Bee Charmer

The first bee-related phone call came to me in early June. I had posted a listing on Craigslist for honeybee swarms, explicating the value of honeybees, swarming behavior and offering my services to come remove the bees, benefiting myself as well by getting to house the new colony. It was not just a swarm call, however, but a cut-out call. The new homeowner of an old house out near the coast, in Elsie, Oregon, had discovered he had bees in his wall. Just prior to this, I had asked my neighbors if they'd mind my keeping bees. To which they replied with their enthusiastic support in the endeavor and invited me over to come take a look at something. Our neighbor, Dan, showed Aeython and I a spot just outside the house with a small, pencil-sized hole up on the window trim where a cable had probably once run through. We stood there talking in the morning sunshine for some time, admiring his 4 different varieties of hops, smartly growing from 5 gallon buckets and strung up to the roof line for vining. As we stood there, before long, we saw a black, slightly fuzzy, iridescent bee entering the hole.
Someone Dan had shown them to, had told him they were a type of rare, German honeybee. Shortly thereafter, I checked out a book at the library on Mason bees and deduced that this is probably actually what they have. When I got the call from the homeowner out in Elsie, Wesly, I made sure to ask him whether or not he knew for sure that they were honeybees and not Mason bees. I told him about my neighbors' bees and suggested that if they are Mason bees, it's best just to let them be and not do anything about it. They're mostly just bringing in mud, pollen and plugging it into small gaps to rear their brood. Nothing too sweet and appealing to more destructive pests, like carpenter ants. If you've got Mason bees in your wall, just think of it as a little extra insulation. ;)

A delightful little example of a Mason bee,
an extremely good pollinator
and a garden gem.

Wesly told me he'd get back to me in about a week, when he went back out to his new house. This worked out perfectly with my own schedule, as I was getting ready to leave to the Seattle area and Wenatchee, to visit friends and family. I did not hear directly from Wesly again, but I asked my teacher, Jacqueline, about getting some assistance with doing a possible cut-out. She forwarded me information for two guys, also local beekeepers, Tel and Wes. I heard vicariously, what the current situation was in Elsie, through forwarded emails from the two guys. It sounded like Wesley, the home-owner, was getting antsy and wanted it done, "yesterday." Tel was saying that he would need to make two trips one for inspection and two to do the job and wasn't too thrilled about the hour and a half or so drive each way. Wes included himself in the interaction, by saying he would offer to help with building a few clam-shell frames with a hinge at the bottom, so I could collect the honey comb and band it together in the frame. I replied that I would love the help and would appreciate learning some basic woodworking skills, since I know that Fred has a lot of equipment available for use and being able to build some of my hive components would be a huge bonus. Shortly after, I heard from Wes, saying that the homeowner, Wesley, had bug-bombed beneath the house. I was pretty down about that news and recalled telling Wesley that if he got the bees out, but not the comb, he was going to have a major ant problem on his hands. But alas, the story continues...........

Wes emailed again, saying that there were still bees at Wesley's, and I finally got confirmation that they were in fact, honeybees. Russian honeybees. I did some research and learned that Russian honeybees are actually a perfect choice for this northerly climate. They tend to be much more conservative with their food stores, and so are great at over-wintering. They are also particularly resistant to parasites and disease, including the most common, varroa, tracheal mites and nosema spores. I also watched several you-tube videos on people performing cut-outs and collecting swarms. Wes planned to go out there and assist me, having collected several swarms already, and set the date for Saturday, June 23rd. Friday night, I was pacing round the house, collecting any odds and ends which I thought might come in handy and be helpful for the task: putty knives, serrated bread knife, feathers, lemongrass oil, coveralls, jacket, rubber gloves, rags, string, a knitting needle, mesh screening, tape, scissors, tarp, sheet, freezer paper, saran wrap, and the hive itself. Aeython helped me load the hive boxes into my car and Fred loaned me an extra sawzall, blades, an extension cord, and some other tools, just in case. I got my little Hyundai accent loaded up and set my alarm for 5:45a.m. the following day.

I wore my butter Amber necklace, a token of honey-like appearance and being similar to propolis (bee glue), in that they are both made from tree sap. I took Aeython to work, out in Happy Valley, then made my way westward. It was a gorgeous drive, past berry farms, mossy, rocky waterfalls, and even a place to fill up bottles with fresh, mountain spring-water. Wes was planning to meet me there at 9a.m. I was a little early, but got to meet Wesley, his wife and 2 year old daughter, and survey the bee situation from outside. There was a hole on the outside of the house in the siding, about a foot away from an electrical box, measuring about an inch in diameter. Before very long at all standing there, I got my first glimpse of one. It was actually fuzzier and cuter than I'd imagined they'd be from pictures I'd looked at online. They are very striking in appearance, with varied widths of stripes, ranging from a rich, transluscent, honey-golden yellow color up at the top of the abdomen, and successive black stripes that get increasingly thick and dense toward the sting. Apparently, it was one of the master electricians who came out to Wesley's, that told him they were Russians. He was a beekeeper himself for many years and was pretty certain. 

