Open Air Colony

[robo]

Just thought I'd  help get things rolling by sharing a few pics of the 'rare' open air colony here in the Northeast.

[iddee]

Beautiful.... Thanks, Robo

[Perry]

Very nice. We don't see any of those up here in Nova Scotia.

By the way, Thanks for the bee-vac plans, mine works great! Saved a lot of bees with it versus the old way.

[robo]

I see very few open air colonies here in the Northeast as well,  and none that make it through the winter.    I had a huge one under the overhang of a house a few years ago.   It was November and too late to do a cut-out,  so I tried boxing them in with rigid insulation board,  but they did not make it.   The one in the pics above was from October this year,  no brood and very little honey.   I cut it down and combined with another nuc.   it must have been a late season swarm.

[riverbee]

robo,
great photos, thanks!

[blueblood]

Was going to start another open air colony but thought it would fit perfectly here.  This was from late August of this year:
 
It's only my 2nd year and I have already learned to be leery of honey bee calls this late in the summer. But, we found an open air colony 12 ft north in a crab-apple tree. Was a pleasant and educational experience for several. This is an upscale retirement neighborhood on the south side of the town I patrol. Word of mouth led me to this surprise. I called my fellow officer and bee student out to assist in swarm removal turned cut-out/off . The temps the night before hit a near record low of 49f. The property owner said the bees have been there at least 2 weeks but I estimate 5-6. My friend took the honor of shaking but very quickly realized there was comb, lots of it. It made sense because 3-4 guard bees dispatched very much like my own hives do to dissuade us. We tried bringing the branch down but the mass of inside branches dislodged the cluster. I am confident now, the queen was hiding in the 5-6 combs and medium size cluster we managed to still lower to the nuc. Some of the residents came out to watch. It was very neat to see the enthusiasm of the elderly lady you will see in the video . I ended up with a nuc of bees and two frames of banded comb with brood. I had bottled chunk comb honey with me and sold a bottle and most certainly made several referrals. All said they see swarms in the area every year. Not quite sure what I am going to do with the nuc yet. Maybe some of you old codgers can offer some advice...ha! Enjoy the pics and video. Oh, also I added some links to two members here that posted threads of open air colonies. The first one is in San Fran (Oct) and the other Indiana (Sept). Further, there is a link to open air colonies on Beemaster. Take a look at the really neat one on page 2 that is Jp the bee man's post.

[robo]

Very similar time frame as mine,accept we had hit a few nights in the 30's before I got to them.   Yours appears to be much stronger than mine, which had no brood.    I ended up combining mine with another nuc and will overwinter them in a poly nuc.   If residence see swarms every year, sounds like a great place to set up a swarm trap.  I have an assisted living facility that tries to keep the residents busy and have started a gardening/wildlife program.  All their landscape is native plants and they no longer use any pesticides/feterlizer/etc.  They have gone "green".   The have also built bat houses and many bird houses.   I was invited to give a presentation on bees, and many remember parents/relatives keeping bee "in the day".   Needless to say, by the time I left, I had a new swarm trap location.

[blueblood]

Yes, it was strong bunch of bees.  We thought it was a late swarm until we started seeing comb.  It would make a good spot for a trap this coming May.  I read, somewhere online, about a retirement which has a sustainable gardening and bee keeping program going on.  The residents all worked together to provide and sell their products.  It was a really neat article and I can't find it now for the life of me.

[LazyBkpr]

Nice!!  TY!!!!
   I havent had the pleasure of seeing an open air colony yet.. too many nooks and crannies around here for them I think.. Old cars/trucks/equipment and out buildings.. not to mention abandoned houses that used to be farmsteads..  Back in the day when a farmer had 80 acres and raised his family on that.. now farmers run thousands of acres so all those old homesteads are empty...   Does make cut outs easier if you dont have to fix anything when your done!  

[blueblood]

Lazy, have you watched Jpthebeeman's video on an open air colony he rescued?  It had fell from a tree.  The video explains it all.

[youtube:2s9vjc4q][/youtube:2s9vjc4q]

[LazyBkpr]

Yes.. I watched that in one of the other forums.. I think my favorite JP vid is the one in the attic with multiple piping queens...

[ralph]

I wouldn't mind trying to con mine into building one under the porch on a sheet of plywood mounted to the ceiling.

How well can they defend themselves when the nectar dries up though? might would have to cover them back up then and give them a tini entrance. :/

If i don't do it this year. I'll definitely try it next year.

[apisbees]

I see very few open air colonies here in the Northeast as well,  and none that make it through the winter.    I had a huge one under the overhang of a house a few years ago.   It was November and too late to do a cut-out,  so I tried boxing them in with rigid insulation board,  but they did not make it.   The one in the pics above was from October this year,  no brood and very little honey.   I cut it down and combined with another nuc.   it must have been a late season swarm.

The survivability after providing them with enough stores would be the population of winter bees and from the new comb that could be calculated by the area of comb that brood was raised in. and it is fairly easy to determine how many rounds of brood have been raised in a comb up until the 4th or 5th round. If very little winter bees were produced you could of added a lot of honey eating bees that will not be alive in the late winter and early spring when they are needed to help the colony.