The goldenrod honey flow began a few days earlier than previous years, but not with a bang as before. More gradually. The rain we’ve had should help the flow of nectar. Now I have every available honey super on my hives, except the ones full of honey — those I am extracting with the intention of getting them back on the hives as soon as possible. If bees don’t have enough room to store honey, they will swarm.
I have seen more than the average numbers of August swarms this year. If the honey flow is strong, the bees still have a chance to survive the winter. There will be an El Nino in the Pacific this winter, which often coincides with a milder, if wetter, winter here. That means smaller hives may make it.
Last month I described an unusual hive I relocated, which looked like a bee. This month I recovered a hive from a most unusual location. I got a call that a swarm had landed on an old 1949 Ford pickup truck at Hartt Transportation in Bangor. When I got there, about an hour after the bees’ arrival, I found a large mass of bees clustered on the side of the truck. But it soon became apparent they actually were in the process of moving into the gas tank. Obviously the gas dried out years before. The challenge was how to get them out.
The first attempt was to drive them out with the fumes we use to kill off parasitic mites. I set up a small empty hive, or nuc, next to the filler. I pushed a Mite Away Quick Strip into the filler and waited as the formic acid fumes filled the tank. This succeeded in filling the company’s parking lot with flying bees but did little to capture them. The bees were still reluctant to adopt the nuc as a home.
The next day I fashioned a one-way door between the car’s gas tank and the nuc. Inside this nuc I placed a comb full of bee eggs and larvae. With no route into the gas tank, the bees quickly adopted the nuc as their new home. Bees could leave the tank but not re-enter.
Over the next few days, the bees half filled the nuc and started to build comb and feed the larvae. Because the queen would not leave the gas tank, the bees in the nuc started to raise a new queen from the eggs in the frame of brood I had given them. In all, I believe I got about 90 percent or more of the bees out of the tank. This is the same process you would use to get bees out of a hollow tree that can’t be cut down. It should be noted it takes months to get the bees out of an established home instead of the week or so this new hive took to coax out.
As we go into fall, I have a new round of beekeeping classes starting. This spring I had 307 students, many of whom have started their first hives and are about to harvest their first crop of honey.
If you have an interest in learning more about bees and beekeeping, call one of the following Adult Ed’s and book your place. I’ll run beginners’ classes, where we would go through all the basics of beekeeping, and an intermediate course for those with a little bit more experience with bees or as a good followup to the beginner class.
— Mount Desert Island, beginner class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Mondays, Sept. 14-28. For more information, call 288-4703.
— Hampden, beginner class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Sept. 15-29. For more information, call 862-6422.
— Bangor, beginner class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Sept. 16-30. For more information, call 992-5522.
— Newport, beginner class, 6-9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5 and Oct. 19. For more information, call 368-3290.
— Ellsworth, beginner class, 6:30-8:30 Tuesdays, Oct. 6-20. For more information, call 664-7110.
— Bucksport, beginner class, 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays, Oct. 7-21. For more information, call 469-2129.
— Bangor, intermediate class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Mondays, Oct. 26-Nov. 9. For more information, call 992-5522.
— Hampden, intermediate class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Oct. 27-Nov. 19. For more information, call 862-6422.
— Bucksport, intermediate class, 6-8 p.m. Wednesdays, Oct. 28-Nov. 11. For more information, call 469-2129.
— Newport, intermediate class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Mondays, Nov. 16-Dec. 7. For more information, call 368-3290.
— Ellsworth, intermediate class, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Nov. 17, 24 and Dec. 8. For more information, call 664-7110.
Peter Cowin, aka The Bee Whisperer, is President of the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association. His activities include honey production, pollination services, beekeeping lessons, sales of bees and bee equipment and the removal of feral bee hives from homes and other structures. Check out “The Bee Whisperer” on Facebook, email petercowin@tds.net or call 299-6948.