[The Sanctuary] Bee Willing

by **Kavala** on June 1st, 2013, 8:00 am

Timestamp: Early Summer, 513 AV

Collin Fallingsun parked his wagon in The Sanctuary’s Medicine Gate and hopped down. Kavala was there to greet him with a big smile. “Collin! It’s been far too long!” She exclaimed, moving to hug her bee mentor and greet him. He smiled and gestured to the back of his wagon, where six fully assembled but empty hives rested. There were also that many swarm traps assembled as well. “You ready for this? We need to make splits on your hives and check out how they are doing. I thought after we got done making the splits, we can put on the honey supers, add the frames, and then head to the orchards. I have a lot to show you. And interestingly enough, we have some disease outbreaks I thought I could get a healer to look at so we can perhaps in a later session work on maybe finding a cure for.” He said, looking rather hopeful since the whole of Riverfall’s orchard crop depending upon the bees doing well.

Kavala nodded, smiled, and glanced over at the hives. “You brought me brand new ones! Thank you. Now where can we put these? I assumed we can put them right next to the other hives we are making the splits from, but is that a good idea?” She asked, walking around the wagon to start unloading the hives.

Collin nodded.

“Sure is. The only thing is perhaps if we make splits, we want to put them in a new location. So you can double up all your hives, but say if you split from your medicinal garden hive, you want to put that split by the kitchen garden, so we can move them around that way." Kavala nodded, understanding. “So the workers won’t go back to the same place we split them from, right?” Collin nodded.

About that time, Aweston showed up with a little four-wheeled cart in tow he’d made. It had a handle on it, and looked like a wagon in miniature perfect for stacking the hives on and moving the splits around. The big Drykas began loading the empty hives onto the cart, which could then be pulled by hand around the facility.

“Now, Kavala why are we making splits?” Collin asked, smiling at his apprentice, while he took the time to shake Aweston’s hand and greet him as well. The Konti looked thoughtful a while and then carefully answered.

“We do so for many reasons, I would suspect. First and foremost we don’t want the bees to get too crowded. Crowded bees get diseases, and they are prone to swarm . I know we don’t know a lot about swarming, but I think it happens in the spring a great deal when bees tend to increase their population rapidly just before major nectar flows. Right now there’s lots of nectar and my hives are getting crowded. We split too in order to increase the number of bees we have. If we just want bees for pollinators, then we split and split and split to make sure we get our numbers up. But if we want honey we don’t always want that. We want healthy crowded hives filled with bees laying in stores for the winter. But I know first year hives like mine don’t always produce honey, so we want to go ahead and split just to make sure I don’t loose bees to disease or swarms. And I want more than I have now, and this is a good way to do it. So, the three things really… increase numbers, increase health, reduce swarms.” Kavala answered, her thoughts rambling a bit as she did so.

Collin nodded. “Very good.” Kavala smiled. She had so many questions for her bee mentor and wanted to know quite a few things, namely about pests and disease, before the day was out. She was glad Collin was there though. Very glad.

They took the handle of the cart, steered it through the courtyard, and headed off to the gardens, glad there was stone pathways lazily weaving in and out of the gardens and buildings of The Sanctuary. They hit the first hive and Collin continued his lecture.

“There are a number of reasons, Kavala, for making a split. You can also make them a number of ways. The first reason is to increase the number of producing hives in either the current year or in the following year. You also want to, like you said, reduce the size of colonies to discourage swarming and to put off the bees peaking until the expected flow. You also want to split to control mites. We’ll talk about mites later. And the other reason to make splits is to be able to sell the nucs so that you can get some profit from your bees.” Kavala nodded, glad Collin elaborated.

“So whats the best way to make a split?” She asked, curious, as Collin set out a new hive next to the established one in the medicinal garden. He looked thoughtful and then paused, opening up the hive and getting his gloves and veil on.

