We thought our hives were going to survive this year. The weather started to warm up and we had plenty of bee activity in the hives and then, poof, they all died. Bee keeping can be frustrating! Just when we think the girls are strong, or have enough food for the winter, or the spring time activity is on schedule and all is well. They die! The queen dies! The drones die. The hive looks good, but the bees didn't make it. We were too late to order new colonies so it looked like we were not going to have any hives this year.
But I made some phone calls and found a different bee "guy" who was bringing in new colonies the next day and he had some extra. But, now the story gets fun. One of the phone calls I made was to a gentleman who will come and get swarms from your yard. I asked him if he came across some swarms if we could get one or two from him.
Thursday we got a call from a gentleman in Holladay, behind the old Cottonwood Mall, he had a swarm on his house. He had knocked it off the pillar on his deck and they were on the roof. When we got there. The bees had found an opening into his house. They were going under the flashing and in between the floor of the deck and the ceiling of his garage. We swept as many as we could into a box and Kevin thinks he might have found a queen. We brought them home and they are doing good. We will give them another few days to see if the queen is laying eggs.
We decided to get some lunch before heading home and another call came in about a swarm in a tree in front of a house off 900 South and 740 East. Well lets go see if we can get this swarm. When we got there. The swarm had just moved from another tree to this one. Kevin was able to get the entire swarm into a box and yes, this one had a queen. Then Saturday, our Holladay friend called and he had another swarm in his pine tree about 4 feet off the ground in front of his house. So we tried again and we think that the queen is in this ball of bees also.
They are sooooo neat. A ball of bees is really pretty and the hum of all these bees is really cool. When you come close to them, "scout" bees will fly around you and if they think you are dangerous, they bump you, a warning to not get too close.
Sooooooo, if you are spraying your yard for weeds or bugs, please, please, please, spray in the evening, pesticide recommendations suggest late evening spraying, when the bees are coming back to the hive. Then you won't kill our girls or anyone else's girls and your fruit trees and gardens will get pollinated.
And have an unbee lievable day!
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