Barrett showing off some very productive bees.
LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:
I went over to Barrett's place before the recent Backwards Beekeeping meeting to work on some projects we've set up.
The first project that Barrett, his neighbor Dave, and I worked on were some bees in the base of the sycamore tree. The bees had been in the tree for about 2 years. After a month of trapping them out, it seemed like all the bees were out and now we wanted to see what was left in the hive.
We found empty comb and no bees which means that the trap-out worked. Then we filled the hive with dirt and cemented the area to discourage bees from coming back. Check out the video for the quick version of the process:
The next project was a hive transfer of a swarm that we put in a deep box about 2 weeks ago. They built comb like crazy. Check out the video to see the beautiful hive they had built:
We cut the beautiful brood comb out and tied them into deep frames. It was an almost perfect fit. Dave spotted the queen with his eagle eye and boy was she huge. She must have been over an inch long! We couldn't catch a picture in time though.
I needed to leave for the meeting but next projects are adding the trapped-out bees to the hive that we transferred and then fix another hive that also suffered from not having all the right equipment at the same time. Medium frames in a deep box—I can only say that I work with what I find in my car.
Barrett has offered to thank the Backwards Beekeepers for the help by hosting a tour of his hives and a satellite meeting on the West side. Look out for details on our Yahoo group page.
—roberta
