Days on the Homestead : : Bulldozer Bees

My dear friend, Camille, is back to share her days on her homestead with us. It's all about beautiful bees. 

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Bulldozer Bees by Camille
 

This is how my husband Henry spent a good part of this past weekend.

Henry is transitioning from being a hobby beekeeper to a professional who specializes in mite-resistant colonies that are well adapted to local conditions. He successfully overwintered one hive that we've had for several years, but this spring, he put the word out that he would catch honey bees swarms or remove colonies from houses, barns, and such, and now he is tending over twenty hives. Henry is working toward building up healthy colonies, so he can start selling them to amateur beekeepers in the area.

In the past 15 or so years, beekeepers across the country and the world have lost millions of colonies to an upsurge in mites and disease. Treatments for these conditions often use nasty chemicals that are not necessarily effective. Henry, among others, is looking toward feral bees that have overwintered for years without human intervention for the genetics to propagate a strong honey bee population. These hardier colonies exist around our area in bee trees, eves of houses, and in other strange places.

In this particular case, Henry got a tip off from a client that some bees had been living inside a defunct Terex bulldozer (aptly named Kermit) for at least two years. The owners of the equipment were hoping to sell or scrap the dozer in the near-ish future, so they wanted the bees gone.

When we arrived on the scene, the bees were flying in and out of a small opening near the tracks.

It just so happened that the opening was on a plate that could be easily removed by unscrewing just two bolts. A piece of cake, right?

Henry fired up his smoker by lighting some dry grass.

Smoke masks alarm pheromones sent out by bees, and it tricks them into thinking the hive is on fire, so they gobble up a bunch of honey and take flight in a calm state.

Burlap is the smoking material of choice for many beekeepers because it smolders for a long time at a low temperature.

With the smoker ready, Henry unbolted the plate and...

Viola!

Oh wait, there weren't any bees under the plate. The mission was turning out to be much more complicated than anticipated.

After further inspection, it turned out that the bees were significantly deeper into the inner workings of the dozer. There wasn't going to be any easy way to just sweep out the whole colony with the queen undamaged.

There was one other much smaller plate that could be removed.

Sure enough. Opening that plate provided a direct path into the main part of the hive.

The opening, however, was barely larger than fist size, and the honeycomb was built perpendicular to the entry point.

Henry did pull out a few chunks of comb and bees, but it became apparent that the queen wasn't going to make it out intact with that method, and without a healthy queen, the colony couldn't survive on its own. A new plan was improvised. The plates were bolted back in, and we left for the night.

The next day, Henry brought out one of his weaker hives. This colony needed a larger population to build up food reserves and heat the bee box over the winter. He was hoping to graft as many worker bees as possible from the dozer hive onto the weak one.

Henry unbolted both plates again and positioned the boxed colony as close as possible to the openings in the dozer. Then he started smoking them heavily.

Bees boiled out of the holes and into the air. A cloud buzzed around the dozer and around us. When he suspected that most of the bees were out of the machine, he continued to smoke them as he reinstalled the plates and shut the flying bees out of their home.

Soon they started to collect in areas around the entrance to the old hive. One place they thought looked particularly good was Henry's hardhat, veil, and back. One friend saw a photo and dubbed this the "bee mullet."

Miraculously, Henry wasn't stung once.

With more smoke and physical encouragement, a large portion of the bees that were in the air ended up in the new hive box. You can see in the above photo that the bees from the dozer are showing their new affiliation with this colony by sitting on the landing board and fanning.

In the end, it wasn't a totally successful ordeal. The queen from the dozer hive is likely trapped inside will die without enough attendants. A lot of unhatched brood was also lost because it couldn't be retrieved from inside the dozer and transplanted into a new hive. Some bees were spared, however, and the weak colony got a boost of new energy and bee power from the extra workers.

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This adventure brings back such precious memories of the many times I watched my dad and his man, Kenny, smoking out the bees at my grandmothers farm Ostrich Spring on Honey Collection Day. Ahhh, I can almost smell that sweet smoky smell. Thank you, Camille

Dear Readers, I know you are wanting some more of Camille and her gorgeous homestead. You can visit her on her blog, Wayward Spark.

Camille also has a lovley Etsy shop where she sells the most beautiful wooden cutting boards (you saw them in the photos... aren't they to die for!)... do yourself a favor and have a look at her stunning pieces ... Red Onion Woodworks.

Thank you, Camille, I look forward to your next visit very much :-)

Blessings and magic, 

Donni