“One way is to take a colony and split the two brood boxes in half, making the top brood box the new core colony for the another hive. You then let them expand up and by the end of the summer you have two hives where you only had one. It’s good to know where your queen is and which box gets the queen so you can keep a good eye on the first one that’s queenless and make sure the hive makes a new queen. When you do that, you need to make sure you give the split same day if not day old eggs so they can make a new queen.” Collin said. Then he continued. “Alternatively, you can just pull four frames of bees off of a hive and put them in a nuc to sell. Or use the nuc to start more queens. We even use Nucs to breed new queens with. The queen wrong hive will feed new eggs we put in that we can graft ourselves. I can show you how to do that today or tomorrow. I’ve set time aside. We might as well get you raising queens as well. Anyone can. You just have to have a lot of luck and patience to get them going.” Collin said, smiling. Then he paused and gave Kavala a chance to get ready by donning her beekeeping gear and breaking into the hive they were about to work on.

Ledger for Thread :

by **Kavala** on November 4th, 2013, 3:48 am

Kavala nodded, donned her veil as well and secured her gloves on tight. Then, at Collin’s nod, she broke open the existing hive and pulled the top off. She carefully used her hive tool to pry apart the frames in the upper brood chamber, and lifted them free to examine.

Collin pulled a little box from his pocket. He handed to Kavala. “I brought you a dozen of these. They are queen cages. We’ll use them for holding queens when we do the split. That way if we find her, we can place her in whichever hive we want her in and wait for the other one to produce.” Collin said. Kavala nodded as she lifted a frame.

The bees writhed on the frame as Kavala’s eyes swept the frame, looking for the queen. She brushed at the bees lightly, her eyes moving up and down, looking, seeking, finding nothing but healthy brood and workers diligently at work. “Do we use this one? It looks good and has fresh eggs… probably laid today or tomorrow.” She held out the frame and Collin nodded. She moved towards the one he’d set up beside the colony, and he shook his head.

“Yes, we’ll move them in a few days spreading them out once we get the splits done. “ Kavala moved over to the new hive, slid the frame down in, and moved back to the other hive. She plucked out another frame and then scanned that as well. She examined it carefully, turning the frame and checking the bees. She swept it for the queen, looking, only finding larva and capped brood. “This one has capped brood on it. Lots of larva too. A few eggs, but not many.” She added, gesturing to the frame.

Collin nodded. “We’ll take four of the center frames, move the outer frames in, and add four empty ones in from these new hives. Then we’ll let them set a few days and come back and look after a while and see if they are building a new queen. IF not, we’ll make them one ourselves.” Kavala nodded, eager to learn. It was a rare thing when someone knew more about something she was involved in than she herself did. Bees were like that. So she soaked up Collin’s wisdom like she used to soak up her mother’s medical knowledge.

Under Collins’ watchful eye, Kavala went through and pulled two more frames, looked for a queen, and found none. They set the rest of the brood box aside after moving the outer frames in and adding more, pulling it off the bottom brood box. Then she carefully went through that box, making sure it was nice and healthy. Then she pulled the last frame, exclaimed in victory, and held the frame up to show Collin a nice heathly queen scurrying in and out of the workers. Collin smiled. “On the last frame, it figures.” Kavala nodded.

“Do we need to cage her?” She asked.

Collin shook his head. “It’s enough we know shes safe, healthy, and was on the last frame, so she didn’t get jostled around in the move. Put it back, Kavala, and then put the hive back together. We’ll move on and do the rest of them while I’m here.” He said, as the Konti nodded, and bent to set the frame carefully back in the lower brood box. Then she put the upper brood box back on, and put the inner cover and lid on. She kept put the new hive together as well, recovering it and leaving only one brood box on it. She’d let the bees fill up the bottom brood from the new frame before a second brood box needed to be added. Kavala stretched, standing upright, and nodding.

“Next one?” Collin nodded.

The pair of them managed to make the rounds to the other five hives, pull four frames, and make splits doing so. Kavala had a question about it too, wondering something as they worked. “Why do we only use four frames instead of say just taking one brood box off and using that as the split?” She asked, curious.

As usual, Collin had an answer for her. “Well, we are taking splits from extremely strong hives, but we don’t want to weaken the strong hive we have. So if you took all ten frames instead of four, we’d definitely weaken the hive. A really strong hive can stand loosing a few frames of bees. Or conversely if you wanted even more splits than the modest hive splits your doing now, you could take TWO splits from the top brood box, which remember holds ten frames, and then leave two frames in, fill it up with empty, and that’s probably enough to coax the bees from the bottom brood up to the top and get them to repopulate. If your hive bodies are crowded, that’s what we’ll need to do. And you might want to do that too, thinking about swarming behavior.” He said.

