swarm call

At about 2pm today I got a call from a lady about a swarm of honey bees in her mother's holly bush by the house. She said they always go there in massive numbers each year around this time. They fit the profile of what she was saying, so I drove over.

It was only a ten minute drive. What she failed to tell me was that they were LIVING in the ground all around the house and had been for years.

They were ground dwelling pollinator bees. Not honey bees. Oh, well.... I guess I have to add: "are they in the ground every year" to the list of things I ask them on the phone when they call swearing there is a honey bee swarm in their yard.

In other news, I have 7 nucs that have successfully made queens. Carni, italian and carni x italians are the types. 4 or 5 are already claimed. I would have had 10, but one froze because it was too cold and not enough bees. One went queenless and didn't make a queen, so they became laying workers. And one made a deformed queen. 

The bee yard at the house has 3 more nucs than the following picture:

I need to move the hives out to the apiary that has only 3 hives. I also need to find one more apiary location somewhere close so that I can keep 5 hives max per apiary.... That means I have 15 hives now!

This picture is of the apiary behind the airport. I have 2 more full hives there and 2 more nucs....

No Time to Rest

I am sorry I have not posted in a long time. I have been really busy.

The bees are bringing in nectar and making honey. 4 of the hives were about a week away from starting the process of swarming, so I have made a bunch of nucs and splits.

I need to make another split from one of my hives I have at a different apiary, but I am going to wait a bit because I have carni queens coming from Strachan Apiaries next week. I will just split it up the day before and make a few nucs to put the new queens in.

This is what my bee yard at the house looks like: