Apiary Blog

In the beginningOn April 13, 2025, a swarm selected my swarm trap, I transferred these swarm trap frames into a five-frame deep box and added a BroodMinder temperature sensor to the top bar of a brood frame. Hourly the BroodMinder stores the temperature °F (purple line), and when I am within bluetooth range, the temperature data is transferred to the cloud using my iPhone.   The outdoor temperatures °F (red dashed line) are provided by a web provider (Weather Source). Flash forward and the graph interpretationFlash forward to June 2025, and the hive has been twice bottom-supered into something we call ‘the tower’ – a stack of 3×5-frame deep boxes. In an ideal hive, the brood temperature (purple line) is centered in the gray band (92-98 °F) with very little fluctuation over time. However this is not such an “ideal” hive, bursting with overwintered bees. The brood temperature of ‘the tower’ fluctuates in sync with the outdoor temperature and on a good day achieves temperatures in the gray band. I have not discussed the red pins, but hang on, I’m getting there.The red pinsIf the brood temperature is above 92°F, then the sensor logic compares previous temperature measurements with the current measurement. Large temperature increases over a short period of time are flagged as a ‘Temperature Event’ or a swarm detection. “No way,” I said.  “Experimental feature,” I said. On June 3, 2025, I was out skating and my spouse called to say, ‘the tower is swarming, the bees are pouring out of the entrance.”  When I returned to the house, things looked normal-ish…well, the flight activity was less vigorous. After transferring the brood temperature data to the cloud, the graph shows that the spouse’s phone call and the red pin align in time, 11:30 AM. I guess the ‘Temperature Event’ detection worked – it’s not an experimental software gimmick after all. Adjusted expectationsThe BroodMinder does not inspect, manage, or automate my beekeeping; I put those fantastical expectations aside. Apparently, I created more beekeeping tasks for myself like replacing its battery annually, weekly transferring the brood temperature data to the cloud, and the biggest task of all – interpreting the graph. After the temperature event, “the tower” brood temperature continued to fluctuate in sync with the outdoor temperature. After 16 days, the brood temperature reappeared in the gray band. A re-queening intervention was not attempted and, in hindsight, not required. For a small first-year hive, the broodminder is an interesting data logging tool, and requires lots of graph interpretation.  If graph interpretation is your thing, here’s a link to the BroodlMinder. 

 Based on my Atlanta backyard observations and record keeping, I found this year’s first Tulip Popular flower windfall a few days early (day 93) – see my table below.  I compared my first tulip poplar windfall observations with other spring surrogates.  The National Phenology Network leaf out model is another way to determine if spring is early, on time, or late. Spring Leaf Index Anomaly Map uses the first leaf out of cloned lilac and honeysuckle cultivars as these woody plants are among the first to leaf out or bloom and are common across much of the country.  The model also uses temperature and weather events beginning January 1 of each year.  The current spring is compared with a 1991-2020 average. The map shows that the 2025 Georgia Piedmont region’s first leaf out day of the year is a few days early compared to the 30-year average.Other Atlanta nectar sources at this time (not shown):Chinese Wysteria (invasive)White CloverSpiderwortAmur Honeysuckle (invasive)Dandelion1st Tulip Poplar Windfall Day of Year 10-Apr-2011100 27-Mar-201287 19-Apr-2013109 12-Apr-2015102 15-Apr-2017105 5-Apr-201895 11-Apr-2019101 7-Apr-202197 6-Apr-202296 24-Mar-202383 6-Apr-202497 3-Apr-202593 median97