Kavala nodded. “Will you tell me more about swarms?” She asked, wondering what he mainly thought caused a swarm and what could be done about one.

“Swarming is instinctual for bees, Kavala. It’s how they reproduce and expand and it increases their rate of survival because it gets them out in the world in multiple locations from one blood line and that increases their chance of making it.” Collin said. “Swarming behavior usually happens in the spring when they are rapidly increasing their population and just before the major nectar flow comes on. We don’t want it to happen as a Beekeeper because you don’t have any control where they go. That’s why I brought you these swarm traps. When a hive gets ready to swarm, the bees start making whats called a swarm queen, and keep feeding her and getting her ready to take over for the old queen. Then, when the swarm queen is ready to hatch, the old queen takes half the adult bees and leaves the colony and usually flies to a local tree and rests. Then scouts are sent out to find a suitable new location for a hive, and they come back, report to the queen, and they all fly on to the new location. That’s what these swarm traps are for. They are desirable homes for the bees that we will set up around your facility high on the walls. Then when the scouts go out looking, they will find these swarm trap hives, land there, and move in. You can then fetch them down and install the whole lot of bees into new hives where you want them without them flying off into the forest or grasslands looking for new homes.” Collin explained, gesturing to the swarm traps that were on the cart.

Kavala moved to examine one. It looked like a chopped down basic version of a hive. It had a brood box filled with drawn comb, a removable lid and inner cover, and a solid bottom board with attached landing area. Kavala looked around and considered. He said high up on a building would be the best place to put them, but there was no real place to set the boxes. Though it wasn’t as if that would stop her. “We should put them up all around right? Near where the hives are but not too far away.. .facing south like the bees like.” Collin nodded, a smile alighting his face.

Kavala set the swarm trap down, walked across the garden to the south side, and ran her hands up a stone wall. They had finished up in the meditation garden which had planned buildings on the south side, but nothing really fancy yet. So she picked the healing clinic, went over to the wall, and gently gathered res. She pulled molded the res into stone she could add to the wall until she had hand grips and foot holds worked into the wall. The building was one story, but the ceiling was high, so it was about twelve feet in the air before the roof started. Kavala had plans to put Caelum’s apartment up on the clinic roof, so this was a good place to put a swarm trap as well. Using the footholds and handholds as she made them, Kavala climbed the wall until she was at the twelve foot mark. Then she pulled res out from her hands and molded it with her will, making a shelf for the swarm trap to set on that was in matching stone. It literally looked like a bookshelf sticking out of the wall. Kavala also reinforced it with brackets she formed of stone, making sure if a colony did land, the shelf could take its weight and the weight of the swarm trap. When the shelf was ready, Collin climbed partway up and handed her the trap. They baited the back of it with a bit of lemongrass oil on a piece of cloth and left it alone.

Kavala was satisfied. At that point she went back through the compound, picked other spots, and crafted other shelves to hold the traps. When they were done, she had swarm traps located in easy finding distance of each hive, hoping that she could catch a swarm before they lost any bees.

by **Kavala** on November 4th, 2013, 6:39 am

“So you were saying that they swarm in the spring. Are there any indications they are going to swarm if you don’t look in the hive?” Kavala asked Collin as she set the last swarm trap in place. He’d already ran down the conditions for a swarm, but most of them involved the inside of the hive. She wondered if there would be any signs without cracking the box open. “We don’t know why they swarm, Kavala. But we do know they tend to leave on warm clear days and usually between the eleventh and fourteenth bell. When they are going to get ready to swarm, they often collect on the outside of the hive in what we call a ‘beard’ before they launch into the sky. If they are bearding though, its too late to get them usually. You have to let them swarm, because if you crack the hive open, they are going to launch anyhow.” Collin said. Kavala nodded, having seen bearding as a behavior in Collin’s orchard hives.

“So what exactly happens in the hive that’s left?” Kavala asked.