Wes arrived and luckily had what would prove to be the most useful items of all, our head veils. He had also brought a clam-shell frame that he'd made, but it was clear to me that it was not going to fit my hive and one would probably not be sufficient enough anyway. I had packed the knitting needle and string with an idea Jacqueline had sent me a video of, where they used it to poke holes in the comb and string it up inside of the frame. It would at least save the majority of their brood, honey and pollen stores and they'd just fill in the gaps with more comb to stabilize it once they got situated. 

We prepared the inside space to work in, a small spare bedroom with wainscoting and two windows on adjacent walls, at the outer corner of the room. One window, to the left of the bees' location, was painted shut. The other, to the bees' right, was a new window that opened. Wes lit the smoker, I lied down a tarp and Wesley got his tools and equipment ready to open the wall. At first I felt we were rushing it a bit. I wanted to be sure that all checks and balances were in place once we opened that wall and became committed to a mass of bees buzzing all around us. After giving the bees ample chance to gorge on honey after being "smoked," Wesley began using his sawzall to cut a large rectangle out of the wainscoting. I mentioned that they were most likely to be up high. We had no idea what we would find. My teacher, Jacqueline, tells of one of her first collections, also a cut-out, from the Venersbourgh Schoolhouse up in Battle Ground, Washington. It was a century or so old building and the comb they found in it spanned from the roof-line downwards to around 6' long. Wesley got the bottom of the wall opened, which revealed, nada.  The buzzing did increase, however, and I believe Wes and I both cringed and held our breaths a little for the sake of the bees, as Wesley operated a very loud power tool and employed his crow bar to peel the wooden wall away.

Once he was up near the top, now on a small step ladder, we hit purchase and saw what was beneath the wall. It was a relatively small clump of about 5 or 6 combs, some running perpendicular to one another. There was a mass of bees huddled down around the far left bottom, making it easier for me actually, to get in where the majority of the comb was, and remove it.  My hive box was on the ground just behind me, and Wes operated the inner cover, or lid, as I scraped out a comb with my putty knife and gingerly moved it, along with a cluster of bees attached, into the hive box, an empty super atop one filled with frames and containing the bottom board. The comb was a gloriously pale and lovely, soft, golden yellow, very delicate and translucent. Wesley filmed me taking each comb out with his phone and working with Wes to get each one into the box. I noticed brood comb, full of varying sizes of pearly white larvae that coil up in a little "c" within each cell. There was also comb with a high-viscosity pre-honey that dripped easily as I cut it out from the wood and bright orange, nutrient-rich bee pollen-filled cells, used for feeding brood, along with the honey, making what's called "bee bread."

Once I had all of the comb out of the cavity, I needed to collect as many of the rest of the bees as possible, and get them into the box, introducing them to their new hive. Many of them had already fled, either outside through the window, their entrance hole, or up to a spot at the top of the other window. I started out by trying to clear the largest cluster first and get the majority of them, utilizing my large, wild turkey feather I had just gotten from my dear friend and longtime art mentor, Michael, back in Wenatchee. I had seen a video of a man using his bare hands to scoop up a swarm of bees that were outside on a post and essentially fling them into the box, just giving his hands a quick, one or two shakes as if flinging off water. Only with bees, they appear much more like honey. They stick and they cling to one another, their tiny legs well barbed to hook onto their fellow mates. They seem to drip, moving at a slower pace and the best way to make them loose their grip, is a sudden, quick shake or tap. I alternated between sweeping my large, stiff feather across the wood beneath them, slowly accumulating a huddle of bees, clinging to the feather, and reaching in with gloved hands to try and slowly, gently, scoop out a mass of bees to then fling them into the box. It was very exhilarating to feel the warm, strong vibration, emanating from their tiny, delicate bodies inside my hands. Human hands and fingers are far to big and clumsy for the detail work though, and the feather proved to be a Godsend. It molded to corners to offer bees a lift, and I could give a firm, quick tap with the quill against the edge of the box to dislodge them. 

Before getting the very last few scoopfuls of bees into the hive box, I spotted the Queen. She was clearly more than twice the size of her workers and female counterparts, mainly golden yellow, with very little thin black stripes at the tip of of her abdomen near the sting. Her abdomen was a graceful, center-swollen, marquis shape. I announced my finding her to Wes so he could be on the ready for this crucial moment of truth. Seeing the queen is apparently quite rare and rather difficult, as she loves to hide in low, dark corners away from the beekeeper and huddling inside a mass of workers. She was gorgeous and I was successful at getting her into the box with the others. Once I had collected as many of the other bees from inside as I possibly could and put them into the box, we decided to move the box onto a makeshift sawhorse table out just a few feet from their old hole entrance. Wesley taped it up from the outside with duct tape and I made sure he knew to back it with something so we didn't end up with bee's legs getting stuck to it. At that point, Wes left, leaving his head veils with us, graciously, and said that he'd love to come and visit the bees in their new location, once established. I was definitely ready for a little break by that point. 