In Better Beekeeping, Kim Flottum described Growing Degree Days (GDD) and how this measure of heat accumulation predicts plant blooming. A growing degree day is a formula that reflects temperatures above 50°F which is the most common base temperature. For example, red maples (Acer rubrum) begin to bloom when they reach a GDD threshold of 30–50 GDD (base 50°F). I started thinking that there was a relationship between GDD and swarms. I returned to Kim’s GDD page over several years struggling to relate GDD and collecting swarms – my favorite aspect of beekeeping.At first glance, GDD calculator rules and heat accumulation bookkeeping results might look abstract – you are not alone.Atlanta, GA Atlanta, GA First Swarm Date – Growing Degree Days  Date from David Marshall(GDD BASE 50 °F) data from NOAA GDD calculator 2-Mar-22173 25-Feb-23312 1-Mar-24176 Explanation of the Atlanta first swarm date versus Atlanta GDD tableThanks to MABA’s swarm commander, David Marshall, I have three years of swarm collection data and combined these three first swarm dates with NOAA’s GDD plot. GDD measured on the first swarm day shows that 2023 GDD has a surprisingly large value compared to 2022 and 2024. In the table, two of these 3 data points (2022 and 2024) are extremely similar, but I nevertheless connected all points with a straight line. Wow, a relationship between GDD and swarm collection seems within reach! Explanation of the Accumulated GDD graphSmooth brown line is an average of several decades of Atlanta’s GDD calculationsBlue line is Atlanta’s historically highest GDD calculation (2017)Red line is Atlanta’s historically lowest GDD calculation (1915)Black line passes through Atlanta’s first swarm dates of 2022, 2023, and 2024. For simplicity, Atlanta’s GDD curves for these three years are not shown, but those curves lie between the blue and brown curves. I hypothesize that years with GDD curves closer to the blue curve also have their first swarm date earlier in the year – as much as eight days earlier in the Atlanta area compared to an “average” year.Explanation of NOAA’s historical last freeze dayGeorgia includes a wide range of historically average last freeze dates, which implies that your local bee club GDD curves do not match my experience in Atlanta. Please do not hesitate to share your club’s swarm collection dates with me – I promise to treat your data with respect and acknowledgment. In summary, it’s not too early to make a plan to find your swarm traps (bait hives) in winter storage and spruce up that trap (paint, frames, and lure) before the start of the 2025 swarm season. Keep an eye on your local GDD curve. In hindsight, Atlanta’s 2023 higher-than-average GDD trend was detectable in late January.

It’s winter and I’m thinking about my bees in these recent cool temperatures; my curiosity turned to Google Scholar and searching for the beekeeper and engineer – Derek Mitchell. Here I found Derek’s 2024 paper in the Journal of Thermal Biology – Are man-made hives valid thermal surrogates for natural honey bee nests.  This is a highly technical read with an exotic mix of scientific units, but I found take-home nuggets useful to my hobby beekeeping. My goal is not to keep bees in a tree, but to modify my wintering of bees in a thin-walled wood box by learning what bees have, on their own, achieved living in tree cavities. Man-made hive Tree nest Top ventilation Beekeeper’s  choice None  Wall properties Thin low R-value Thick high R-value Comb to wall surface Continuous bee space separation Comb attached to the wall with a few small gaps Comb to roof surface Continuous bee space separation Comb maximally attached to tree cavity roof Comb to bottom surface Continuous bee space separation made more complex with multiple boxes One continuous separation Vertical comb length Single frame height whether using one or multiple boxes  ContinuousMade with HTML TablesUsing 16 variables adjusted to experimental observation, Derek used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and compared the convective air flow and metabolic impact to bees in a standard British National Hive (one box of 35 Liters) versus a synthetic tree nest (45 liters).Derek writes, “bee space above combs increases heat loss by up to ∼70%; hives, compared to tree nests, require at least 150% the density of honey bees to arrest convection across the brood area.”Derek recommends blocking the bee space above the combs in a man-made hive, which I interpreted as adding a clear plastic sheet resting directly on the top bar frame. I have a box of letter-sized plastic sheets designed for overhead projector presentations – it seems perfect for the task. Stay tuned for how this works out for me as I am over-wintering two hives with a different number of boxes. One hive has two medium boxes, and the other hive has one deep box. I spliced sheets together with tape and trimmed the extended sheet to fit inside my eight-frame box. Each hive received one trimmed plastic sheet beneath its inner cover resting directly on the top bar frame. No doubt the bees will glue the plastic to the top bar frame and this will require some vigorous spring cleanup effort. 🤣Perhaps you want to give this small modification a try and use different materials (e.g., wood, thick acrylic, or coroplast).