“Well the prime swarm leaves, that’s about half the bees including the old queen. The new queen hatches about four or five days later, and she leaves on her mating flight. If she mates well, she will return to the hive and begin laying, starting a new generation of bees. The colony left behind stays calm because they have the queen cells maturing inside and getting ready to hatch. They know they have their replacement for the old queen on their way.” Collin said, smiling. “But the crazy thing about that is when a colony is getting ready to swarm, they might make three or four swarm cells or even more. So you might have the prime swarm leave, then you could have the next queen hatch, she takes off on her mating flight, and returns to gather half of the half that was left and then she flies away with those bees in the form of a swarm. Within just a short period of time you can have an empty hive if this goes on unchecked.” Collin said, looking concerned.

Kavala looked thoughtful. “Then if you are doing inspections and find queen cells, you can really cut down on swarming can’t you?” Kavala asked, looking thoughtful.

Collin nodded. “Sometimes. You have to know what you are looking for when you find queen cells and whether they are supersedures or actual swarm cells. Do you know the difference?” He asked Kavala.

Kavala looked thoughtful and took a moment before she replied. “Well it stands to reason if a hive doesn’t swarm, their queen isn’t going to last forever. You said she has a shelf life of anywhere from two to three years sometimes longer. But she can still get sick, hurt, wounded, simply die, get attacked by predators, or stop laying eggs for some reason back when I got my first hives from you. I remember that much. So they’d need a way to replace their queen anytime if they needed too. So I guess the supersedure queen cells would be in regards to that. Swarm cells would be for swarms and reproducing the whole colony, right?” Collin nodded.

“Very good. And the difference is they look different, these queen cells, and are often located in different parts of the hive. Swarm cells for example are almost always on the bottom portion of the frame towards the entrance. Supersedure cells are bigger, and located in the center of the brood near the middle or top.” He said, tapping his chin in thought. “You will only get one large prominent queen cell in a hive if you are watching a hive replace its queen. If the hive is swarming, there will be smaller cells, still queen cells mind you, but they will be located like I said on the lower portion of the hive, and they will be in clusters of two or more.” Collin said, when Kavala nodded.

“So can you pinch off the queen cells and kill the new queens to prevent swarming?” Kavala asked. Collin nodded.

“Yes, that helps a great deal. But we want to make sure you only remove swarm cells and not supersedure cells. You don’t know why a queen needs to be replaced. But the hive or yourself can make that decision. And if you do kill the swarm cells that are present, if you don’t change the situation that made the swarm cells happen, you’ll continue to get more and more swarm cell queens even after you remove them.” Collin said. Kavala nodded, understanding where he was coming from.

by **Kavala** on November 4th, 2013, 6:40 am

“So what happens if the swarm traps don’t capture a swarm?” Kavala asked, moving to step back and admire the job she’d done placing the last swarm trap. She turned to look at Collin, wondering what one did if the traps weren’t effective and the swarm alight somewhere then flew off.

“Ah. Yea. You should know this as well, Kavala. Swarms are so very mild you can handle them easily as a beekeeper. Capturing swarms is fairly easy. There’s a few ways to do it. Most often, the swarm will alight in a tree on a branch and hang down in a big cluster. You can often take a hand saw and once the swarm has landed and clustered, you can cut the branch off with a saw and move the swarm around. You can also hold a container like a box or crate under the branch and then tap the branch violently so the swarm is knocked off. It will fall into the crate and you can lid it really fast and then move the swarm from there. People use burlap bags, just about anything, to capture a swarm. Smart beekeepers, however, keep swarm traps around and keep their bees from swarming in the first place.” Collin said, trying to teach Kavala how to do things the right way so she didn’t have to go chase after swarms or loose all her bees to swarming.

“Does swarming ever weaken a strong hive to the point you should actually put the swarm back in its original hive?” Kavala said, curious as to whether the bees ever made mistakes or undermined their own strength by the swarming.

Collin laughed and nodded. “When a strong hive swarms, you can easily end up with two weak hives. And if you are here for say honey production, like The Sanctuary is, you don’t want that. Instead you want a strong hive because that’s going to give the most honey. Two weak hives won’t hurt a person like me who’s in it to pollinate the fruit trees and nut trees. But with you, weak hives equals no honey. Honey to me is just a sweet reward for a job well done in the summer.” Collin said.

