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Author Topic: what should have been easy.....  (Read 2525 times)

Offline Kathyp

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what should have been easy.....
« on: May 26, 2010, 01:02:02 pm »
got a call from a berry farmer friend of mine last night.  had a swarm on a piece of equipment.  did i want it?  yes, but not at 2030.  said i'd come after it first thing in the AM.  my 1st mistake.  got up the AM and it's raining.  hard.  not to worry.  she said it was  hanging down on the berry picker, so i'll just go knock it into a box and be done.  my 2nd mistake.

people who don't keep bees don't get to close to swarm.  while a large part of the swarm was  hanging, and even larger part was up in the hydraulics.  it was a soggy cold mass that could not pushed out or smoked. sooooo, i got what i could into the box, left the box, and will go back when it dries to try to retrieve the rest.  my hope is that i got the queen and the whole wet mass will move into the box when the sun comes out....if the sun comes out.....

meanwhile, all my very wet clothing is drying in front of the pellet stove.  

oh, and remember that "they aren't dead until they are warm and dead" thing?  a couple of them were happy to warm up, up my pant leg on the drive home.  i think i'll remember my boots when i go back.
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Offline CVBees

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2010, 01:21:57 pm »
Poor Kat... :'(    Free bees though.. could be a nasty cutout...  I popped in to my first cutout to replace a frame whose foundation had melted out of the frame.  I just went in shorts/jacket/gloves.  Changed out the frame no worries heck no one even came out to greet me.  So I decided to do some weeding round the hive I have some freesia and pennyroyal I am going to plant around my hives to deter d'ants and they did not like that part took a hit to the thigh.  My first sting as a beek was not too bad.

Oh yeah g'luck with the rest of that swarm.
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Offline AllenF

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2010, 03:01:33 pm »
2030?  Now that takes both hands to figure out that time.

Offline Bee Happy

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2010, 03:04:50 pm »
They don't call them 'adventures' cuz everything went like clockwork. - least you got a good story.  :)
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Offline Kathyp

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2010, 05:25:07 pm »
ok. true confessions, but consider my advancing age when you read this.

i went back between downpours to get the rest of the swarm.  as i had hoped, much of it had settled into the box.  to help entice the rest of them out of the equipment, i grabbed a bottle of sugar water and lemongrass that i had in the truck.  then i started knocking as many of the wet and clumpy bees out of the machinery as i could reach.  that worked fairly well and i could see that they were starting to settle.  still, there were many against the grill work that i could not reach.  i also had a bottle of drinking water in the truck.  i know this is probably not "best practices" but i used to water to wash the rest of the clumpy bees out of the grill and machinery and into the box. they were already wet.

everything was going fine and i was about to quit.  then i noticed a huge number of bees around the machine, me, the box, the grass.......

 even though i get lots of bees from swarms out of the pollination hives, i don't usually collect bees right near those hives.  20 ft away from where i was working were about 20 hives.  the smell of the sugar water/lemongrass was drawing bees from the hives.  crap.  ok, i'm pretty sure i got the queen.  time to wrap it up and run.

nailed them down.  pitched them in the truck and got the heck out of there.  the next downpour should wash away any over spray of my sugar water. (i hope)



Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline JP

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2010, 07:05:40 pm »
Sounds like quite an adventure, glad you survived the ordeal.


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Offline Kathyp

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2010, 07:25:05 pm »




hard to tell from these pics, but it was a 10 frame swarm.  worth the effort. 

didn't want JP to hassle me over no pics, but rain interfered with photography  :-)
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline JP

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Re: what should have been easy.....
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2010, 10:28:10 pm »
Was wonderin' about pics, you came through!


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