SurvivalBlog.com

Finding Bees: Before and After SHTF (continued)

You can take a piece of an active hive and wire it into a frame in your hive. (Suit up and use a little smoke, which makes bees think their hive is on fire and they have to eat all the honey to save it). If you pay close enough attention and can access the comb, you will find that some comb cells have what look like tiny grains of rice in them. Using a strong flashlight helps to see them; these are new bee eggs! The best spots to take have flat brownish coverings (called capped brood) with open cells with eggs circling it, and will be mostly in the center of big chunks of dark color comb. By taking just a piece of this comb from a wild hive (with some “nurse” bees that cling to it), you can put it in your hive with some honey to feed them, and they will try to raise their own queen. It is imperative that the eggs are as tiny as possible, about the size of Lincoln’s nose on a penny or smaller. They need to be under three days old. Any older and it might not become a queen. It is important that all existing comb be oriented as it was in the hive, as comb is built with a slight pitch towards its center. Try to get comb as big as an 8×11 sheet of paper with a group of bees at least a big cereal bowl full. (You can wire the comb in more than one frame.) To start the hive, start them in a single box with a small entrance. If they’re successful, you’ll see eggs in a month or so.

Wire the comb under your frame to bars, stuff the entrance of your hive with grass, and then remove it in two days, if the bees don’t. To give them the best chance of living, add honey in a small flat container in the hive with cheesecloth or popsicle sticks on the surface of the honey. These items help to feed them and prevent drowning. This way, you get bees started, and the hive you took it from is not that worse for wear. You may even get the queen with your comb, and the wild hive will raise another. This is how I duplicate hives, repopulate, re-queen, or manage busy hives of my own (just in larger amounts). Sometimes hives die; it happens to the best of us. You will never learn if you never try!

Another way to get bees is to look for “swarms” in the spring. This varies by location, but a swarm looks like a droopy ball of bees that are hanging from something. They usually don’t hang around long, as they are looking for a new home, but if you can get to one quick, you can place that whole group in a hive box and close the entrance for a day or two. They should start drawing wax on your bars/frames and living there, if they like their new home. This is the natural way that honeybee hives reproduce and diversify populations. You won’t need to feed, since swarms eat honey before they leave their past hive, but it helps.

The last method of collecting bees is a swarm trap. Use your desired bee box with some lemongrass oil and some old empty comb inside, hanging the box 6-15 feet in the air. The box should be roughly the size of three to four men’s shoeboxes in volume, with a 1.5-inch hole at the bottom corner. This is my preferred way to get swarms, as it is minimal time and effort involved. Plus, the bees are already in a house you made when you find them. If you locate a wild hive in early spring, put a swarm trap or two within ½ mile at habitat edges and your luck increases exponentially. Usually they work best on south facing trees from April to June, but there is lots of debate to what traps work best and where. After all, variety and trying things is part of the fun of beekeeping!

Uses for Bees: Everything Else

In addition to area security, bees are a wonderful and valuable resource in which you can take pride in your food and economic security as well. I have yet to hear a hungry person say, “No, I don’t like honey thank you.” In times of famine, your hives could mean the difference between you and others going hungry or having the energy to split that last load of wood before a storm. Bees are, after all, one of the oldest animals raised by humans for a reason.

Regular uses:

Beehives provide a plethora of uses around the home. Here are some “regular” uses:

• Honey for eating and medicinal use, used as a sugar substitute for food and alcohol production,
• Beeswax for candles, lubricating tools, waterproofing clothing and shoes, and for skin products, and
• Pollination increases. Your orchards will really thank you, when bees are close to them.