 Not inexpensive, but I purchased the most affordable BroodMinder sensor which measures the internal hive temperature. The sensor is a thin profile temperature data logger that rests on the top bar and syncs with my iPhone (then uploads to the cloud) where data is graphed and accessible on my iPhone or web browser.The dashed red line is local weather data.   I’m naturally skeptical about weather data.   When I placed the broodminder in hives without bees, I found that temperature data tracked the weather data accurately.  Hourly internal temperature data values from the sensor created the solid cranberry-colored line. Ideally the solid line tracks within the gray band (92°F – 98°F) and represents a queen-right hive.  There are many reasons why the solid line is drawn below the gray band, but I had no information as to why the temperature had climbed above the gray band to 105°F.  I’m puzzled and reached out to BroodMinder Support and Theresa Martin (author of Dead Bees Don’t Make Honey) for assistance in shaping a theory.I checked the sync with the iPhone which recorded the coin battery strength.  Nothing suspicious there, the battery was 97% of full strength.   During the inspection of the counting board and an internal hive inspection, I discovered that the small hive beetles had compromised the honey.  The 105°F was likely created by the fermentation of honey.   I found the BroodMinder sensor and temperature graphs very helpful, internal temperature is one of many ways to monitor hive health.

After a few missteps, I shaped my internet news query about swarms – my favorite aspect of beekeeping.  For the past few months I received daily emails from Google Alerts and I’m ready to share how the news media covers the topic of swarms.  I was not surprised to see the media crafted eyeball attracting internet headlines (clickbait). Here are 7 different internet headlines about the same bee event.  The beekeeper never appears in the headline so it’s hard to describe the story as balanced.3 workers stung by swarm of bees while trimming trees in New Jersey – FOX 5 New YorkPolice: 3 people hospitalized as bee swarm takes over Paramus neighborhood News 12 – New Jersey Neighbors told to stay home after swarm of angry bees injures 3 tree trimmers, cops say- NJ.com Bee swarm injures workers in Paramus as police urge residents to stay inside – northjersey.com Cops in NJ warn of ‘large swarm’ after bees attack 3 workers – AudacyAngry Bees Attack Three Tree Trimmers In Paramus: ‘Cover Your Face!’ (Update)- Daily Voice Bees Sting Employees In Bergen County Town, Sending 1 To Hospital | Wyckoff, NJ Patch Paramus police closed Howland Avenue for a time and dispatched a beekeeper to the scene, Chief Robert Giudetti said. “The Bee Keeper arrived and accessed the situation determining if the bees are left alone they will return to the nest in the trunk of the tree … The bees returned to the hive and the scene was cleared.”Some of the news was sad75-year-old grandfather killed by swarm of bees while working on Texas ranch – New York Post 75-year-old Bryce Smith was clearing some trees on his property in Bedias. He was using the bulldozer and incidentally took down a bee hive while clearing the trees.Where is the line between exploitation of the public’s fear versus suggesting caution about bees?  Do semantics matter to our neighbors, or is it just me?  I cringe when people write hive when they mean nest, or write swarm when they mean guard bees.  I’m shocked by these dramatic internet news headlines, but still interested in exploring Google Alerts.

