# Free bees of Alley and Kare.



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I got started keeping bees because of a tree that was home to some. It is a long story that can be read here> http://oldgrumpy.fanspace.com

I was lucky in finding a beekeeper over the internet that helped me a lot. Then I joined a new club started localy and discovered more friends who have helped a lot. Since I have devloped this love of honey bees I read every thing I can get my hands on and try new things as one old beekeeper told me.
For the free bees it is some thing I love to do. Catch swarms and thank the people who called profussly and tell them all I can about honey bees in hopes they pass it on.
Removing bees from all buildings except homes is I found a lot of fun. My first removal job was 3 1/2 hours from home. They had been in a grarage for about 5 years I was told. I wanted to do this removal for the queen as I felt she had some trait of mite resantance.
A new paper article was written on it also.

The pictures.

Remove as many from the out side first. Smoke them and remove from the outside again.










go inside and open the colony up.










Here is what you then see.










Removing the inside bees.



















We got the queen from this job. She has given us 3 daughters so far. All our removal bees are kept in our back yard where we can watch over them for any signs of diseses. It also makes it eaiser to pull frames of 2 & 3 day old larva and placeing them in nucs with the nurse bees and some extra shaken in to make the new queen.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

To answer some questions from the free bee thread.
"I understand there's some kind of bee mite going around killing a lot of the domestic hives, is that what you were referring to with the 'three years without treatment' comment? Are these bees you recovered here more resistant to the mites?"

:Bawling: Yes there is a mite (Vaorra) that has killed nearly all the wild colonies in the north and about 70% in California. The figure is also that high in the domestic hive of California also acording to Glen of Glen apiaries.
:dance: We are hopeing that the bees we recover that have went with out treatments are resantance to mites as well as other things

 "I don't keep bees but would love to someday soon, and you my friend are a part of the reason. The pictures and stories should be in a book."

Why wait? Get things in order and when spring arrives just do it. Bees are kept in all kinds of places from huge ranches to apartment roof tops in New York City. A friend of mine has bees in a coumity garden in the shadow of Dodger staduim in LA.

:shrug: A book? Really there are a lot of books on the market now. Some are very good ones too. I wouldn't bee with out my ABC XYZ of bee keeping by A.I.Root. The new edited edition of the hive and honey bee by Dadanat is also a favorite.

" :nerd: Someone did a study of their nervous system and concluded they are a lot smarter than we thought. Some of the tests they ran suggested that individual bees have some self-awareness--they can recognize their reflection or something like that which scientists usually think is only possible for highly intelligent animals."

Of course bees are smart, any body that has them knows that. Lots of things I had heard I have found to bee a myth too. 
:baby04: Wild bees always choose and entrance faceing south or east. I have a bee tree in the woods with a north faceing entrance.
:baby04: You can't move bees very far at a time, so if you want to move them to a location 50 yards away you have to do a few inches a day or move them at least 2 miles away then back where you want them in a few days. I have closed the entrance of hives in the evening and moved them over 200 yards Opened the entrance and stuffed it full of grass. I have yet to see a bee hoveing around the old location looking for the hive that used to bee there. I have even set a hive there with drawn comb and nary a bee moves in.

:baby04: Queens never go on honey.
What as bunch of fooy that is. We have propably 50 pictures of queens on honey both capped and uncapped.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

What was the question why refering to. Moving the bees 200 yards away, Or stuffing the entrance full of grass? Being new and dumb I put the bees where they would get afternoon shade. Problem was they had shade from about 9:00 am on, to much shade. The better place was 200 yards away. I didn't have a place to take them 2 miles and leave them so I went out in the evening when they had quit flying and stopped up the entrance, and moved them. I had read some place that putting a bush or some thing by the entrance would maybe get them to relize they had been moved. I stuffed the entrance full of grass so they knew for sure some thing was differnt after moving the grass out of the way. It did work for me.

The old yard, first year and a few weeks the second.



















The new yard full sun all day long July 1st.










Thanksgiving day when the fall feeders were still on.










That row of five has now turned into 15. There are 12 im the front yard ( :flame: Keeps sales people away.). and we have 8 out yards thru out the county with from 7 to 2 colonies.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I migh also add that all 5 of thes hives were swarms given to me after my package bees from down south were all sick and had to be killed. Club members came to my rescue or I would not bee keeping bees today. I would have quit after all the money I had spent on bees and they kept dieing.










Ready for the winter. I lost two of them. a friend lost all but two of 18 that winter.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Our out yard along the river at the tree nursery. The colony on the left with the red feed jar surround is a suvivor colony given to us by a brother to a beekeeper that passed away two years ago. Those bees had lived two years with out treatments and made it thru last winter on a deep and a hlalf since mice had nested in the bottom half of the bottom deep. Also the former bee keeper ran 8 frames in the 10 frame deeps. I might add that this is a trial yard since the land owner does have people buying trees and shrubs on the property nearly every day.











This is our tree farm (former Christmas tree farm) yard. The trees are now sold for landscapeing new home yards. Note the colonies on the right with the grass stuffed in the entrance. We had just moved them in and wanted them to know they had to do a reorentation flight. The colony on the left was a swarm I captured this spring.










This is our front yard colonies. All but the Number 1 and number 3 from the left are free bees removed from a building or tree. I was adding a honey super when the cell rang with another call about bees in a house. Number 4 has a feeder inside the second and third deep. I had just removed the empty feeder from number 5.










