I had a call yesterday to come get some Killer Bees out of a tree. The caller said that the bees were attacking a bunch of people and that a dog down the street was killed by those bees.

I live in Pensacola, Florida, which is in the northwest of the state. The only African Bees are in the central and southern part of this state. I went to the location and found that a limb with Domestic Bees living inside had fallen, and naturally the bees were upset. Most bees will be agitated when they fall 15 feet to the ground. The people that were being attacked were the ones who cut the limb down in the first place. There is another colony of bees higher in the tree trunk, and the people wanted me to get them out of the tree before they cut the top half of the tree down to keep it from falling on a house.

As the bees were about 50 feet in the air, I declined. I needed a bucket truck and the money to rent it. As I do most of my swarm chasing for free, I couldn’t bring myself to spend money on a colony of bees that probably would not live through winter. This is one time that I just had to say no and go home.

There is a saying:

“A swarm in May is worth a bale of hay. A swarm in June is worth a Silver Spoon. A swarm in July ain’t worth a fly.”

The reason for the last sentence is because when you relocate a swarm in a box with just foundation, the bees have to make wax to build cells for the queen to lay eggs in and for the foragers to put their pollen and nectar in. They just don’t have time to do all that before winter sets in, especially if there is a drought and nothing is blooming. I really don’t want to feed in the winter unless I have to. I leave a super of honey on the colonies for their winter feed. If they run out, then I will feed until the first honey flow.

If you are a small, part-time beekeeper and if you have plenty of time, then you can feed a small swarm, but you also run the risk of them not having enough bees to help keep the cluster warm. The only thing you can do with a small swarm and feel confident that they will survive, is to combine them with another small colony, and they will then have enough bodies to keep the cluster and brood warm.

This kind of information is found in the Hive and Honeybee and the ABC & XYZ. These books can be found at most large bookstores or at a bee supply house. These two books can be read as stand alone books, or you can have both books in your library to augment each other.

Another good book is Honey bees and Beekeeping: A year in the Life of an Apiary, by Dr. Keith Delaplane. The Third Edition is the latest one.

Don’t forget the workshop in Chipley, FL, July 12. See you there.