I ate some leftover food I'd brought with me, drank some water, and headed to the warm car for a cat nap in the back seat. I removed the duct tape around my ankles and shoes and cozied up in my own little "c" shape. When I awoke, the sun had come out and I was grateful, because I hoped to deal with that comb haphazardly lying in the box for the time being. I lied down some white freezer paper, just outside the hive entrance on the sawhorse table. I collected my other supplies: hemp twine, scissors, a knitting needle, and a large chef's knife that Wes had left me with. I popped the plastic, beeswax-coated and hexagonally-embossed foundation out of several of my wooden frames. Donning veil, gloves and using my trustworthy feather, I prepared to remove a piece of comb. By this time, a cluster of bees were re-forming just outside their old entrance hole. I decided I would deal with them later. I stood up on the step ladder and opened the hive up, now full of bees, for the first time. I learned how to move slowly while opening or closing the lid, being careful not to squish any bees. There were definitely casualties involved in just about every step of this whole process, I'm sure, but I did my very best to minimize them, however I could. I reached in and tried to gently remove the top-most piece of comb from the box. The upper pieces of comb were less bee-filled, giving me a chance to get a hang of the process of comb-tying onto the frames, gradually. The first few pieces I retrieved were smaller, easier to work with, containing some pollen or maybe honey, but less brood. As I neared the end of my comb-rigging, I was faced with some challenges, larger, brood-laden comb, which I had to cut to fit inside my wooden frames. I rotated them at different angles and tried to make the least destructive cut possible, but ultimately I did have to cut through some brood, a very sad thing to have to do, but I promised them a new, good home where they could continue rearing baby bees and let their numbers soar. The brood comb was also much heavier, some pieces requiring three holes to be tied from at the top. I also had to try and choose the best, open cells to pierce through and some of the comb was very brittle and took a second try, especially if I had accidentally pulled the string a little too tight. After piecing together one frame at a time with enough comb to almost fill it, I would hang them one at a time from the rabbet ledge of the box, now oriented in their typical vertical fashion and able to work with. By the time I finished, I think I had around 5 nearly full frames of mixed comb from their old hive within the wall. This is about as much as one gets when purchasing a "nuc box," giving one the advantage of an already partially established hive with developing brood to hatch and hopefully not interrupt the laying cycle too much. 

Once the surgical procedure of rigging up the comb vertically had been complete, now sandwiched between other frames with man-made foundation on the second deep super up, I attempted to collect the remaining bees on the outside of the wall in a pretty large cluster, again using the feather. Rather than struggle to gently open and close the top of hive while flinging bees into it and trying to prevent others from crawling or flying out, I decided to introduce them to their new hive's entrance and leave the top closed. The feather proved an excellent tool for lowering them all the way inside and gently, slowly pulling along the top edge and dislodging the bees to land inside and take a gander. This kind of work takes a lot of patience, gathering feather after feather-full of honeybees, but it was exactly what I wanted to be doing, the present moment showing you just what needs to be done, and willingly facing the duty with honor, openness and love for these creatures which you are doing it for.


Once I had introduced most of that cluster on the outside to their new hive entrance, I again, met the Queen, down in the depths with just a few about her. She was buzzing rapidly, making a whirring, frantic sort of sound and flying from side to side. I again, collected her and introduced her to the new entrance, to which she was obliged. 


Making my way back into the house for the final few hours of daylight, I tackled that room, a mass of bees clustered on the window, up high beneath a ledge inside of a row of Venetian blinds. I made a new, separate box to put these girls into. It was my medium super, which is pretty shallow. I taped a screen onto the bottom of it and made a cardboard lid to fit over top, since the bees like darkness and need to generate a lot of heat within the hive. It also served well later, when I got them home, to put near the others in the main hive, so they could still smell the Queen and know all hope was not lost!


I decided to clear the tarp first, collecting bees by the feather-full, sometimes just one or two at a time, but I knew that if I was going to be working around the window area, I'd want to know I wasn't stepping on and smashing bees on the ground. There weren't a ton down there, but definitely a few stragglers. And the ones who had fallen and exposed themselves to sawdust and the like were probably faring the worst of the lot. I wanted to give them all a fighting chance and it seemed that the ones who really wanted to hop aboard that "life-raft" of a feather, clung for dear life and appreciated the help, and were very cooperative with my collecting. It was the ones higher up, crawling up the window that still had plenty of "umph" left in 'em, who were less willing to climb onto the feather and refused to stay contained within the box. I can say now that honeybees are of one mind, but they certainly do have a mind of their own and they each have their very own unique personalities as well.