In Atlanta, June 2024 was both hot and dry.  The daily temperatures were warmer than normal, touching the record high for a few days.  We accumulated 1.74 inches (4.4 cm) of rain compared to a normal June rainfall of 4.54 inches (11.5 cm).  I rolled out the garden hose and watered daily.  The bees responded by drinking from the birdbath and packing around the edge of the ant moat that hangs above the hummingbird feeder.  Next, I set out decorative bee-watering items with a dash of kosher salt.  How much salt is enough?  Follow this link to Salt preferences of honey bee water foragers and read that minimal salt is required to attract bees.  The unrelenting heat and the bees’ keen memory of their new water source required that I top up the water several times a day.  I added a large chicken waterer 9/10 gal (3.3 liter) with a dash of kosher salt that kept up with the bees and evaporation at the waterer.  In my opinion, the key to attracting water foragers is to provide a permanent and dependable location for water.NOAA’s headline, June marked by record-setting U.S. heat waves, severe weather, highlighted tornados and flash flooding in Florida.   In Atlanta, the June 2024 experience was hot and dry.

Using David Marshall’s (MABA’s swarm commander) 2022-2023 Atlanta swarm records I created a histogram graph with eight bins. The raw data has many of days with no swarms and combining two years in a simple graph does not completely patch days with no swarms days or sufficiently smooth the data. The histogram peaks on March 28 ± 10.5 days, and then there is a long tail into the summer months. I discovered a paper, Seasonal Cycle of Swarming in Honeybees, that combined six years of Ithaca, NY swarm emergence dates – I digitized the paper’s Figure 1A.  I created a histogram plot with nine bins. Figure 1A and the resulting histogram graph show a bimodal seasonal pattern – peaking on June 9 ± 7.5 days with a smaller peak in the summer months.    I exchanged emails with one of the authors, Thomas Seeley, and shared how spring frost and fall frost climate data might reconcile these Atlanta and Ithaca swarm peaks. The Ithaca x-axis contains fewer days than the Atlanta y-axis and is consistent with Ithaca’s shorter growing season.In Atlanta and Ithaca, the peak swarm (orange circle) appeared before the local last spring frost.I’ll leave it to the readers why honey bees in Atlanta don’t have a smaller summer peak like Ithaca – I don’t know. Having a pattern bias has sometimes served me well in making quick decisions, detecting missing data, or spotting corrupted data – what the typical swarm season pattern should look like is still up for grabs!  

Swarm summary: It was an unusual swarm trap season.🤣 My neighbors helped me see a swarm select a sycamore tree cavity, and 43 days later this bee nest swarms and selected my swarm trap 7 houses away. Flight vigor at the bee nest has since increased – the bee nest is a gift that keeps giving! I was hoping for something else! 9th March – I installed 4 swarm traps in my neighborhoodactive scouting began at two 40-liter swarm traps hanging from crepe myrtle limbs. Each swarm trap contained:5x deep frames with plastic starter stripsUV-reactive blue swarm trap entrancesynthetically produced Nasonov pheromone23rd March in the early afternoon – my traps are passed over as the bees selected a cavity in the sycamore tree trunk using a cut-off limb entrance and active scouting of swarm traps subsided29th April – sycamore bee nest entrance was obscured by a huge bee beard – see the 2nd photo.In a roundabout way, the moment I’ve been waiting for!   active scouting restarted at the two 40-liter swarm traps5th May at 5:30PM – bees selected my backyard 40-liter swarm trap and the sycamore bee nest entrance is no longer obscured by a huge bee beard – a flight journey of 290 feet (88 meters) – see the 1st photo. over the next 6 days after dark, I moved the occupied swarm trap in 5 steps towards my empty backyard hive stand.  The after-dark move was made easier by leveling the next location during daylight hours. 13th May – I transferred 5 deep swarm trap frames to 8-frame equipment and moved the swarm lure to the 8-frame landing board. No smoking or brushing of bees was required. – see the 5th photo.

