Hiving Day

After that brief relapse into winter, spring seems to have returned. And good timing that was, too, because package bees arrived this week, and time and bees wait for no man.

Package bees: this is a commodity that might be unfamiliar to some of you. Time was, you could buy honeybees from Montgomery Ward and have them delivered by the postman. They came in wooden boxes with screened sides, and apparently the postal department was willing to live with this arrangement. No more! Post offices still accept ducklings and chicks, but not honeybees. It was probably pretty hard on the bees, being handled like parcel post and delivered to post offices, and then waiting for the call to go through to the beekeeper who came to pick them up. These days they’re trucked by bee haulers instead of sharing the trip with the mail, and picked up at bee supply houses by local beekeepers. Not as accommodating a method as delivery by postal carrier, but it still makes delivery of package bees possible to small-yard beekeepers. The big boys usually expand their holdings by dividing colonies within their apiaries. Hobby folks, being only lovers of the hive and not so driven by economics (and usually not having so many hives they can divide them), buy packages.

Because of losses the last few years, we went beeless last summer. I didn’t think it would be such a big deal to have no hives, and we had a lot going on, what with the beginning of the house project and all. But I felt unhappy about it. Nothing is so sad as an abandoned bee yard. The hives stood out there empty, a housing project without all the families. So I ordered bees for a new start-up this spring. On Wednesday I got the call: packages had arrived.

The bees still come in a screened wooden box. It holds three pounds of bees. Bees sell by the pound, odd as it may seem. So does honey, for that matter. You might think bees would sell by the each (only queen bees do), and honey by the liquid ounce, but it is pounds of bees that arrive, and pounds of honey that go out at the end of summer. Here are some of the boxes, empty after I have installed the bees into the hives.

A three-pound package contains something like 12,000 eager young worker bees and a bred queen. The cans hanging from the tops contained sugar water, feed for the bees during their journey. Scattered on the floors you can see some empty queen cages. All this will be explained.

Here is a video of how to get the packaged bees into the hive. Look what I’ve learned to do! I can stick the video right here into the post!

Each beekeeper, it seems, develops minor variations in the routine, but for the most part, that’s how it’s done (I try not to drop the queen cage into the package, however…).

Like beekeepers, honeybees are most happy when the sun is shining. On the day the bees arrived, it was pouring rain, and by the time I got home with them, it was dark. So we held them in their packages until Thursday. It was still not such good weather then, and late in the day by the time I was off work and returned to the bee yard to get them into their hives. This is why you have no pictures of them in their packages. They were, shall we say, grumpy, and I was in a hurry to get them hived. It does them no good to be held in those little boxes overlong, but neither do they really like being handled in the dusk. Yes, beekeepers get stung. Yes, it hurts. But not that much.

True to its nature, spring weather comes foul one day and fine the next. When I went back to release the queens from their little cages, the sun was high, and the bees were singing. Now, here’s the truth of the matter. There is nothing like the song of a sweet hive. You can tell from the sound when a hive is at work, when it’s ill, whether it’s queen-right, or if it’s not. When bees are busy, they are happy.

Here’s a shot of a queen cage just pulled from the new hive as I am about to release the queen. It’s covered with attendants who are there to feed her. Even though she is captive in the cage, they take care of her.

And bees love housework. Here they are tidying up.

All that rubbish on the landing board is stuff the bees have found inside that, in their opinion, does not belong there. They will take an old messy comb that has spider webs on it and broken cells, and whisk it right up into sparkle and shine.

A hive is very quick to divide up the tasks of building a colony. The workers who are feeding the queen are not the same ones who are cleaning house and performing mortuary duties to remove perished bees from the hive. Nor are either of those the ones who go out into the world and bring home supplies. The colony wastes no time getting to work. In this shot, you can see a bee disappearing into the hive with pollen in her baskets while others are on their way out (Good shot of the sting-y part, too!).

They have no time to waste, these members of a new household. It will be 21 days before newly hatched workers will augment the population of the hive. For those 21 days, the bees who arrived in the package are the entire future of the hive. They must build a nursery and fill it with eggs laid by the queen, they must feed the queen and the larvae in the nursery, they must keep the hive clean inside, they must bring food to the hive, and they must do it in the chancy weather of spring. See how they keep the new nursery warm:

On a spring day when it’s not quite warm enough to go in a shirt alone, the temperature inside the hive is about 95F. (Click the image if you want to be able to read the scale.)

It’s a big job for little girls, but they seem to know how to go about it.

Nothing makes me much happier than working a yard of healthy bees on a fine spring day. The sun is up and the hives already have a distinctive scent made up of wax, pollen, warmth, and activity. There is magic in a beehive, and it’s starting to happen now.

So I feel we have broken the back of the cold old season and are on our way into the warm, sweet one.

Here I am in my spring bonnet:

The bees are in their hives and all’s well in the world.

When in April

I suppose one of the charms of spring is its unsettled nature. That’s the most forgiving view.

Our expectation is, as Chaucer wrote in the Prologue to his Canterbury Tales,

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour…

or, in more a recent English:

When April, with its sweet showers

Has pierced the dryness of March to the root

And bathed every vein in such moisture

That of its strength is brought forth the flower…

and so on, in a spring-happy manner.

It was pilgrimage season for Chaucer, meaning a fair season in which spring is in full rush. Winter with its storms and dark was over.

