Friday evening, April 16, 2021, Therese Ramirez, who is the head of the Houston Natural Beekeepers Association, gave me a call, letting me know that there was a swarm available, if I wanted to go with her and get it. Long story, short, Therese and I recovered a swarm, from the underside of a trampoline in Pearland! Amy Hunter, Becky Stemper and I installed it in the Yellow Hive (now known as Beatrix) and they seem to be doing well. So we now have two active bee colonies in our apiary.
We are just amazed how quickly this has happened! In the span of a week, we have recovered two swarms and our apiary is ready to put up a “No Vacancy” sign. However, Becky was just given a Top Bar hive, so we are now looking for a third swarm! This is so exciting!! Thanks to Becky and Amy for jumping in on a moment’s notice to get these swarms established.
It should be noted that by supplying our apiary with recovered bees, instead of buying bees, we not only protected these swarm bees from possibly being exterminated by an unhappy resident, we have $480 of grant money that can be used in other ways for the Apiary Project. I am really proud of how this project has gone. Thanks again to Debbie for all of her work up front in finding, applying for and all of the followup work on the grant.
Update from Becky Stemper:
Both hives have eaten up all the honey we supplied them and still going in and out with lots of pollen. A good sign I feel.
The number of bees exiting and entering Stephanie’s hive yesterday seemed a bit greater than previous days so I have high hopes for her. There were a lot of drones going in Beatriz’s hives.
Steve Ewing