Click on the image and notice that ants have discovered the tulip poplar flower. These ants are not thought of as pollinators just clever at finding sweets.Based on my Atlanta backyard observations and record keeping, I found this year’s first Tulip Popular flower windfall right on time (day 97) – see my table below.  I’m curious how my first tulip poplar windfall observations correlate with other spring surrogates?  The National Phenology Network leaf out model is another way to determine if spring is early, on time, or late. Spring Leaf Index Anomaly Map uses the first leaf out of cloned lilac and honeysuckle cultivars as these woody plants are among the first to leaf out or bloom and are common across much of the country.  The model also uses temperature and weather events beginning January 1 of each year.  The current spring is compared with a 1991-2020 average. The map shows that the 2024 Georgia Piedmont region’s first leaf out day of the year is similar to the 30-year average – spring is on time in the Georgia Piedmont region and surrounding regions show that spring is a few days early.Other Atlanta nectar sources at this time (not shown):Chinese Wysteria (invasive)White CloverSpiderwortAmur Honeysuckle (invasive)Dandelion 1st Windfall day of year April 10, 2011 100 March 27, 2012 87 April 19, 2013 109 April 12, 2015 102 April 15, 2017 105 April 5, 2018 95 April 11, 2019 101 April 7, 2021 97 April 6, 2022 96 March 24, 2023 83 April 6, 2024 97 median 97Made with HTML Tables

For me, collecting swarms or attracting swarms to bait hives is the most exciting part of my beekeeping.  Possibly making spring my favorite beekeeping season.   Sunday at 1PM I received a text from the MABA “swarm commander” – a homeowner has called the swarm hotline about a swarm in their yard.   The best part of the text details…the swarm address is 3 miles away and the swarm is just a foot or two above the ground.  I’m all in and arrive in the next half hour. I strongly relate to E.O. Wilson’s connection to nature as not outgrowing his childhood bug phase. Knowing everyone does not share this view, I consciously met the homeowner’s insect concerns with lots of listening about the swarm of bees. The re-framing education moment comes next – I say “that huge ball hanging from the tree canopy is a wasp nest, these bees likely have their nest in a cavity, like a tree.”   A few weeks ago, I patched up and painted my old wood nucleus box.  Wow, I’m ready for the swarm call-out, or so I thought.  Good – my bee toolbox has a bag of gloves. Bad – the gloves are too small, too old – they split and I quickly gave up wearing gloves.   The bees don’t like the brushing or the hand attached to the yellow brush – my poor hand!I added a swarm lure to the nucleus box entrance, brush, brush, brush again…and I’m nearly there.    I leave the nucleus box for collection just before dusk, 7:30PM.   So proud of myself to discover no bees returned to the trunk of the shrub.

I sent these backyard photos to a few computer vision tools with results ranging from wrong to interesting.  I also asked questions using a conversational search engine about the size of male mason bees.  iPhone Visual Look Up is for identifying all objects (food, objects and living things too) in photos and videos on the iPhone.  For these photos Visual Look Up produced wrong or slightly wrong answers – Western Honey Bee and Osmia Rufa.iNaturalist is for recording observations of individual living things, particularly things that can be tied to a species name.  iNat uses photos with a date, location, and crowdsourced identification. iNat’s response to the last photo was Genus Osmia (139 native species of mason bee in North America).  Perplexity AI is a conversational search engine that answers queries using natural language predictive text.  Perplexity’s response to, “Are male mason bees smaller or larger than female mason bees?”  Click on the small numbers that link the response to a reference.Male mason bees are smaller than female mason bees. Females are larger than males, with shorter, thicker antennae. Mason bees are generally much smaller than honey bees or bumblebees, measuring only about 1/4 inch long1This size difference is a notable characteristic of mason bees, with males being noticeably smaller than females, typically around 7-15 millimeters long in most North American species3

Year after year, this tree has produced great bee photos foraging on winter-flowering cherry tree.   The time was 2 PM, the temperature was 57°F (13.9°C), blue sky, sunshine, and a loud buzz of bees on this quiet street.What’s next?  Crabapple trees (thanks to Trees Atlanta) are beginning to leaf-out and those flowers will be here soon and attracting honey bees too.