Here are his pilgrims setting out on the road, on a glorious day in April.

It’s still a bit cool, as you can see from their hoods and coifs, but they do not expect rotten weather, because it’s spring.

Spring! A season of light! Burgeoning flowers! Early daylight! Longer evenings! And some small dampness. After all, Aprille shoures bringen May floures.

This morning we woke to snow on the ground again. Deep into April, and it’s snowing. Hailing, too, if you want to put a fine point on it. A week ago the sun was shining over temperatures in the Fahrenheit 70’s.

Ah, well. How boring would it be to know the sun would sparkle every morning and the birds sing, tra-la!

Off and Flying

Our last couple of days have been suddenly warm and sunny. After late snows and extended rains, it’s a surprise to our bodies and minds. Throw open the windows! Breathe the sun!

Richard set our mason bee hatchery in a warm spot in hopes of bringing on an emergence, and the bees obliged with pleasure. I imagine the pleasure. If I had spent the winter holed up in a log plugged with mud at the entry, I would be ecstatic to see the sun.

Here is one of them just taking in the light of day.

This is probably a male. They are the first to emerge, and they linger at the nest site then, waiting for the girls to come out. The Orchard Mason Bees (Osmia lignaria) are mostly unsung as a force in the garden, but they are early and efficient pollinators. They hatch and go to work in the orchard before the honey bee is ready to expose herself to the chill. They don’t ask much of life: only a niche in the shingles or right-sized hole in which to spend the winter, and a little something to eat when they quicken in the spring. We put out drilled wooden blocks or log sections like this one to encourage them to nest right here, and we give them the orchard for early sipping. How generous we are, to provide an entire orchard of mixed varieties, all for the gratification of the Orchard Mason Bee.

Check out the Orchard mason bee link to learn more about these gentle pollinators and how to make them feel at home in your garden.

Richard added this addendum, as a comment. Since I know not everyone sees the comments, I thought I’d insert his thoughts  here:

That old log has been around for a long time. 10 years ago, we moved it from SE Portland where it already had been in service for several years. Mr. Knox, probably wouldn’t approve. [ed. note: "Mr. Knox" is the source from which you can purchase Orchard Mason Bees in our region. His website is linked just below in this comment.] The log is drilled, with no discernible precision, on both ends. As I recall, we started with a purchased 20-cell block that was full of bees (don’t know whether he sells those anymore.) We experimented with several materials for our own blocks. (4×4 cedar, redwood, pine, fir, etc. Most worked, although the aromatic woods that last a long time weren’t colonized until at least the second year.) For those intending to do it themselves, invest in a 5/16ths” brad tipped high speed bit. If you intend to use Knox’s paper tubes, you should find out what their outside diameter is.

A source for bees and nesting blocks (if you don’t have the equipment to drill your own) can be found at http://www.knoxcellars.com/ (They don’t have bees until fall of this year. However, if you anticipate adding bees when they come available, order a nesting block or two and Mr. Knox’s book. It’s possible you’ll snag some wild bees this spring.)

The only reason I refer you to Knox is that’s where we got started and he was prompt with delivery.

And a note about the bees: insecticides that kill hornets and wasps and other flying insects, of course kill orchard bees. Especially in small plots and around your garden, it’s probably a good idea to at least reduce the amount of insecticide you use. At the time of year orchard bees are flying, the real pests, bald faced hornets, haven’t emerged in numbers. And even they are not much of a problem until fall when natural forage begins to disappear and they try to fly off with your pork chop when you dine outside. Both wasps and hornets are beneficial in the garden. Except those that pose a hazard by nesting on the porch near a door or in the ground near a gate, we leave them alone. If you must kill them, try to use non-persistent insecticides that can be applied directly to the offending nest. [ed. note: I don't mind the Bald-faced hornets so much -- they seem to be pretty gentle, though they look black and mean. It's the Yellowjackets I'd prefer to do without. But then, we'd be up to our necks in carrion I suppose, so we'd better keep them around, too.]

ry

Stop! Thief!

If you doubt the season is changing (how it comes all of a sudden!) just look up. The crows have returned in a raucous black cloud. And sure as eggs is eggs, they are out for the main chance.

At morning feeding I found this evidence of thievery. Without wings of its own, there is no way an empty chicken egg can come to the yard in front of the barn.

After the evidence came to light, I watched for a while from the window. Sure enough, here came a crow to sit on the top end of the hay elevator and look things over. Hmm. Nothing more? Nests empty? Too bad.

Egg-suckers.

And yet, there is something about them that makes a person’s imagination run. To watch them harry a hawk in the air is to cheer for them both — the hawk for being picked on, and the crows as protectors of their neighborhood. To hear them arrive all in a flapping murder of self-announcement and settlement into the treetops is to admire their party instinct. To find the remains of their pillage is to, grudgingly, acknowledge an intelligence that challenges our own. We confound them with ravens, who make us shudder just a bit as we whisper in our minds, “Nevermore.” We say “crow’s nest,” and think of pirates on the bounding main. Scarecrow? It doesn’t work, but it brings folklore into the garden, and a slight creeping of the skin.

When I was a child, an old woman down the road had a captive crow. To call it captive really does not describe it, though. The crow had frequent free flights over the garden and the woods behind the house. When we would invade those woods for little girl explorations and imaginations, the crow would circle overhead and announce hoarsely, “Robber! Robber!”

He should talk.

Egg-sucker.