Silver Honey Bees

09/03/2024

Made a long overdue trip to most of my outyards today, to mow, trim, and check on the bees. The first two yards were openly hostile. I've taken more stings in the last two weeks than I have in the last 2-3 years combined. Cranky bees!

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05/28/2024

Vitex negundo are in full bloom at home, and about 20% at Mom's.

04/15/2024

Time again for my recurring PSA. Honey Bee Swarm Season is in full swing. You DO NOT want bees making a nest in your walls, ceiling, soffit, etc.

Please examine your home, business, shed, ... and identify any openings 1/4" or larger. Plug or screen them. When honey bees swarm they are looking for a defensible opening with an area behind the opening about 5 gallons total volume. They love the eaves, walls, and ceilings of homes, chimneys, the space between floors, and under wood floors. They'll move into the walls of an RV, shed, etc.

If the hole is small, caulk or glue work well. If the hole is larger, or should not be closed (such as weep holes in brick), steel wool works well. For larger areas, screen works if secured well (1/8" hardware cloth is tougher and more rigid, but harder to find). Don't even think about using spray foam, even the "insect resistant" stuff. Honey Bees seem to hate foam, and will remove it just to get rid of it.

Honey bees can build a colony of 30,000 bees behind a 1/4" hole. Common weak points are failing caulk, failing mortar, where siding or soffit meet bricks or stone, around conduit or pipes, gaps in soffit or siding, and around light fixtures unless they fit tightly.
Bee colony removal from inside your building is likely to cost $400+, with $1,000+ possible, and that likely doesn't include repairs afterward. Insurance usually won't cover the removal and/or repairs, because the insurance considers it a "maintenance problem". (You didn't do the maintenance, so it is your problem).

If you see a swarm (typically bees in a cluster, hanging off of almost anything), call a beekeeper ASAP. DO NOT delay to see if they leave. (They will, but someone may not like where they go.) I'm a beekeeper, but there are many others in Central Oklahoma. Beekeeping Etc 405-600-7200 maintains a list, as does the OSBA at https://soonerbees.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=444951&module_id=448994

If you see bees checking out an opening of any size, but they are not regularly coming and going and especially if you see no pollen on their legs, (pollen looks like colorful English riding pants), PLUG THE HOLE NOW!!!! Scouts from a swarm investigate every nook and cranny. If they are scoping out your home (etc) blocking the hole will buy you time to do permanent repairs. However, if they are brining in pollen, you are too late, and will need someone to come remove them. You DO NOT want to kill a colony in your walls. First, killing a colony is not nearly as easy as you might imagine. Second, dead bees stink. Third, without the colony's protection, small hive beetle and wax moth larvae will run rampant through the comb. Small hive beetle larvae look like housefly larvae ("maggots"). Picture several hundred crawling through your walls leaving a fermenting slime trail, and then crawling out from your baseboards.

If you're not in Central Oklahoma, there are undoubtedly local beekeepers you can call upon. A search for beekeeper and your town name should help you find them.

As you've seen above, honey bees can become an expensive nuisance if they build a nest in inappropriate places. Let a beekeeper capture them and put them somewhere where they can prosper and not cause problems.

08/25/2023

I ran across this in a commercial beekeeping group. It is mostly about SE USA migratory beekeeping, but I thought it was cool.

A Song Dedicated to all Bee Keepers & Honey Producers and their Life of Working Bee's...

08/01/2023

I like to use screen to reduce entrance size. It allows for some airflow, and is both reusable and adjustable. Someone asked for pictures.

06/06/2023

Regarding the highly publicized "Africanized Bees Attack Man" stuff going around ...

A. Never trust a media report about anything to be even remotely accurate, especially if there are ratings at stake. In my 60+ years I've never seen an accurate report on any topic I personally know anything about.

