra box to shake them into doesn't work well with a swarm. They just want to climb up into it.

While I was starting to write this today, the nuc-hive swarmed.

A couple of days ago when the rain stopped.

Just like the other swarm, we watched them starting to clump up.

 Guess I was feeding them too much & not keeping a close eye inside. I installed it about eight weeks ago, and thought it was to soon & they would freeze, but they made it.  However, I am pleased that they did swarm. One more free hive.. They all landed in a small plum tree about 8” up.

 In the meantime, I scrambled around making up 10 wired frames of foundation for this hive. The last swarm I made 8 top bars and 2 foundation & leveled it really well because I’m hoping they may want to make small cells as they are feral and the hive has been active for 30 or 40 years.. Of course I didn't have a top or bottom board made yet, so that was next. The bottom board is not screened as it was a quickie. Naturally this happened the day my #8 screen arrived at the hardware store. The top is temporary and is just a inner cover & an empty deep on top with a couple of 1qt. feeders inside. This time I just pulled the some of the center frames out and I dumped them in the hive and waited to see what happened.

 In about 30 minutes there were still lots of bees outside the box. I saw a clump of bees on the sheet in front of the hive and am pretty sure I saw the queen. I picked her up & she flew out of my hand, to return shortly & land on the frame I set on the ground for them to use as a ladder. She went in & everyone soon followed. This is the first time I've seen one of my queens! Now I have four hives! & of course the two in the buildings. I hope the barn hive doesn't swarm right away, I‘m way not ready. Last year it was a really big swarm, maybe too big for my 5 frame nuc?

The barn bees I missed,  maybe 12' up.

                                            Later, we went through the over-wintered hive.

                                            

It was in good shape with lots of bees and no sign of queen cells. I scrapped off a lot of burr comb.

 We found the queen, in the second to the last frame in the bottom deep. I think they know you are coming and the survival instinct kicks in & they run away. At least it seems that way. Plenty of honey & the workers were cleaning up the super of drawn comb we added last week. They hadn't drawn out comb on the five new frames of foundation we replaced in the bottom deep. It replaced some old black, crappy comb and frames. I'm wondering if I should switch the bottom deep with the top. This is the hive we were given last August that wasn't supposed to have any bees in it. It did, as well as about the same number of ants. I am kind of surprised they survived the winter. They had very little honey & a small population. I didn't know any better and didn't have feeders much less even know how to mix the sugar-water, so I just dumped several pounds of sugar on the inner cover. Evidently it was enough. Ignorance is bliss as they say. Which brings up the fact that the internet has been out since about 10:00am today and I never noticed it. Bliss I tell you! It's been an exciting two days.

Bees

Did you catch the NPR show that showed the “by hand” pollination industry that is in use in many parts of China?  Silence of The Bees? Pesticides and mono-culture of crops has killed off all the natural pollinators and they are collecting pollen and hand pollinating fruit trees. The conclusion was that despite the low cost of labor, they weren't doing very well compared to before, with the native pollinators. 

 

In the UK, for example, recent studies suggest that about one-third of pollination is delivered by honeybees, the rest being carried out by a range of wild insects. These animals need undisturbed places to nest, and flowers to feed on when the crops are not flowering. 
However, bee diversity has declined markedly in Europe, with many species disappearing from much of their former range, and some species going extinct. The UK alone has lost three species of native bumblebee, and six more are listed as endangered. Four bumblebee species have gone extinct from the whole of Europe, and there is good evidence for similar declines in North America and China.   

Unbridled industrialization with almost no environmental regulation has resulted in the toxic contamination of one-fifth of China's farmland, the Communist Party has acknowledged for the first time.
The report, issued by the ministries of Environmental Protection and Land and Resources, says 16.1 percent of the country's soil in general and 19.4 percent of its farmland is polluted with toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel and arsenic. It was based on a soil survey of more than 2.4 million square miles of land across China, spanning a period from April 2005 until December 2013. It excluded special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau.
In a dire assessment, the report declares: "The overall condition of the Chinese soil allows no optimism."

 

I guess we don’t have it so bad in comparison. As irrational as the EPA often is, China shows what can happen without any regulation.

and  A tip of the hat to Ed for his post!

Dr Who and the TARDIS

For a little fun for all you Dr Who fans (you know Who you are), enter the Tardis courtesy of the BBC:  

• Enter The Doctor’s TARDIS and share the adventure

A tip of the hat to: Random Ramblings blog: Another fan of honey bees.

http://kloggers-randomramblings.blogspot.com/