Rooftop Revival

At the end of last summer we had some work done our roof and I had to move the one remaining rooftop hive elsewhere. I really missed being able to look out of the window every day and watch the bees. But, we are back in business on the roof. It has become my nuc yard where, at the moment, I have 4 nucs growing up. If you have seen old pictures of the roof, you'll notice that we used to have it white-coated. For now it is black, which makes it REALLY hot up there on a sunny day. I'll have it white coated again, but probably not until next year.

Two of the nucs were made from some of my multi-year survivor stock. I let the queens mate locally and they are both laying well. The other two nucs were made with queen cells from Jeff Eckel of Instar Apiaries. Jeff has been raising queens in Philly for the past few years. I got two queen cells from him and installed them in queenless nucs that I had prepared. These queen cells were special - they were from a "Purdue ankle-biter" breeder queen.  These bees have been bred with a special hygienic behavior, they bite the legs of varroa mites off, which kills the mites (click the Purdue link to see pictures of the mites with their itty bitty legs bitten off). Both queens mated despite our wet and cool May and they are both laying strong. Here are a couple of different views of the nuc yard, including into Center City.

 

Comcast Center and Tower in the distance

Climbing out of the window to get to my rooftop hives is a bit of a pain (actually more of a pain every year!), but having these mini hives out there is relatively manageable because at least I didn't have to haul full size boxes out of the window. I plan on moving these to my other yards when it is time to put them in full size hives (well, maybe I will keep one out there for my viewing pleasure!).

From the Green Mountains to the Concrete Jungle

I promised more stories so here they are...

When I ordered bees way back in February, like last year I ordered two packages from the Seaborns in Tennessee and I ordered two small-cell nucs from Denny White in Williamsville, VT.  Small-cell nucs are not easy to find and Denny does not ship bees so I would need to drive to Vermont to pick them up - a bit of a long drive but I figured it would be a beautiful one.

So I left Philly on Saturday afternoon and drove to Pittsfield, MA where I spent the night with my friend Nicole (thanks Nicole!).  Then I woke up early and drove 2 more hours to get to Williamsville. I arrived and Denny was ready to pack up the nucs for the trip back to Philly. I was picking up two for me and two for another member of the Philadelphia Beekeeping Guild.  We drove a short distance from Denny's house to one of his beeyards. The setting was absolutely beautiful and idyllic - all I could think was "Wow, these bees are going to have a much different view when we get back home!"

Being up in the mountains presents different challenges than urban beekeeping.  Denny has had bears disturb his hives in the past. The white fence is electrified and that slab of meat on the fence is bacon - the idea being to get the bears to go after the bacon and touch the fence and ZAP!

As we packed up the nucs Denny and I had a little chance to talk about beekeeping and related topics.  He is a great guy and I could tell by the way he handled the bees and talked about them that he really cares deeply for the bees.  I think I could learn a ton from him and it's too bad we don't live closer - he would be a great mentor.  It is not easy to find people who have a lot of experience practicing small-cell, organic beekeeping and Denny is one of those people.

After packing up all of the bees and making sure there were no holes for the girls to escape from, we loaded them in the car. I drove home with 50,000 or so bees riding in the trunk behind me.  Fortunately we had done a good job sealing them up!

After about 5.5 hours driving, I was back in Philly.  I installed the bees in their new home right away - with some help from my assistant.  This site is a small abandoned park a few blocks from the other site.  Penny is planning on using it as a staging area for plants for her greening projects and also for raising cut flowers.

Here's a good shot of the queen - she is marked with a blue dot.  This makes her easier to find but also each year has a designated color so that you can know how old your queen is.

The installation went very smoothly.  The bees were mellow and no stings at all.  They were set up in their new city home.  I came back the next day to check on them and to feed them some honey to help get them started.  Much to my surprise, I arrived to a scene of destruction.  This was the view right outside the park.

Somehow, one day after I installed the bees, the owner of the vacant lot next to the park had decided he wanted to have the LARGE tree, which overhung the park, cut down.  I mean, give me a freakin' break - look at that tree, it has to be at least 15 years old if not more.  What are the chances that the day after the beehives were installed, the tree has to get cut down? I go inside the park and this is what I see - a large branch at least 6 inches in diameter is literally touching one of the hives.  The hive had moved a few inches but nothing was broken or damaged - unbelievable!  A few more inches and the hive could have been toast!

I was in complete shock.  I called Penny and she had no idea that this was going to happen.  The guys that were cutting down the tree had no idea there were bees in the park, just a few feet from the tree they were cutting down.  I showed them and they came in and cleaned up the area and were more careful with finishing their job.

So, the Green Mountain bees got a rude introduction to city life, but I think it will just make them tougher!  The plan for now is to keep them in this spot, but as I have quickly learned, with beekeeping you never know what will happen next!!

The Waiting...Parts 2 and 3

The second delivery of bees finally arrived on Saturday June 13th. After a few last minute preparations, I loaded the car with everything and called my helper/documentarian David (see pic below). We went over to The Spring Gardens to get the bees set-up in their new home.


This is what the "nuc" (short for nucleus hive) looked like when it arrived.



Prying it open - you can see there are 5 frames inside - a few frames of honey and a few of brood.



Here they are all tucked in to the new hive...


After examining each frame twice and looking for the queen, we were unsuccessful in finding her. I just assumed she was in there and I couldn't find her, but...

Immediately after returning home, I see an email message from the bee supplier -

"John is not sure whether or not he put a queen in your nuc. So I have sent one to you priority mail this morning. You should have her Mon or Tues. Please let me know how the bees look upon arrival and if you have a queen. The one we sent is yours."

OOOOPPPS!!!

When I was looking for the queen, I assumed she was roaming free with the other bees. But, in order to protect her during shipment, they typically put her in one of the little queen cages (like they do for package bees) - and there definitely was not one in the nuc. So they did forget to pack her!

So now, more waiting - for the queen to arrive! The bees will be OK without a queen for a little while - but they will begin the process of making a new queen. This means that when the original queen does come, I will have to seek out and destroy any "queen cells" that the bees have made on the comb - otherwise, they will kill the original queen when I re-introduce her.

Anyway, the hive sits on top of an 8 foot high steel shipping container and it is surrounded by a grove of bamboo. A very cool setting and out of the way of the main garden. My only concern is that the spot will be too cool temperature-wise for the bees, we shall see.