I discovered 2 interesting articles by Derek Mitchell (PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds), one is intended for a general honey bee audience, the other a hard-core engineering-science article.  This blog post contains 2 images from those articles.Honeybees cluster together when it’s cold – but we’ve been completely wrong about whyHoneybee cluster—not insulation but stressful heat sink   Facts about bees wintering in thin-wall wood hives:bees move from the hive edges towards the center of the hive to form a clusteras temperatures fall, the cluster shrinks – see the image from Derek’s articlethe cluster core is hot compared to the cluster periphery.  bees in the core consume honey and keep bees in the periphery warm.in extreme winter temperatures, bees on the periphery risk death by hypothermiathe cluster periphery is denser than the coreDerek writes, “Since the early twentieth century, the outer layer (mantle) of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in the winter cluster has been said to insulate the cluster core.”  A shrinking cluster increases density, reduces porosity, and increases heat loss. Here I’m using porosity to describe the amount of empty (air) space, or porosity = empty space ÷ total space.  Typically a thermal insulator reduces heat loss by trapping air and is therefore low in density.  The higher density cluster periphery is not a thermal insulator – has never been a insulator.  Beekeepers need not stress bees in extremely cold temperatures when insulation is readily available.  take a quick look in beekeeping catalogs and you’ll discover flexible hive wraps – flexible wraps roll-up for easy storage and reusable next wintersolid foam board insulation for home improvement is available for purchase or free as building wasteBees have evolved to live in trees (a nest with extremely thick wood walls) that provide real insulation – see the image from Derek’s article. To those protecting popular opinion, to the skeptic, to the frugal beekeeper, consider winter insulation using a side-by-side test.

If you turn to page 116 of Seeley’s book The Lives of Bees, you’ll find a reference to Derek Mitchell a PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds.   With web-based searching, I discovered Derek’s 2017 article in the American Bee Journal (Vol. 157 No. 8) Honey Bee Engineering: Top Ventilation And Top Entrances.   The article illustrates that adding top ventilation significantly reduces humidity and the depth of the heat pool when compared to an uninsulated hive.  Why?  Warmer air is more buoyant and flows faster through the top vent.Providing hive insulation in winter reduces bee-generated heat loss and this increases the temperature of the heat pool found at the top of the hive – see the image from Derek’s article.  I’m using the word heat pool as temperatures measured relative to the top of the hive — I recognize, pool is commonly used with liquids that fill upwards from the bottom of containers. I currently use insulated hive wraps in winter and plan to close my top vent moving forward.In email conversation, Derek recommends adding more hive insulation above the hive compared to the hive sides to discourage condensation from raining down on the bees.Derek has simulated the heat flow of a winter bee cluster in a thin-walled wooden hive and compared those results with measurements collected by other researchers.  I plan to discuss this article in an upcoming blog post.

On December 24, 2022, Atlanta experienced a historic single digit 8°F (-13.3°C) minimal temperature.  This cold snap turned green ground cover brown and likely pushed small hive beetles (SHB) deeper into hives and compost piles.  My bee yard has high shade, good soil moisture, and summer soil temperatures for SHB reproduction.  I used biological control, Beneficial nematodes (Heterorhabditis Indica), to treat the soil for SHB larvae.   At dusk, I watered the liquid nematode suspension onto the soil.  Direct sunlight (UV light) is fatal to nematodes.It’s one thing to see and squash adult SHBs with my hive tool and another stranger thing to take a leap of faith releasing after dark ‘The Smallest Show on Earth’ –  Step Right Up! Step Right Up! Moved the insulated FedEx mailer with 2.5 million microscopic nematodes to the refrigerator. Removed the leaf litter at the hive locations and then wet the soil.  The next step was washing nematodes from gel transport material – small gel pieces can clog the watering can.   I used a large strainer with a fine mesh to remove and rinse the numerous gel pieces.Added more water to the bucket and stirred it to keep the nematodes from settling to the bottom.At dusk, I watered the biologic control onto the soil.

