I just placed my order for three honeybee packages from Bee Weaver apiaries down in Texas. I ordered the BeeWeaver variety. They describe their bees as follows.
“BeeWeaver Queens are a hybrid of our very best All Star and Buckfast and BeeSMaRt colonies. After selecting for mite resistance, high honey production and healthy populations in all our queen lines for over a decade we found our breeds became similar. Our choice to combine the breeds will bring you the best all around bees possible and better customer service. This decision may have been an obvious one to make, but it was not an easy one. We hope as the beekeeping world evolves you will find that our own evolution is the best path to overcome today’s challenges in the world of bees.”
What really caught my attention is this quote:
When a BeeWeaver Queen heads your colony you will be able to throw away those expensive mite treatments as well.
I really hope this will be the case.
Last year at my old apiary I experienced what a Catholic might call a “miracle”, a Protestant “the will of God”, and an atheist “WTF”. No, I did not see the face of Jesus in my honeycomb. If I did you would have heard about it on E-bay and I would be drinking beers in Bavaria with all of the money I would have made.
I began to notice the Fall before that two of my hives were beginning to succumb to the mites despite my efforts to save them. Assuming the worst I fed them as much sugar as they would take and treated them for Nosema and AFB. I no longer use the miticides as I think in the long term it makes our honeybees weaker. That is my personal preference though and I don’t judge others that do, especially people trying to make a living off of beekeeping.
WTF
For the next season I would replace those two hives with some new comb and frames and two packages of Buckfast bees. Currently inside were standard M1-A1 issue Italian bees. Early in January, before I placed my order for the Buckfasts, I went to the apiary and tapped on the side of the hive with my ear to the wall of it. Nothing. I checked all four sides in case they were centralized on one side and still nothing. Popping open the telescoping cover I quickly looked in and could not see or hear anything promising. With a sigh, I opened the brood chambers and confirmed what I believed to be true. The colony had perished. The same unfortunate situation existed in the other hive. Later that weekend I called up Weaver apiaries and placed an order for three packages. One for a new hive I was starting and the other two to replace the lost colonies.
In March I went out there and began preparing for the new bees. Cleaned out comb buildup, scrapped off propolis and dead bees from the bottom board, and replaced old frames. Come the following month I was going to be ready. Or so I thought.
The day came with a 4:00 AM call from the post office. The bees had arrived and the Postmaster would appreciate it if I could come and pick them up. I quickly drove to the P.O. and picked up my girls with a mister of warm sugar water to give them a drink. Packing them off in the car I drove home and prepared to put them in their hive later in the day.
The day was perfect. Warm and about 4:00 PM. I drove out to the hives ready to begin the new season with anticipation. As I pulled my Subaru up to the hives I noticed more activity coming out from all three of my hives. “WTF” echoed through my head. Why are there live bees coming out of my empty hives? This was not robbing either. There were bees coming and going. Some with little parcels of pollen on their legs and others with stomachs full of nectar ready to be transferred to the younger house bees.
Uh Oh. Where are my girls going to go? Furiously pumping my smoker, I trudged over to the squatter bees and demanded from them an explanation. Ignoring my entreaties I began opening their misbegotten hives. Inside each one of the two hives was a robust colony already in full swing. Brood circles were full and at least 18 days developed.
Inside my Subaru the bees were getting restless. I could see them looking at me with their billion pixel eyes with anticipation. I had to be quick on my feet and not show any fear otherwise they would not respect me and managing them would become a bear.
Running to my car and sliding over the hood like the Duke brothers I flung open my door and unlocked the child safety locks. With the rear door open I hefted the three packages of bees and placed them in front of the new hive I “was” going to establish with one package. Only now it was going to be three packages in one hive. It took about 10 minutes each to dump them all in. By the time the sun set most of them had marched into the hive and only a few hundred were still hanging around the empty packages. The sad part of this story is that I now had two homeless queens. Looking in their queen cages I could see the attendees bouncing around looking for a way out while the queen sat idly next to a clump of sugar paste.
I called a few people to see if they wanted them but no one was interested. So one fine sunny day at work, I unplugged each cage opening and let them fly off. They were probably eaten by a bird or such but at least they had a few days of liberty. I felt like the couple who raised and released the lioness Elsa.
The hive did pretty well that year.
I am not sure how it came to be. Swarming season usually happens around July in my area. For not one but two hives to experience the same spontaneous generation of healthy colonies I am at a loss. I am sure there is a scientific explanation for what happened. Maybe a few feral colonies were forced to relocate and my empty bee hives fit the bill. Or maybe the one healthy colony I had split itself into three separate colonies. I don’t know what to think. I have to say it made my day despite the expenditure of about 300.00 dollars to populate one new hive.
