Exciting day in northeast Olympia

[Charlie Garrott]

First, good news: the baby alpaca (Annie Mae) is doing great and growing by leaps and bounds. Today was her 3rd day birthday:

 

Now for the beekeeping news:

First thing this morning, I made up 4 gallons of 1:1 syrup to take to my away apiary. I noticed that their nectar was not really plentiful, so I decided to feed them. That worked out fine. I also pulled all the bottom slider boards. I even saw a mite moving around on one of the slider boards.

 

Late in the morning, I heard a helicopter landing out in my home apiary. I had heard that before. Sure enough, there was a swarm of bees flying around the top of a 30-foot-tall apple tree. It seemed that the skies were darkened. Then the swarm dissipated in the sky. Then I noticed that hive 6 was engulfed in bees. I thought maybe hive 6 was getting robbed but they weren't typical frantic robbers. After a couple of phone calls, I concluded that hive 6 had swarmed but the swarm had returned home. I set up a swarm box (bottom board, deep, frame feeder, several old frames, several new waxed frames. I put the box near hive 6. I scooped bees into the box, but they weren't very interested.

 

I noticed several clumps of bees on the ground in front of hive 4. I googled "do swarms sometimes return to the hive where it came from?" and got the answer "Yes. One of the reasons may be that the swarming queen can't fly well enough and may have landed on the ground". I got down on my hands and knees and searched through the clumps on the ground. Miraculously, I found a beautiful queen. I caught her in a clip and put her in a shady spot with some comrades in the clip. I made another call to a fellow beekeeper, and we agreed that it would be best to use this queen to make a nuc. I put the clip with the queen between frames in the swarm catcher until I had everything organized. Then bees started going into this box. I released the queen into the box, capped and strapped it, blocked the entrance, and transported it to my away apiary. There were still bees on the ground. I looked through them but could not find another queen.

 

I was tardy in inspecting all my hives. I have at least one more hive that I undoubtedly need to proactively split. I have made 5 splits already this season and am getting low on gear. It is time to fire up the table saw! El Nino is making for an amazing spring.

P.S. - There is a problem with ants at my "away" apiary. I solve this by putting the legs of the hive stands into containers and putting in a couple of inches of engine oil. The ants can't swim the moat. It works!

 Charlie

[Nicholas Peters]

I’ m in the same boat- I’ve run out of equipment. Had 3 hives a month ago, now it’s 9. 

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[Kristina T]

The baby alpaca is adorable!

You’re a great writer, Charlie! I felt like I was there. Great job on the queen save!

I’m pleased that my split made their own queen. Also, my bees have found a couple of my water sources. One is a 3-gallon bucket with a foam float. The other is a 3D printed container with scaffolding to prevent drowning. I hope this will help keep the bees out of the neighborhood pools.

I had a great time at a Recycling and Sustainability event at a government building in Tumwater. I gave out many OBA cards. The building has a certified LEED green building, which I got a private tour of. They have a large rooftop grass area. It would be a great area for hives. One of the employees is thinking about learning beekeeping to have hives up there.

Bonus photo of what the top of an elevator look like!

Kristina 

On Tue, Jun 2, 2026 at 10:41 PM Charlie Garrott <charlie...@gmail.com> wrote:

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