Non-traditional uses

Some non-traditional uses of bee products I have tried include the following:

• Using wax to create your own deodorant recipes, waterproofing of ropes or string, heat sealing cloth seams, basically anything you can use paraffin for but beeswax is non-toxic. I personally like using beeswax to coat wood; it just looks so beautiful.
• Using the propolis (bee glue) like a resin. Warm, it is sticky and pliable. Cool, it is hard like epoxy. Careful though propolis is downright impossible to get out of clothes!
• Eating the pollen dropped by the bees, as well as the propolis for health benefits. Propolis also has antibacterial properties.
• Stings have been used medicinally to reduce inflammation and arthritis/joint problems. I have been stung on my bad wrist and knee a few times, and I always feel less ache in them the following months, so there may be something clinical to this. (Please use this information only as reference of what I have observed of these creatures. Consult with your physician first and use at your own discretion so that you can be sure allergies or sensitivities do not exist!)

Honorable Mention- The Mason Bee

Much smaller than the honeybee, this solitary bee is an amazing pollinator. Preferring to lodge and lay its eggs in pre-existing holes, the mason bee lives in areas that usually get cold (below 32 degrees F) for extended periods. They emerge when the temperature is around 55 degrees for at least a few days straight.

During the spring and summer, the females find holes approximately six inches deep suitable for young and lay their eggs in little compartments containing pollen, nectar, et cetera. The eggs hatch and the young spin little hard cocoons, where they stay over the winter. Females are laid deepest in the tube to protect against predators like woodpeckers. The next spring, males emerge first from the ends of the tubes and go about being bees. Since only a few males are needed to breed the females, this protects their population. After a few days of mating once the females emerge, the males all die off.

Their ability to get into the smallest flowers makes them even more efficient than the honeybee at pollination, in my opinion. They don’t need lots of room, and gardens will produce on average 15-20% more produce when properly pollinated. In a survival situation, even 5% more could mean the difference between starving and surviving.

For greenhouse gardening areas, my nod certainly goes to the mason bee for year round pollination, given you provide them with a small dwelling (tubes) and warm enough temperature. They hardly ever affect human activities in a greenhouse. One way to house them is to put out a mason bee “hotel”, which consists of a 6” long piece of 2”x6” non-treated wood (no cedar) with some 5/16” sized holes drilled in it. It is okay to drill right through, as long as you can screw a piece of wood to the back side to keep the eggs protected and dark. They won’t use it if the hole is through without a sealed backing. This also lets you clean out the holes from non-target insects. [Note: I rarely ever use any bee wood more than a few years, to cut down on parasites and disease.] I use four screws down the back plate with around 12-16 holes each for bees. I strap a few of these together when I set them out in a sheltered place. Then, I can pull what I need every few weeks. Make a bunch and set them aside for future use.

Set it out next to flowers in spring, and the bees will lay a long chain of chambers sealed by mud in each hole. You can take some or all of the blocks in the late fall and put them in the refrigerator crisper for a few weeks. If you live somewhere cold in winter, you don’t need to do the refrigerator step. Just bring what you need straight into the greenhouse (or just let them hatch in spring and increase your outdoor pollination). After that, you can take single tubes or blocks out one at a time and place in the greenhouse. They will hatch shortly and continue to linger in the greenhouse trying to collect pollen and nectar for a few weeks. You can repeat this through the winter, provided your green space is consistently above 60 degrees F. You do have to take some care to keep them in. I had the idea to prop the door open while bringing something in during March, and they flew out thinking it was June. They didn’t make it far. Your mileage may vary, as temperature, amount of pollen plants, how often you open the door, and more will influence how well they do.

Conclusion

Once you get started in the adventure of raising bees, you will start a lifelong learning process that can provide for you and others. The uses for these creatures are numerous and beneficial, while at the same time preserving our way of human life. Without bees, after all, crops would fail and humans would starve. There is no amount of human or robot labor as effective as the bee. We are blessed with such creatures by the Lord, so we should enjoy them and share! Be vigilant, learn daily, and love, as we are created to do. By doing these things, your life can change from a lot of fear to a little hope, just like nectar is changed to honey!