Kavala laughed lightly and nodded. They were slowly walking back to his wagon. The nucs were back on the cart, but they were going into storage until Kavala needed them, not back to the orchards with Collin. “What is the best way to reunite a swarm with its parent colony? Can you just put the swarm back in, finding all the swarm queens and killing them, or is there a better way to do it?” Kavala asked, already learning a ton from Collin about what she should be doing as a beekeeper.

Collin looked thoughtful. “I’ll tell you a few different ways, Kavala, because truthfully the best way for one colony might not be the best way for another colony.” The beekeeper said. “I’d always put the swarm in a new hive. If not a whole hive, just the brood box. Then I’d return the brood box to the parent colony’s stand. Id add one deep or a couple of honey supers on it, then I’d eliminate the conditions that caused the swarming in the parent hive – be it pests, overcrowding, etc – and kill all remaining queen cells or swarm cells. We haven’t talked about pests in the hive yet, but we will. Then I’d place the parent hive on top of the swarm hive with a queen excluder between them. Then after about seven to ten days I’d take the excluder out. Now your hive is reunited – the bees will come together past the queen excluder anyhow – and cluster around the queen. Your hive will have a lot more room and open cells to lay in and move about, making the old queen a lot happier.” Collin explained. “With this way, you’ll get your colony returning to full strength and a big incentive to stay home and not swarm.” He said, stopping at his wagon and leaning a hip against the side of it.

“The other way would sacrifice honey, but you could do it.” He said, still musing. He waited a bit and then started to talk. “You can place the swarm hive on the stand of the parent hive and place the supers on it, giving it more room. Then you can set the parent colony alongside the swarm hive. The field bees will return to the swarm colony and the parent hive. One or two almost mature queen cells should be left in the parent colony. You can tell they are about perfect for leaving if they are capped but are still light in color. Queen cells ready to hatch tend to be darker. Then you can wait for the queen to emerge, mate, and start laying eggs. Then you can move the parent hive away from the swarm hive safely and you’ll actually get a split this way.” He said, chuckling.

“But if you are really lazy, Kavala, or pressed for time, you can just go ahead and correct the conditions that caused the swarming, add more space, and pinch off the queen cells. Then return the swarm to the original colony by opening it up and dumping the crate box or bag into the hive. Any remaining bees should be left to fend for themselves by tipping the crate or box up by the entrance of the hive. Nine times out of ten those bees left in the crate will walk up the side, out, and into the hive on their own power.” Collin said, smiling.

Kavala nodded, glad to know this. “Okay, I totally understand. I think I know what to do with swarms now and overcrowding, but we still need to talk about pests. Can we talk about them now?” She asked.

Collin shook his head. “Naw, I’d rather you came back to the orchards with me for a few hours. I have some hives to inspect and I’d like to show you some disease issues up close. I can describe diseases too you, but you need to see them first hand.” He said, and Kavala nodded. The two climbed up on the wagon and set the team back out the gate. If it meant learning more about her bees, Kavala would definitely make the trip and spare the time to be away.

by **Kavala** on November 4th, 2013, 7:06 am

Kavala bounced along in the wagon, chuckling as Collon continued to talk. The back of the wagon rattled with several empty crates, and various miscellaneous bee gear. There were some additional nucs and a bucket of tools just in case someone asked him to check their hives while he was out and about. Kavala had stripped off her gloves, her hat, and veil and had tucked them into the back of the wagon along with the other gear.

“Kavala, if you get swarms and start hives, remember, they don’t come with food. Bees gorge on honey and that’s why they are so mellow to work with when they swarm. They are stuffed full of food when they leave their colonies because they are leaving all their food behind. They eat enough food to keep them going for two or three days without foraging. So make sure if you do capture a swarm and put it into a hive, especially one without drawn comb, you feed it. The best ratio is 1:1 sugar water. You keep feeding them until they draw comb and all foundation they need to store food is created. That might be a whole thirty to sixty day cycle. You just watch them and when they stop drawing comb, you stop feeding them. Until then you’ll do them a huge favor giving them food and that will give them a jumpstart to make you more honey.” Collin said.

