Plan Bee: Gently does it

I arrived home to a beautiful sunny afternoon yesterday. I felt a little nervous at the prospect of opening up the nucleus hive and transplanting the frames. I had worked Bee's on only a few occasions before and never in my own yard. Ultimately I decided that this is was one of the many jobs a bee keeper should be comfortable with and one must get used to being engulfed in angry bee's on occasion. I was also driven by the fact that I wanted the Bee's out of that cramped box and into their comfortable new home where they have room to expand their colony.

I went into my garage, a corner of which I have now designated as my official Bee Keeping storage area. I felt quite excited as I gathered my equipment together, my smoker, hive tools, a knife and some tinder to light the smoker with. I put on my veil jacket, gloves and some stout hiking boots and prepared my tools ready for the visit to the Bee yard.

After making sure I had everything to hand I took a walk out to the Bee's with the new hive in hand. For now this consisted of a screened bottom board (apparently better for varroa mite control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa ), a deep brood chamber, top cover (crown board) and hive roof.

I felt it was useful to have some mental picture of what I wanted to do and I quickly formulated a plan as I walked out there.

I figured the Bee's were going to be very upset at times, especially since I was removing them from their current home. Being surrounded by a cloud of angry bee's was a very real prospect I decided it was a good policy to walk away from the site for a few minutes whenever I felt I needed to calm them down, this would also let the Bees take to my invasion my gradually.

Another policy I adopted was to work the Bee's very slowly and very gently using a few good puffs of smoke from my smoker, every time I intended to get hands on with a frame.

My final strategy involved removing the nuc a good distance from the spot it was in. I learnt at Bee School Bee's will always try and fly back to the spot where their hive was, not to where its been moved to; well at least initially.

Using this knowledge I believed I could move the nuc and have most of the angry Bees swarm around the location where the nuc was and not around me. This was good thinking since I could then take the time to unscrew the lid of the nuc - not so easy on a hot afternoon wearing a bee suit and handling a box that bees have firmly stuck together with Propolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propolis).

I felt quite nervous once I got out to the site, my heart was definitely thumping and I had a good flow adrenaline going. I really felt I needed to survey the situation and take it slowly. Bee's might seem cute and cuddly, but they are not to be underestimated and it pays to get used to working them gradually.

I knelt down and got the tinder for my smoker ready and began to feel more at ease. It was nice to be practicing a cottage craft and lighting the smoker felt almost ritualistic in nature. I put in the tinder, old pine needles and dry paper, I gave the bellows a few good puffs and got the tinder alight. After the tinder had died down I added some smoker fuel (I had bought this online - really just dried paper pressed into a small tablet), gave the bellows a few more puffs and put the lid on. A rich white smoke rose from the nose cone and I gave a sigh of relief. I think relief in myself that I could actually do this and had a plan that was going to work in getting these bees into the hive. Talk about over analyzing the situation :)

I apprached the nuc carefully from one side, smoker in hand I gave a good puff of smoke at the entrance to the nuc and around its vicinity. Several guard bee's came out and zipped around me, I felt the odd ping as one or two flew into me (the usual warning). I plugged the front entrance to the nuc with the gauze provided at purchase and I re-plugged the feeder hole in the top of the box to prevent too many escapees.

You might think at this point with no new bee's escaping that this would be a piece of cake. Let me tell you these little buggers move fast, so fast in fact that in the time it took me to plug the holes in the box, I have a good size swarm of bees around me all buzzing loudly and looking for chinks in my armor - quite literally.

I decided to take my first time out at this point and I walked 15-20 feet away in a calm and steady fashion. One or two persistent Bees followed me but no more. I waited a few minutes and I could see the Bees calm down significantly. I walked back.

I puffed more smoke from the smoker on this second approach and with good speed gently took the nuc down from the stand it was on and rested the box a few feet away. I also took the new hive and put it in place of the box, the entrance facing the exact same position.

Sure enough stage one of operation new beekeeper was complete. The bees in flight did not follow me, but instead orientated around where the box originally was, landing at the entrance to the new hive.

This gave me some reprieve from the onslaught of Bees that were previously around me and I set to work unscrewing the top of the Nuc. Once I had the top unscrewed I prized it open very gently from one side and gently blew some smoke in there as I lifted the lid.

I was amazed to see hundred and hundred of Bees sitting gently across five of so frames, which were drawn out by the bee's in various states. I found this to be amazing to look at and the geometry they build in definitely bares some resemblance to something you might see copied by a sci-fi film director more than once.

Using the hive tools I teased the frame loose from the Propolis holding it tight. Then I carefully lifted the first frame out of the box. Hundreds of bees clung tightly to it in rows. Neat geometric patterns dashed across the comb holding capped brood, honey and different colored pollen.

I wish I had been comfortable enough to pay more attention to the frames and next time I will, however at this time I was particularly cautious of handling the frames to roughly or damaging the queen (wherever she may be). With a swift but firm gentle motion I transferred the first frame smoothly across without to much fuss.

As I placed the first frame very gently into the new hive the guard bee's got wind of me again and flared up a little. I was relieved at this initial success and didn't want to push my luck so I decided to back off for another break.

The remainder of my work involved repeating this process to ensure all of the frames were transferred. Ultimately I realized the advantages and disadvantages to this method of acquiring Bee's over that of a package. In a package the Bee's aren’t really guarding a hive and are probably a lot more docile, whilst in a nuc; your essentially ripping their home apart to transfer them. Also in a package you know where the queen is, she is right there in a little box you can safely transfer, good luck finding the queen when transferring a nuc! :)

My final word on this triumphant transfer concerns the contents of the nuc box when I had finished transferring all the frames. I was left with a good pound or so of bee's clinging to the sides of the box and had to figure out a way to get them into the new hive as well.

As I had been taking my time, it was getting into early evening I had to make a decision on how to transfer the remainder of the Bee's. I could see the bee's on the new hive fanning scent as if to direct missing Bee's to their new home, but given the late hour I just couldn't convince myself the remaining Bee's were going to fly home in force before nightfall.

I came up with the idea of inverting the nuc box on top the new hive and just letting the bee's crawl down into the new hive overnight. Great idea but flawed by the fact when I inverted the box a good chunk of Bee's dumped out onto the hives crown board.

I had seen bee keepers dump packages of bees into a hive so I decided that it was reasonable to give the box a gentle tap to get all the Bees in one corner and then dump these bee's on top the hive. This seemed to work much better and after a few taps and some coaxing I got the remaining Bee's on top the hive. The Bee's were now gathering around the hole in the crown board with their bottoms in the air, fanning scent indicating the way in.

What was once a mass of Bee's flying around now took the form of a fairly silent hive with an odd straggler buzzing around trying to find its way in.

Plan Bee was over, we had sustained no stings (I had my pregnant wife participate safely in part of the process as she was curious) and we had minimal Bee casualties.

All in all I felt a sense of peace, accomplishment and satisfaction as I packed up my equipment and put out my smoker at the end of the day.