My first time to work with Steven Coy, I learned a lot, and got a certain level of confidence in working with the bees. Not necessarily competence. But confidence.
So for the second trip, I volunteered again, with the intention of picking up my bees at the end of the visit. During the day, I would get to work with bees. Always a plus.
On my previous visit to the Coy Bee Farm, we had spent most of our time making and populating splits, to increase the number of hives. This time, we were preparing hives for honey production and catching queens.
We hopped in the net-covered truck and made a run down to the coast, to place hives in the areas where the Chinese tallow provides huge nectar flows starting about now. We carried 96 hives, filled with bees, and twice as many honey supers (boxes designed for the workers to fill with honey), so that we could set up the girls to do their work in a productive area. The productive area is in Bay St Louis, a coastal community at the border between Louisiana and Mississippi.
At the first location, we opened the gate and drove into a field that was in serious need of a bush-hogging (Chinese tallow growing everywhere - YAY!). The forklift came off the truck, and hives were unloaded. We opened them up, made sure there was brood in each one, and placed a mesh to keep the queen down in the bottom (called a queen excluder), while letting workers up to process honey in the upper boxes. And then put boxes on top for honey production and storage.
The girls were not terribly happy about being moved around, but they seemed to accept the new situation with only a minor amount of grumpiness. (Only one sting through the pants leg....)
Steven interrupted me at one point while I was inspecting a bee-covered frame, and asked me, "What do you see here? Do you know what this is?"
I looked over at the frame he was holding up. It had brood, but it didn't look right. My hands were full, and I turned back a little too quickly to the grumpy sisters who were demanding my immediate attention, and took a guess. "Queen cells?"
"Nope. Drone brood." And with that, he turned the box on its side, and started moving the frames into other boxes, emptying out the box. Never missed a beat; just kept right on working.
Drone brood. Drone brood. I turned it over in my head. I know what the drones are - they are the boys in the hive, but the comment made no sense to me.
Once we had finished with what we were doing, it was time to get clarity. "OK, you said that the frame was drone brood, you acted as though that meant something I should understand, and then you did something different to that hive. I need you to explain what that means."
Most of the day was spent like this. I have read a LOT, trying to get myself ready for doing this. But there are some things you just can't get from a book. So I have a good framework for understanding. but I lack the practical application that you only obtain from experience.
He explained. "Sometimes a queen starts having problems. She usually inspects the cell, and then depending on the size of the cell, will lay a single fertilized egg - a worker - or an unfertilized egg - a drone - in the cell."
This much I knew.
"But if she lays an unfertilized egg in the small cell, the workers have to expand the cell size to accommodate the larger larva. And she only does that for two reasons: either she is really old, and has run out of sperm, or she was badly mated, and the sperm didn't take. Either way, you need to requeen the hive, or simply incorporate the pieces into other hives.
"The other problem that can cause drones to be laid is if the queen is dead, and you get a laying worker.
"Either way, you need to change out the hive, because it isn't sustainable."
This was pretty much the way that the entire day went. I would be working, Steven or Robert would point something out, I would try to fit it into the information I already knew, and then I would ask a question. We talked about genetics, pollen sources, RNAI, current trends in plant eradication (beekeepers are alarmed at a proposal to introduce a beetle that can attack the tallow tree), and all kinds of technical and philosophical details. And the whole time, we are up to our elbows in pollen and nectar and bees.
After we had placed all of the hives from the truck, we went to a different spot and put honey supers on the boxes of bees that were already there.
And it was just in time. The bees had been feasting on the tallow, and they were chock full of honey - the point where as a new adult bee would emerge from a cell, the bees would fill it with honey before the queen could lay again. Honeybound is the term Robert used.
If we had not provided the supers, the workers would have raised a new queen and swarmed. Within days.
When we got back, the remainder of the day was split between catching queens and checking nucs. The queens are being raised for sale. So first, a queen cell - which is a queen just about to emerge from the pupal stage - is dropped into each hive. (These hives are just large enough for the queen and a few hundred of her closest friends.) And then your friendly neighborhood beekeeper has to wait until the queen has her mating flight and starts laying.
Once she starts laying, then the game of Catch the Queen begins. A successful ending to the game results in the Queen being shoved into a small box to ship her out, and a sudden replacement of the outgoing queen with another queen cell. La reina est mort....
Queen catching sounds easy. But just finding the queen is tough. It is essentially a 3-D Where's Waldo page where all of the people are moving, and hiding, and Waldo might be on one page. Or might have just jumped to the other page. Or might be in the box where the book came from. And every character is dressed just like Waldo. Finally, when you find her, she is slippery-elm elusive.
Since the queen catching was less invasive than the previous activity of moving bees, I figured I was safe, and I dropped my veil behind me. (I don't know, man, said Robert. Getting stung on the temple is pretty painful...) Without warning, one of the bees just went crazy, deciding that I was the threat. THE threat. Pow! Right on the lip. Literally telling me to KISS HER ASS.
She wasn't done. She kept hitting and bumping and trying to sting me, long after all of her venom was coursing through the right side of my face, swelling me up and making me start to slur my words.
"She get you?" Robert smirked just a little when he asked me. He had warned me, after all....