B. The guy ATTACKED THE BEES, which were minding their own business, waiting on their sisters to find a new home. Honey bees are not aggressive, they are defensive. He sprayed them, and they fought back. Do not flail, do not swat, do not mo**st the bees. It is a fight you cannot win. They have faster reactions, fly faster than you can run, and outnumber you. A colony is much harder to kill than most people think, and it isn't necessary. Move away and leave them alone. Call a beekeeper. If you don't know one, Google: your-town beekeep

C. If they were Africanized (AHB), he'd be dead. Per the USDA, a non-allergic human (99.8% of the population) can handle about 10 stings per pound. If he was 180 lbs, he might survive 1,800 stings. Reports from some outlets of 7,000 stings are not survivable by any reasonably mobile human. AHB don't leave you alone just because you're laying in your yard. Once triggered, they'll follow you for a mile or more, and wait for you to reappear if you manage to hide.

D. 200 stings in 3 hours? Not AHB behavior. 200 stings in 30 seconds, yeah. 200 stings aren't any fun, but they're not life threatening for most adults. He hurt himself by (a) attacking the bees, and then (b) panicking when they fought back. If he'd shielded his face and walked away he'd have been fine.

E. The best way to keep AHB out of an area is to have managed honey bees (of known genetics) filling the ecological niche in the area, thus maintaining a docile gene pool. It is no fun to work cranky bees, so most beekeepers maintain docile stock.

F. Oklahoma is considered by ODAFF to be "Africanized", because AHB HAVE been found in most counties. The map hasn't been updated in almost a decade, because they don't track it anymore. However, in most of the state, AHB don't survive our long "dearth" (period with little/no food available) because they swarm frequently and thus don't build up the large honey reserves needed to survive. They move in from W-TX/NM/AZ/SoCA on heavy equipment in the spring/summer, then starve when times get harder.

G. In 14 years of beekeeping, I've encountered 1 colony which was likely significantly "Africanized". They were destroyed.

H. There is no way for you to tell by looking if the bee is "Africanized". AHB are a hybrid of various European bee species and one very defensive African species. They look very much like a European bee. It requires microscopic analysis by an expert or a DNA test to tell if a given bee is "Africanized".

04/30/2023

Got a text from a nice homeowner in The Village Saturday afternoon. We've chatted before, because she's got a bee tree in her yard. She'd contacted another beekeeper about a swarm, and they had not responded, so she was looking for help.

She had a swarm about a week ago too, same little tree, different branch, about 9' up. Decent sized swarm, probably a secondary swarm and thus a virgin queen or two.

I set up a ladder to hold the Pro Nuc box with a couple of frames of comb near the cluster, and transferred a few handfuls of bees to the box. After they fanned a bit, I shook the tree a couple of times to stir up the rest of the cluster, and the whole swarm moved into the box.

Meanwhile we had a lovely chat about bees and other topics.

Nuc box is at home with feed. I'll open them tonight (which is early for me) since they likely have virgin queens which need to mate. Risky, but necessary.

3.

04/30/2023

Got a little swarm near 17th and Drexel Friday morning. Conveniently, only 2 miles from home. About 1/2 on a burning bush, and about 1/2 on the ground. The 1/2 on the ground looked dead when I arrived, but they were just cold. Used a piece of bare foundation to get the ones on the ground to crawl out of the grass. Not large, but viable. Closed 'em up and gave them syrup. Sorry, no pics this time.

Homeowner says he's had a colony in the corner of his roof for years, and they throw swarms every spring. He said he didn't think they're hurting anything. He kept my number. :) 2.

04/16/2023

We didn't catch any swarms in 2022, which is unusual. I got a text during class today about 4:30, which I didn't see until I got in the truck to go home after 6:00 pm. Caught this cute little cluster and had them home and fed by 8:00 pm. They'll stay in a nuc box for a while, and need some extra brood infusions to get them up to speed. 1!

03/02/2023

Time again for my recurring PSA (a little earlier this year, before swarms are likely):

Please examine your home, business, shed, ... and identify any openings 1/4" or larger. Plug or screen them. When honey bees swarm they are looking for a defensible opening with an area behind the opening about 5 gallons total volume. They love the eaves, walls, and ceilings of homes, chimneys, the space between floors, and under wood floors. They'll move into the walls of an RV, shed, etc.