Wesley and his family watched on as I toiled, and we talked and little by little, I got most of the bees into their hive and separate box and I cleared out the space, collecting any surely dead bees that remained on the ground. I proposed a mini-impromptu bee memorial and burial service for their remains. Wesley, his wife and small daughter, Emily, and I, gathered beneath a tree at sundown and we buried the bees, said a few words and wished well the surviving colony and that the lineage of these bees lives on! 


I waited until the sun had fully cleared the horizon and no newly returning foragers or scouts were coming back. Wesley said I had gotten a lot more than most people would've waited for, but I feel responsible if I'm going to take them, I need to really try to get them all. If any are left behind, they don't survive without their colony. I think he learned a lot about bees and he requested honey when I get some, which may not be until next summer, given that they're just now basically getting established, this late in the year. Russians are know for overwintering well because they do not eat all their stores up quickly, unlike the Italian honeybees, but it's recommended in this type of climate, to leave them about 70 pounds worth of honey to feed on over the winter.


The drive home was smooth, quiet and graceful. Once I arrived, Aeython helped me carry the bigger, cumbersome, main hive down onto its stand by the big Doug Fir tree. We turned on our outside lights so we could see as we meandered through the garden paths and wonky steps. We got the other medium super of bees and the top cover down there into place as well and I ratchet-strapped it down onto the hive stand. I wished them a good night and set my alarm for the next morning, same time, 5:45a.m. 


I woke up like a kid on Christmas day, honestly, I was really looking forward to getting out there and introducing them to their new home. They had been screened in all night, and I'm sure were antsy to get out, so I was out there to start smudging them and open things up a little after 6:30am. 

The sad state of affairs the following morning, but soon to  be
liberated and able to develop their
organizational excellence,
once again!

It was a bit awkward, honestly, a bit of a tussle, trying to figure out heads from tails with the screening and what to remove first, where to put the tape, so many details that you don't know until you "get there." I felt extremely clumsy and knew, this is what it is to be a beginner, to jump in head first and learn first hand, what to do and what not to do. So, my heart redirected my thoughts to the most important objective, getting everyone safely into or at least at the hive entrance, who may have fallen onto the ground, or who seems paralyzed or may be barbed-leg-connected to the screening, but is clearly still alive, albeit pretty traumatized. It took a while to scour every surface around the hive for fallen bees who might appreciate a lift. It was a slightly overcast, drizzly morning, not the kind of weather you want to be doing this kind of operation, but it had to be done. There were more casualties, in opening up the boxes, of course. Some hadn't made it through their rough day and night of transit and re-location. What I didn't collect from the site, the "undertakers" carried away. I watched them the next day, removing big larvae, somewhat awkward to hold beneath them as they flew it away. 

The new Russian bee babes!

I planted flowers in pockets around their hive, some to hopefully ward off ants or other pests wishing to steal a little honeycomb snack. I definitely got the message when I felt I had basically wore out my welcome in their area. We were blessed with some pretty nice weather, warmish and dry, but overcast with intermittent sun-breaks. It was perfect seeding weather, and nice enough for them to get started with rebuilding their stores, getting some nectar or some pollen, learning to navigate their area, etc.
But I recalled hearing how most beginners always make the mistake of spending too much time, hovering over their new bees, or opening up the hive to peek right after they're in their new location.
I decided to give them a rest and not be intrusive at all, just watering in seeds, for at least a week, which it's been now. I'm hoping to open it up tomorrow or in the next couple of days.

Little black bee butts, coming and going!

No one has been stung yet. I occasionally will eat meals out there along the rock wall, 10 feet or so away from the hive, watching their comings and goings. I introduced my friend Tara, with her two tiny kids and later, Wes, to them yesterday and Fred's little neice and nephew and twin brother to them today. So far, I'm more worried about people stepping in my flower beds near the bees rather than anything to do with the bees themselves. ;p

Glowing in the early morning light!

I will finish with this note. At a moment of trying to help bees into their new home from the ground, or off of a mesh screen, I believe I hit bliss. I basked in a moment of wonder, gratitude and awe for what the bees were teaching me, in their own, subtle and slow way. They cling to one another in times of woe, preening each others' faces. They have no trouble asking for assistance or communicating their needs. One bee is stuck in a potentially fatal position, they buzz a high pitched call, indicating, "all is not well with me, here!" They are quite adorable, amicable and have completely stolen my heart. I will never be the same as I was before these sweet, little creatures entered my life!

A lovely profile shot of a beautiful girl, indeed!
Notice how the females have such pointy, shapely features
and a voluptuous figure,
as opposed to the squarish and blunt-ended,
big-eyed drones, which I only saw a couple of in the
whole fiasco!