I switched to a round slow cooker (crock pot) to clean the crushed honeycomb and this led me to simplify my crushed comb cleaning steps using a colander. crushed honeycomb – link for bee yard and kitchen activities after several days of straining, I rinsed the crushed comb in warm waterselected a colander of the same diameter as the round slow cooker lidline colander with cotton fabric and I mounded with rinsed crushed comb added lid and joined cotton fabric edges with 2 bull clipsremoved the colander and added 1 cup of water and lid to the slow cookerbe safe and melt the wax outdoorsset slow cooker on high for 1 3/4 hoursturned off the slow cooker and let it cool undisturbed to room temperature with the lid onChatGPT generated haiku Crush, strain, honey’s flow,Slow cooker’s gentle embrace,Clean comb’s sweet glow.

This spring 3 swarms selected one of my 4 swarm traps as their nest cavity. During summer heat, I waited for a cool dawn to inspect these swarms now moved into 8-frame hives. That cool morning arrived with 69 °F (20.6 °C) temperatures.  As usual, the preparation was longer than the actual inspection task that included lighting the smoker — just in case 😉.  I even remembered to take out the SuperDFM probiotic from the refrigerator.   The bees did not take flight or behave defensively – the smoker was not used.  I added one tablespoon (15 ml) of probiotic to the top bars and workers moved to gather this sweet treat – sucrose is the primary ingredient. The first iPhone photo has the best color balance and shows dramatic red propolis on the top bars. The last 2 photos required correction as the brilliant white probiotic screwed up the iPhone color balance.Vera and Slava (makers of SuperDFM) write, “Multiple bacteria are present in all nectars, pollens, propolis and the environment. Honey bees need these bacteria to aid not only in digestion, but also to improve immune response and combating stressors detrimental to their health.”  ChatGPT generated haiku Summer hive’s embrace,Dearth shadows, health blooms within,Immune strength sustains.

I’m not a fan of leaving the counting board beneath the screen.  However, for spring swarms I usually start with the board and remove it when entering warmer weather. Budgeting time between my day job, gardening, dog walking, going to physical therapy, blah blah blah – Well, I left the board in place without inspection for too long – 77 days, what was I thinking? I tugged on the corrugated plastic sheet without success.   I shared my why do I keep making my life difficult story with a friend, Michael Willis, who had a great idea – attach a strip of duct tape along the length of the plastic sheet for additional grip.  If one duct tape strip is good, I thought to myself, let’s try two duct tape strips, let’s include a handle.  No luck, the board would not move!   In desperation, I pushed an 18-inch metal ruler beneath the screen a few times and was able to move, then pull out the board in one piece. The debris consists of:lots of beeswax and you guessed it, wax moth larvaepollenants small hive beetlesThe last photo was taken after discarding the fine debris with a screen.  The wax scales/flakes look fabulous.

On Friday, May 12th2:00 PM – active scouting at one swarm trap, zero scouting at other traps 3:00 PM – very active scouting at one swarm trap, zero scouting at other traps6:24 PM – air is thick with bees6:48 PM – the majority of bees settled on the outside of the swarm trap and began to move in8:23 PM – bees reversed and are on the outside of the trapOn Saturday, May 13thsetup 8-frame deep box near the swarm trap; in the last photo, check out the homemade rectangular UV-reactive blue 8-frame entranceadd a queen excluder beneath the deep boxspray the bees with sugar watercarefully lower the swarm trapcarefully walk the swarm trap to the deep boxspray the bees with sugar waterbrush bees into the deep boxadd framesmove the pheromone lure from the swarm trap to the landing boardadd an inner cover and telescoping lidafter 2 hours, all the loose bees have reoriented to their new homeOn Sunday, May 14thadd a gallon pail feeder with 32 ounces of 1:1 syrupI’m guessing that the swarm was hanging very close to their preferred swarm trap, and the scout bees ignored my other swarm trapsthis swarm contains more than 1 queen