If the hole is small, caulk or glue work well. If the hole is larger, or should not be closed (such as weep holes in brick), steel wool works well. For larger areas, screen works if secured well (1/8" hardware cloth is tougher and more rigid, but harder to find). Don't even think about using spray foam, even the "insect resistant" stuff. Honey Bees seem to hate foam, and will remove it just to get rid of it.

Honey bees can build a colony of 30,000 bees behind a 1/4" hole. Common weak points are failing caulk, failing mortar, where siding or soffit meet bricks or stone, around conduit or pipes, gaps in soffit or siding, and around light fixtures unless they fit tightly.

Bee colony removal from inside your building is likely to cost $400+, with $1,000+ possible, and that likely doesn't include repairs afterward. Insurance usually won't cover the removal and/or repairs, because the insurance considers it a "maintenance problem". (You didn't do the maintenance, so it is your problem).

If you see a swarm (typically bees in a cluster, hanging off of almost anything), call a beekeeper ASAP. I'm one, but many others in Central Oklahoma can be found at http://centralokbeekeepers.org/swarm-and-cutout-resources/ . If you're not in Central Oklahoma, there are undoubtedly local beekeepers you can call upon. A search for beekeeper and your town name should help you find them.

As you've seen above, honey bees can become an expensive nuisance if they build a nest in inappropriate places. Let a beekeeper capture them and put them somewhere where they can prosper and not cause problems.

Swarm and Cutout Resources This page is information and resources for swarms and cutouts. Here you will find definitions of a swarm and of a cutout, and you will find a list of people that do one or the other, or both. SWARM – A swarm is normally seen when a hive has become too crowded and so the ...

02/09/2023

Beekeeper thoughts: I was watching a Blue Bloods rerun tonight. The gun runners had 3 cops and a crook with a heart of gold (aka a Red Shirt) cornered in a field. But the gun runners stopped directly in front of a line of beehives. My immediate thought was "put a few rounds into those hives and the gun runners will have other concerns." It has worked before.

06/17/2022

Time again for my recurring PSA:

Please examine your home, business, shed, ... and identify any openings 1/4" or larger. Plug or screen them. When honey bees swarm they are looking for a defensible opening with an area behind the opening about 5 gallons total volume. They love the eaves, walls, and ceilings of homes, chimneys, the space between floors, and under wood floors. They'll move into the walls of an RV, shed, etc.

If the hole is small, caulk or glue work well. If the hole is larger, or should not be closed (such as weep holes in brick), steel wool works well. For larger areas, screen works if secured well (1/8" hardware cloth is tougher and more rigid, but harder to find). Don't even think about using spray foam, even the "insect resistant" stuff. Honey Bees seem to hate foam, and will remove it just to get rid of it.

Honey bees can build a colony of 30,000 bees behind a 1/4" hole. Common weak points are failing caulk, failing mortar, where siding or soffit meet bricks or stone, around conduit or pipes, and gaps in soffit or siding.

Bee colony removal from inside your building is likely to cost $400+, with $1,000+ possible, and that likely doesn't include repairs afterward. Insurance usually won't cover the removal and/or repairs, because the insurance considers it a "maintenance problem". (You didn't do the maintenance, so it is your problem).

04/17/2022

When you're cleaning off hive stands and pop the top on that "empty" nuc that has been sitting there all winter ...

03/27/2022

I got to attend the NEOBA Big Bee Buzz again this year in Tulsa. This was the first time it has been held since 2019. As usual it was an excellent event, with lots of good information.

On my way home I missed a text. Our first swarm call of the year. By the time I got home and saw the text, the swarm had moved on.

OKC swarm season is underway. Get your swarm gear together and put it in your vehicle!

02/05/2022

10/07/2021

When you take your airless paint sprayer instruction book with you, but forget to move it away before you start painting.

10/05/2021

04/20/2021

12 splits, Queens installed. Waiting for warmer weather.