The Last Endeavor at Shakopee Green Beehive

At last, our supplier was ready for us. The nucleus colony was available to be picked up in Stillwater. This mini-hive replica (4-5 frames with a queen), is a working beehive. It functions exactly as a "normal" size beehive. The foragers go out in the morning at first light and collect nectar and pollen, others tend the brood, and attendants care for the queen. Therefore, we had to pick up the nuc at night (8:30pm) to make sure that every bee was home after a long day working!

Jim taped the box with duct tape, and on our way we were. We arrived home by 10:00pm with our new family. Because the nuc is made of cardboard, and the bees could be hot, we set it outside in the front of the house, hoping the occasional raccoons, and cats will not visit during the night.

Our new made-up colony has a queen from the Carniolan race (A. m. carnica). This race of honey bees is from the mountains of Austria and Yugoslavia. An advantage, is that it maintains a smaller winter colony compared to the Italian bees and thus requires a smaller amount of honey store to survive the harsh winters of Minnesota. Also, the queen is not golden like the Italian queen but shiny and black. ( I did not see her yet). However, the rest of the honey bees making up the nuc is from "unknown" origin. A nuc is put together by taking a frame here and there from the strongest colonies in an apiary. Thus it can be a mix of Italians, Russians, and Carniolans which Jim raises. As the queen lays more eggs, the newer bees will have 1/2 the traits from their mother's, and should be grayish to black in color. I hope that everyone will get along, and work together. This new hive is looking like the United Nations!

Now the real work for us began. By 7:00 am the next morning, we were walking along the Shakopee field trying again a "new" technique to save the colony. We stopped at about 30 feet from the green colony and placed the nuc on the ground. The honey bees in the nuc were already awakening and buzzing. Ben took the green body hive filled with 10 frames of chaos, and walked 100 feet away from the beehive location. We were advised to "shake" ALL the bees from each frame.

I can tell you that the bees were mad at us, aggressively flying strait at us. We used the smoker to calm them somewhat. How would you feel at 3:00 am in the morning if someone came and shook you out of bed, with no reason?

The big idea was that by displacing the bees from the frames, the workers would go back to their hive location, but the laying-workers being fat and heavy would not be able to fly back, thus would not interfere with the new family, and new queen.

Only 3 frames were full of brood, a little nectar and some pollen. We had to take them back home to clean them.

However bees are tenacious and really wanted to go back on their frames, so as Ben was shaking the bees to the ground, I was placing the frames under a blanket to protect them. When the frames were free of bees, we walked back to the green beehive location, and place the nuc in its place.

Ben open the entrance, to let the nuc honey bees meet their new environment, and their Italian sisters! Yes, they had returned from the crazy wake up call to their address to find out however that a new house had "appeared".

The Italians honey bees were taking a look at the newcomers. We left the scene to return later in the afternoon to transfer the nuc frames into the green wooden hive, giving everyone a chance to acknowledge the other. It was 8:00am, and the purple hive was starting to wake up. We walked back to our car, satisfied by our last effort to save our darlings.