Over the weekend, we enjoyed sitting across from our hive and watching the bees work, gathering their pollen and flying in and out of the hive. But our enjoyment was suddenly interrupted when we spotted a hive beetle fly into the hive!
Hive beetles are detrimental to bees, as they can invade and plunder a hive within 2 weeks, completely destroying the bee hive. Hive beetles are covered in a protective shell, preventing the bees from stinging them. So all the bees can do to prevent the beetles from doing anything is huddle around them and trap them in a corner. Since our bee colony is small to begin with, there would not be enough bees to separate and isolate the beetles in the hive; the beetles could very quickly overwhelm and take over the hive. We had to act fast!
We decided to transfer the bees into a new hive. This would have been a simple task, until we discovered that the bees had 'cross-combed'. Instead of building along the frames, the connected all the frames together. So we couldn't simply remove each frame one-by-one and place it into the new hive. If we had broken the frames apart, we would've torn apart and damaged the brood. My husband had to think on his feet and decided to tip the whole hive out onto the ground, then he picked up all 9 of the joined frames and placed them into the new hive.
During this process, we could inspect for hive beetles and squish them. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to inspect because tipping the whole hive out onto the ground certainly aggravated the bees. We had to work hastily. But we did manage to kill about 10 beetles.
It didn't take long for the bees who had escaped during the transfer to find their way back into their new home, and before we knew it, they were back to work. We could now return the old hive box to the beekeeper, as it was originally his.
This was my third experience helping out with the bees, and I am amazed at how quickly a person can get used to something. I was a lot calmer compared to the previous two encounters. Actually, I wasn't nervous at all, not even when the hive was tipped over. Although, I think it largely has to do with the fact that my husband knows what he is doing and is confident and diligent. I probably wouldn't feel that safe if it wasn't for him.
Certainly a successful event! You can watch the video on our Instagram page.