Today I moved the swarm to 8-frame equipment. In one week, all 5 frames had similar new comb construction on the plastic starter strips. I moved the swarm lure to the 8-frame landing board, and the remaining bees entered the 8-frame equipment in under 2 hours – I did not bump bees off the swarm trap. In the last photo, notice the homemade rectangular UV-reactive blue 8-frame entrance.The bees returned with cream-colored Tulip Poplar pollen and slowly consumed 1:1 syrup.

The moment I’ve been waiting for! On February 20th, I set out two 40-liter swarm traps hanging from crepe myrtle limbs.   Each swarm trap contains:5x deep frames with plastic starter stripsUV-reactive blue swarm trap entrancesynthetically produced Nasonov pheromone In another 3 days, scout bees visited the swarm traps.  Though I waited for 33 more days before a swarm would select one of the swarm traps.

NOAA headlinesFebruary 2023 was Earth’s 4th warmest on recordEurope saw its second-warmest winter as global sea ice set a new record lowI found this year’s first Tulip Popular flower windfall 16 days earlier than expected.  This early arrival was most likely driven by weather/climate.  My observation biases that might undermine the hypothesis:I’m better at spotting windfall flowersmore time spent outdoors and less time commuting to workOther nectar sources at this time (not shown):Chinese Wysteria (invasive)White CloverSpiderwortAmur Honeysuckle (invasive)Dandelion1st Windfallday of year April 10, 2011100 March 27, 201287 April 19, 2013109 April 12, 2015102 April 15, 2017105 April 5, 201895 April 11, 2019101 April 7, 202197 April 6, 202296 March 24, 202383    median99

From mid-February to early March, Atlanta’s maximum temperatures were warmer than expected. On February 21st, the high temperature was 21°F above maximum normals (1991-2020).   On March 7th, pollen counts soared to 3937 – outdoor surfaces were covered with yellow pollen (pine, oak, sweet gum, hackberry, and birch).    Walking the dog, I discovered bees (mining, carpenter, and European honey) visiting crabapple tree flowers on my street – thanks to Trees Atlanta.I set 4 hanging swarm traps on 3 properties in my neighborhood, each with: UV-reactive blue swarm trap entrancesynthetically produced Nasonov pheromone2 of these traps are on my property and conveniently located where I can watch the swarm trap entrance and the behavior of scout bees from a window. See the video and read page 62 of Honeybee Democracy describing scout bees.So far, the traps did not attract a swarm – my swarm trap hopes rest with a return to more normal temperatures after this week of frigid spring weather.

On December 24 2022, Atlanta experienced a historic single digit 8°F (-13.3°C) minimal temperature.  This cold snap turned green ground cover brown and delayed or canceled flights.  In mid to late December the arctic oscillation (AO) was in a negative part of its cycle.  Strongly negative AO values are consistent, or should I say necessary, for achieving a historic low in an Atlanta winter.  The December 2022 cold snap was an outlier and then came a historically warm January 2023.   Currently, the AO is in the positive part of its cycle and as the AO changes slowly, it seems likely that Atlanta will be spared a historic cold snap in February.   This story brings me to share a few lucky iPhone photos of bees on winter-flowering ornamental cherry trees. I was walking the dog on a sunny 57°F (13.9°C) afternoon.   I stood still and soaked in the loud buzz of bees foraging on cherry tree flowers.Monthly Lowest Min Temperature for Atlanta Area, GA (ThreadEx)   YearJanDec 202329M 2022268 20212834 20202322 20192229 20181328 20171526 20162026 20151129 2014630 20132927 20122230 20111929 20101314 20091226 20081518 20071826 20062819 20051624 20041816 2003826 20022125 20011723 20001913     Mean1924     Max2934  20232021     Min68  20142022