The bee keeper diaries

[Iowanian]

This afternoon my phone rang and a large tree had blown down in a storm last night and had a "giant hive of bees in the tree". It was across the street from a similar situation I resolved last year.

I went alone this time because my people were busy. I borrowed a trailer with a generator and some tools and about a mile from the location looked up to see the steel loading ramp come off and cartwheel down the Hwy. I'm really glad it happened a couple of hundred yards after two motorcycles had passed. I cobbled that with the help of a farm boy from another town that stopped to help.

The large maple had exploded and the limb that contained the hive was split. I didn't even have to saw it. That was th good news. The bad news is climb and brood were thrown around and damaged. I vacuumed what I could and framed up some of the brood comb(babies). I ended up with about 4 frames of brood and maybe 3000 bees. It was a disappointing but we'll see. I didn't see any sign of the queen and the brood young enough to make a queen is pretty limited.

I set up the box in my yard and stole a full frame of brood from a strong hive. I'm going to check in the morning and if they stick around I think I'll buy a queen to give them a chance. Someone in my area raises queens and has a hybrid Called saskatraz that interests me.

Hope they stick around, don't want to waste that much time and work. I do have 15 gallons of bad comb for th bees and a full five gallon bucket of capped honey to squeaze out when I have time.