Kavala nodded. “I did the same thing with the nucs you gave me to get started. Those core colonies were drawing out comb like crazy and didn’t have time to forage for food and make wax like they were doing. So I fed them at least thirty days thought I think it was more like sixty.” Kavala acknowledged, thinking back to the time when the hives came.

They’d passed the road to The Sanctuary and were back on the Kabrin headed south towards the orchards. Kavala leaned back, content, glad to be discussing bees, when she caught a glimpse of something off the road in the fringe forest.

“Wait Collin.. do you see that? Stop a moment!” Kavala exclaimed, and slide off the wagon the moment Collin brought it to a halt. There, off the side of the road, clinging to a tree branch about six feet from the ground, was a huge cluster of bees. IT probably housed at least fifty thousand bees and was about three times the size of Kavala’s head. “Are you kidding me? We were just talking about you.” Kavala said with a gentle laugh, pointing at the swarm. Collin was right behind her. He walked up to the swarm, peered at it, and noted it was on a branch that was somewhat elastic and wouldn’t be easy to break.

“Kavala, we don’t need gear really. Just run to the wagon and get a crate with a lid. Hurry.” He said. She did as she was told, then positioned the crate beneath the cluster and handed the lid to Collin. At his signal, just like he told her, she reached up, grasped the branch that’s just over her head, and gave it a big jerk. The swarmed colony suddenly dropped off the branch in one big plop and fell gently into the crate, puddling there almost as if it weren’t a huge amount of bees but instead was a living breathing puddle of pudding. Collin gently swept the stragglers off the rim of the crate and put the lid on quickly, satisfied with the amount of bees he had in the crate. The bees weren't aggressive at all and they didn't start flying immediately when she knocked them off the branch. They acted, in fact, like they were a little drunk or stuffed with honey. None of them tried to escape or even tried to fly off. They just puddled in the crate and let Collin put the lid on.

“Very good. I wouldn’t have thought we’d have found one so soon after this talk, but it is the perfect time of year for them. Would you like to keep this one, Kavala? It’ looks like a prime swarm and has a huge amount of bees in it." Kavala nodded.

“You brought extra beehives. Can we turn back really fast and install them in a hive and then continue on to the orchards?” Collin nodded, pleased that his pupil wanted to take care of her bees before getting her field trip in which was supposed to be a treat. So they turned the wagon around, and headed back to The Sanctuary. Inside the meditation garden there was an extra hive set up. Collin had put a split into it, but they could put the swarm into it just as well and the swarm would stay because they had drawn comb, brood, and other bees. It took them well over fifteen minutes to arrive home. Once home, she headed straight for the Meditation Garden and the new split hive there.

Kavala took the hive apart there, then took the crate and did what Collin had suggested as a third and lazy beekeeper method. She simply dumped the swarm into the hive body that already contained four frames of bees and brood. She kept shaking the crate, in fact, until the crate was almost empty. Then she leaned the crate against the hive entrance. Bees were already emerging from the opening and fanning their wings like crazy. She put the lid back on, and watched fascinated as the other bees from the crate who hadn’t gotten dumped in then hurried to walk past the fanning bees at the entrance and vanish into the hive.

“Collin, what on earth are those bees doing that are fanning their wings.” She asked, curious. The beekeeper laughed.

“They are doing just what you said. They are fanning. When they find a good place the queen takes a look around and says we’re staying. Once she says that, the workers go houtside and begin fanning. It spreads her scent out on the air and leads any stray stragglers back to the new colony. Your hive is getting bee approval if there are already workers fanning. And the stragglers, like those still in the crate, smell them fanning her scent everywhere on the wind, and will come to join their kin.” He said, pleased.

Kavala was delighted. She watched for a few more minutes until they once more climbed up into the wagon, Collin driving, and headed off for The Orchards.

Continued in "Bee Diseased"

by **Taylani** on November 13th, 2013, 3:35 am

Kavala

Skills :

Lores :

Notes :

Solo [The Sanctuary] Bee Willing