"Ymms."
Robert smiled to himself, and went back to his work.
The remainder of the day was spent opening every 5-frame box they had, looking to see if there were three full frames of brood. If the box had four frames of brood, that was too much, and they needed to share some of the largess with another. If they only had two, it was not enough, and they would need more.
70 boxes later, I had put in an 11-hour day, and I still had to buy my own boxes, and drive three hours to the house. I got my three boxes of ladies, cinched them in the back of my truck, and took them home.
Confident. And working hard on that competence thing.
 |
| Confident = not wearing a veil. Competent = knowing when it is OK to not wear a veil. |
On my previous visit to the Coy Bee Farm, we had spent most of our time making and populating splits, to increase the number of hives. This time, we were preparing hives for honey production and catching queens.
We hopped in the net-covered truck and made a run down to the coast, to place hives in the areas where the Chinese tallow provides huge nectar flows starting about now. We carried 96 hives, filled with bees, and twice as many honey supers (boxes designed for the workers to fill with honey), so that we could set up the girls to do their work in a productive area. The productive area is in Bay St Louis, a coastal community at the border between Louisiana and Mississippi.
 |
| Robert, removing the net from the boxes of transported bees |
The girls were not terribly happy about being moved around, but they seemed to accept the new situation with only a minor amount of grumpiness. (Only one sting through the pants leg....)
Steven interrupted me at one point while I was inspecting a bee-covered frame, and asked me, "What do you see here? Do you know what this is?"
 |
| Drone brood, image stolen from www.CarolinaHoneybees.com |
"Nope. Drone brood." And with that, he turned the box on its side, and started moving the frames into other boxes, emptying out the box. Never missed a beat; just kept right on working.
Drone brood. Drone brood. I turned it over in my head. I know what the drones are - they are the boys in the hive, but the comment made no sense to me.
Once we had finished with what we were doing, it was time to get clarity. "OK, you said that the frame was drone brood, you acted as though that meant something I should understand, and then you did something different to that hive. I need you to explain what that means."
Most of the day was spent like this. I have read a LOT, trying to get myself ready for doing this. But there are some things you just can't get from a book. So I have a good framework for understanding. but I lack the practical application that you only obtain from experience.
He explained. "Sometimes a queen starts having problems. She usually inspects the cell, and then depending on the size of the cell, will lay a single fertilized egg - a worker - or an unfertilized egg - a drone - in the cell."
This much I knew.
"But if she lays an unfertilized egg in the small cell, the workers have to expand the cell size to accommodate the larger larva. And she only does that for two reasons: either she is really old, and has run out of sperm, or she was badly mated, and the sperm didn't take. Either way, you need to requeen the hive, or simply incorporate the pieces into other hives.
"The other problem that can cause drones to be laid is if the queen is dead, and you get a laying worker.
 |
| Mrs. Coy, inspecting a hive to 'catch the queen'. |
"Either way, you need to change out the hive, because it isn't sustainable."
This was pretty much the way that the entire day went. I would be working, Steven or Robert would point something out, I would try to fit it into the information I already knew, and then I would ask a question. We talked about genetics, pollen sources, RNAI, current trends in plant eradication (beekeepers are alarmed at a proposal to introduce a beetle that can attack the tallow tree), and all kinds of technical and philosophical details. And the whole time, we are up to our elbows in pollen and nectar and bees.
After we had placed all of the hives from the truck, we went to a different spot and put honey supers on the boxes of bees that were already there.
 |
| Where's Waldo? Queen of Hide-And-Seek. |
If we had not provided the supers, the workers would have raised a new queen and swarmed. Within days.
 |
| Queens, caught and ready to be shipped. $35. |
Once she starts laying, then the game of Catch the Queen begins. A successful ending to the game results in the Queen being shoved into a small box to ship her out, and a sudden replacement of the outgoing queen with another queen cell. La reina est mort....
Queen catching sounds easy. But just finding the queen is tough. It is essentially a 3-D Where's Waldo page where all of the people are moving, and hiding, and Waldo might be on one page. Or might have just jumped to the other page. Or might be in the box where the book came from. And every character is dressed just like Waldo. Finally, when you find her, she is slippery-elm elusive.
Since the queen catching was less invasive than the previous activity of moving bees, I figured I was safe, and I dropped my veil behind me. (I don't know, man, said Robert. Getting stung on the temple is pretty painful...) Without warning, one of the bees just went crazy, deciding that I was the threat. THE threat. Pow! Right on the lip. Literally telling me to KISS HER ASS.
 |
| Not her. This bee is docile next to the kamikaze worker bee who decided she hated me. |
"She get you?" Robert smirked just a little when he asked me. He had warned me, after all....
"Ymms."
Robert smiled to himself, and went back to his work.
The remainder of the day was spent opening every 5-frame box they had, looking to see if there were three full frames of brood. If the box had four frames of brood, that was too much, and they needed to share some of the largess with another. If they only had two, it was not enough, and they would need more.
70 boxes later, I had put in an 11-hour day, and I still had to buy my own boxes, and drive three hours to the house. I got my three boxes of ladies, cinched them in the back of my truck, and took them home.
Confident. And working hard on that competence thing.
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