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| Wild Hive of Worker Bees © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
What do you do with a wild hive full of
worker bees that has no queen? I believe most experienced beekeepers would
probably let it die, but not me. I knew that if all those wild survivor worker
bees could be caught and put into a hive box, that a queen could be purchased
and put in with them. Then that living dead hive would become a living hive.
Time was ticking on those little worker
bees’ life span. My beekeeping teacher was going to let me use his bee vacuum,
but he had let someone borrow it the previous fall. When that person was
contacted to return it; it was returned - in pieces – destroyed.
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| Hive box set up near ceiling where wild hive was located. © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
I was determined, and went to plan B
(plan Bee). I tried thinking like a bee. (Only my adopted dad figured out my
thinking.) I went to work getting the hive box set up inside the shelter, but
up high, near the wild hive. To accomplish this, friends let me borrow two
aluminum ladders. I placed a wide board at the highest level possible in
between those ladders, and then put my hive box on the board. I put swarm lure
and comb with honey inside the box. Surely, those bees would be hungry enough
to go inside the hive box, find the frames with foundation, and think, “Hey,
this is a pretty nice space. Let’s build some comb.”
In the meantime, I searched the
Internet, found, and ordered a bee vacuum. The memorial holiday was in the
shipping time frame, delaying the arrival time. Tick-tock, the worker bees’
life span is ticking away - kept going through my head.
On the Thursday after Memorial Day, the
bee vacuum arrived. I loaded my car with all the essential items needed to
finally catch those bees, most important - my bee suit, hive tool, bee vacuum,
and a light.
I had to wait until nearly dark to do
the work, in order to catch the bees that had been out foraging. I would be
working alone, out in the middle of the country, and where when it’s dark, it’s
extremely dark – no streetlights.
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| The light colored comb is all brand new comb made in just a few days. © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
When I arrived, I was amazed at the
amount of honeycomb that had been built in a five-day period, but not in my
hive box. I went to work. With the bee vacuum ready to go, I pushed the button,
and began sucking up bees.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, and
I continued to work. I cut the new comb to get to more bees. Honey dripped from
the ceiling, and was sucked into the vacuum. Finally, at 10:38pm, I was ready
to go home with the captured worker bees buzzing inside the catch-box.
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| Wild worker bees in catch box © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
There were a very large number of bees.
The numbers were many thousands, but the honey that got sucked into the vacuum
caused some deaths. Still I had bees to put into my butterfly decorated hive
box, along with a new queen.
This is only part of the story of the
“Second Chance Hive.” I can only hope that my efforts won’t be in vain. I will
write more as the second part of this story unfolds during this summer.
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| WIld comb attached to hive frame with rubber bands until bees attach it to the frame. © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
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| The Second Chance Hive is in the left hive box with butterflies as decoration. © Photo by Tracey R. Simmons 2017 |
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