Swarming Bees and a Sweet Surprise

bees were living in this water meter box and someone notified the city about them and so the city of bastrop called me to give the bees a new home before any removal i spend time preparing my frames and the new high for the bees and i was just about to open this hive and get to work when the family who lived here came home and this happened hi i'm getting the bees i'm from the city the city called me give me about an hour [Music] they do do you know what their job is it's to make sure everything around us is alive that's exactly right if there was no flowers there would be no food no water no cheese no grass no nothing that is exactly right i couldn't have said that better yourself do you like stickers do you want a bee sticker thanks for being a good friend to the bees yeah when i see a beat i try to make sure i don't step on it all of my craftsman classmates screams well you are doing the right thing you just leave them be right keep spreading the good word about the bees okay thank you have a great day i was so impressed with that young man and also with his parents for teaching him all about bees and how to act around them my little bee loving heart was full of joy and it was time to get to work and give these bees a new home there was a steady amount of bee traffic at the entrance of the hive so i was hopeful that there would be a decent sized colony inside and it was time to find out so i slowly lifted the cover and inside i found a brand new and beautiful hive with even more bees than i expected and just like the kid who lived here said these bees were very nice and i could tell that these bees hadn't been here for too long because the comb was bright yellow there was also a small amount of pollen but no honey most swarms like this don't survive their first year so i was happy for the opportunity to give these bees a better chance and also a feeder full of food so i started to carefully remove each piece of the comb and put it into the new hive and almost right away i saw something very exciting in this hive b eggs and b eggs were almost a sure sign of a strong queen at first glance this comb may look empty but if you look closely in the center of each opening you'll see a tiny bee egg bee eggs hatch into larvae only three days after the queen lays them so seeing the eggs meant a good queen was in this hive within the past three days so i put this very special piece of comb and all the eggs on it into the new hive this next piece of comb also had some eggs on it along with some food so i picked it up as gently as i could but this comb was so soft and so fresh and delicate it began to collapse in my hands i quickly set it down since this piece had some bee eggs on it and i wanted to do my best to cause no harm to them i slowly slid this piece into a frame of the new hive and i had to be extra careful not to put any pressure on the comb while i was positioning it into the frame or i could crush the delicate eggs inside female worker bees only live about six weeks this time of year and it takes roughly three weeks after a queen lays an egg for it to metamorphosize and to emerge as a fully grown worker bee and so these little bee eggs were the next generation for the colony and an important part of its survival i only had one more large piece of comb to collect off the cover of the water meter box so i picked it up along with all the bees on it and i put it into the new hive and since i was about to start moving bees into the new hive i wanted to make the trip a bit easier for them so i made a little bee bridge with an empty piece of comb that had fallen into the water meter when i opened it and since i had removed all of the comb now i took a moment to search for the queen and that's when i saw her bright reddish orange abdomen as she was trying to hide from the sun under all the other bees each time i caught a glimpse of her it was only for a few seconds before she went back into hiding so i put her in a clip to keep her safe and i put her into the new hive then it was time to get some of the bees into the new hive with their queen and i decided the best way to do that was to just shake them off the lid and directly into the new hive so i picked up the lid and all the bees on it and i gave it a few good taps on the side of the new hive i just needed enough bees to fall into the new hive with their queen so that they would start telling the rest of the colony where to find her in you can see that a big pile of bees fell into the new hive and the rest of the bees started swarming all around me the bees were making big beautiful circles in the air just waiting for signals from their colony telling them where to go and when bees are swarming like this they are often very gentle and only focused on finding their queen and being with their colony so i just waited for the bees to settle into their new hive and i know it's not for everyone but i just love being in a swarm of bees and while most of these bees were going into the new hive some of them were going right back to the last place their queen was on the top of the lid so i decided to give it a few more shakes to get even more bees into the new hive with their colony and off the lid then i sat and i just observed the bees behavior and i watched to make sure that they were settling into their new home there were a lot of bees sending signals to the straggler bees and some of the bees were even starting to use the bee bridge now the queen was at the top in the feeder and you can see here how the whole colony was settling in around her so i started giving the straggler bee some smoke and as i was doing so i noticed that a lot of bees were crawling up the side of my leg i was actually a little surprised at how many bees had crawled on me without me noticing and they were doing this because i always reused queen clips that have held queens in the past and i also always keep the clip on the right side of my shirt so that i know where it is at all times and these bees were being attracted to the sense that the clip in all the queens that ever held before had left behind and not that i minded them being on me but i gave the bee some smoke to encourage them to move into their new hive in by this time the colony had fully recognized that their queen and the rest of the bees were in the new hive and they were settling in nicely you can see some bees still flying around the new hive but they knew exactly where to go and they were not going to get left behind so i waited for a while longer but soon it was time for me and the bees to go home so i picked up their hive i loaded it into my truck and it was another great day of saving the bees

Channel: Texas Beeworks

Views: 441,545

Keywords:

Id: 7FeQRgLWkvk

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2022