This is what our back yard colonies looked like on the first of June. Number 5 & 6 are swarms I caught this spring. Number 6 just hitched a 27 mile ride. After staying in the hive 3 days they then moved to a bee tree where the bees had died out last winter. We have added 13 building removal or swarm bees in this yard since picture was taken. Planing on moving many to the tree farm soon.











We still have bees at what we call the farm, Ricos, Di's and Woodies yards. They only contain bees colonies we bought or made up with nucs and splits, For a grand total of 56 colonies today.
Tomorrow we remove bees from a barn that is to be torn down to make room for a subdivision.

 Al


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## Sunmo (Dec 29, 2004)

Al,

I noticed you're supers are painted a bunch of different colors. Do you find one color to be better than another. I've painted all mine a number of dark colors. Here in the NW we are concerned with keeping our hives warm and dark colors retain heat better than light. Does it matter? (Besides I think my hives look really cool when someone sees a rainbow of different colors, rather than all white)


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

These were fun to remove.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Getting ready to shake a swarm in the bucket. Buckets with the lid fastened to the pail with in handy reach works real well to shake a high swarm into.










Shook.










This type of helmit is to hot for summer work. Kept telling Kare I was going to take my 4" hole saw and drilla couple holes in it and screen it over so she got me a new white mesh one.

 Al


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

ok tell us more about the comb formed on the branches, how did that turn out, and why did they build their comb there? 

that must have been fun, did you do each comb indifidally or just put the whole bunch in a container and sorted it out later?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We call that the Apple tree swarm. There is a huge commercial bee keeping operation about 1 1/2 miles across the field from the apple tree. We figure the bees swarmed from there. 
The scout bees I guess couldn't find a suitable home so they built their comb out in the open in the tree. The property owners didn't know they were there till the leaves started falling in late Sept. They then contacted a West Michigan Bee Keeper club member since last year that was the only option here in Michigan. That West Michigan bee keeper is a close friend (got me keeping bees in the first place.) who sent me an E Mail asking if I knew a bee keeper in that area.
I sent him back my phone number since it was just a bity over 25 miles away. The property owners then took a two week training course away from home so it was Oct 2d before we were contacted.
We removed them on the evening of the 3d.
I measured the comb and found it would fit inside a hive body.
I didn't spread the tarp like Kare said I should but started triming small branches. Big mistake! always take the big branch out first. Well part of the comb fell to the ground but I found the queen and placed her in the hive with a bunch of comb and workers. Then more comb fell, we worked till after dark cleaning bees up off the bits of comb and letting them walk in the hive. Lady of the house didn't want us to leave the hive there over night so we took it to one of our out yards. On Oct 5th we went back and I brushed the remaining bees off the branches into a pail and dumped them into a nuc which was added to the home colony.
No way were these bees going to build 20 frames of honey for winter in a month. We put 2:1 syrup on them they drew out comb and filled the cells till Nov 1st. I went and pulled one frame of honey from 9 of our other colonies for their second deep. We still kept the syrup on them so they did go into winter with 18 frames of honey. Kare removed the syrup the day before a cold spell Nov 22nd since I was gone on vacation. They were alive in Febuary when we checked them but didn't make it to April. They left 14 frames of honey.

 I now always spread a tarp when doing bee removals and swarm shakeings if I can not get them inside a hive at the shaking. Much easier to find a queen crawling on a blue tarp than in the grass.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Removing bees from a tree August 17th.
































































 Al


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

were you able to get the queen from that tree? that looks like QUITE the job if you ask me lol, 
how much room was actually in there?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We think we got the queen, but havn't opened the hive yet to check. Want to give them a bit of time to settle in.
The cavity was about 8 inches by 8 feet so inside the tree.

Pictures to follow on todays bee removal job.

 Al


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## busybee870 (Mar 2, 2006)

wow THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST POST iVE SEEN ON HERE!! GREAT PICS, AND VERY INFORMATIVE, THANKS !!!


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

:nono: I wouldn't consider it the best post on here by a long shot. I personally think the advice and helpful hints to new or considering bee keeping post the best.
Thank you for the nice comment just the same.

Now for the bee removal pictures of August 19th.





































 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

The start of cleaning them up.



















Not just a pretty face that attends bee meetings with me. Kare makes pollen patties, mixes syrup, cleans jars and pails for the syrup feeding and also honey storage and sale, keeps the records on our colonies {she could use a lap top} Cuts rubber bands to tie brood in frames with and also vacums bees. There are other things she does in the honey house, to much to list. She even took most of these pictures.




























She caught the queen on this removal as well as got stung.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We got 7 deep frames of brood on this removal. About 10 pounds of bees and I bet less than a quart of honey.










Tighter than this even.









Another of Kares jobs, staining the hives, bottom boards,intercovers and outercovers.



















 Al


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

wow thats awsome,


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Thanks. I enjoy it a lot. I find it amazing that those people who fear so much will come so close as I am working. Makes it easier for me to teach them about honey bees.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Have a big burn pile of old stuff that came with some auction sale stuff that was really bad. I had it back along the woods and when winter comes a match will find it. I had put some 8 frame stuff back there too as I felt I would never use it. I have since changed my mind so was back there yesterday sorting out the eight frame stuff. the last box was stapled to the bottom board and upside down. I noticed bees, which at first I thought we yellow jackets going in and out of it. 
So I have found these bees and will leave them till spring now. I figure they are a swarm that dissappered on me.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Did the first removal of 2007 on March 30th. Fellow was tearing down an old shed and ran into them. He called animal control for help and they had him call me.




























We have two more to do when the weather warms and drones are once again in the hives.

 Al


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