Uses for Bees: Security

On the topic of prepping functionality, let’s discuss a topic outside of the traditional bee box; le’s talk about a human home’s security. Yes, it is usually a good idea to protect your hive to keep it safe, but what about the bee’s owners? Are they protected? I have noticed very quickly, since raising bees, the level of fear they invoke in humans. (I’d also like to make a suggestion that human-bee relations can be best improved with a 40-60-inch tall solid fence approximately four feet in front and also to the side of hive entrances; this forces the bees to fly upward rather than outward.) Since bees are like any other animal that will be grouchy if provoked, they can be counted on to do just that in certain scenarios.

A beehive can become a very valuable force multiplier in an engagement or hostile situation on a property. The most air traffic will occur 20-45 feet in front of the entrance and 45-60 degrees to each side of it. This pattern varies between hives but is a general guide regardless of orientation.

This can be used to one’s advantage when trying to keep people away from areas of your property and to make you products at the same time. A beehive can be rigged or physically pushed to fall over and “spill” its occupants, causing agitated bees to spill out and attack anything within range (25-100 feet). This can be done with a metal lever that can be hit, at close or far ranges. Sometimes just a really big thud (like a rock or bat) on the box gets them jazzed up enough to send out protection squads.

A new method I have been testing with great success is a hive body with a “blow-out” panel that is built into the entrance side of the box. (You’ll see the end of the frames). I cut a rectangular hole in the hive box, leaving two inches minimum on each side of the hole to keep rigidity. I then made a wood piece that fit just inside that hole and secured it by screwing it to a board, which then was attached across the hive side. Think of a drawer, but the drawer only goes as deep as your hive box is thick. Then I attached a piece of thick metal that sticks out past the side of the hive to the insert piece. Keep the panel attached to the hive box for a week or so at first to let them glue it in place, and then the supports can be removed. Just be sure to really secure your lever to the panel, as the bees will glue that sucker in and it does take effort to dislodge it. A run by smack with a bat or similar impact as mentioned above dislodges the panel, opening up a hole in the hive. A hole that size, instantly opened loudly, makes for angry bees and does not require the whole hive to be tipped over. Not as many bees come out, but then you don’t have to tip the whole hive over. I also use it as an inspection window occasionally during the summer.

The boxes or panel can be gathered up and put back together once hit without total losses, as long as an animal or weather doesn’t kill them. I can assure you that any bees bothered at night are not happy bees. Do not bother them at night, especially if you have a light on, like a headlamp. They will fly right to the light if provoked at night; in the case of a headlamp, their target would be your head! This could work great for intruders though. If you work a hive in the day and they are all of a sudden really grouchy, you can bet something has been messing with them at night. (By the way, dark colored things get attacked quickest, as their predators are usually dark colored.)

If there are bears in your area, I highly recommend putting up two strands of heavy duty solar supplied electric fence around your hives or property. At least one wire at 5” for small critters and one at 36” for big critters. It’s not prohibitively expensive. Stake chicken wire around the fence on the ground in order to ground it. If you don’t have bears but have a skunk problem, take a couple of soda cans and cut a skinny, non-tapered Christmas tree shape in the rolled out metal. Then, take the “branches” of the tree shape and fold them all up in the same direction. You now have a spike strip which you can screw down on the front of your hive so animals won’t lean their paws on it. The bees go right around them.

This security use of hives would be best in temperate to moderate climate regions, but they will work in very cold areas also. The only issue is that bees cannot fly or live very long in temperatures below 40. However, during the winter, nasty vegetation, like thorny black berries (which the bees love in summer) can assist with your protection scheme. Pruning blackberries in spring yields lots of “deterrent fence” as I call it. Cut it, and toss it in a place you want nobody to cross. Before you know it, you will have a small hedge that people will avoid and that small animals/birds will live in. This works wonders for perimeters of properties, and it can be just as nasty as barbwire. It is always best to approach protection philosophies in redundancy. Isn’t everything better with “two is one”? In this situation, you get three– protection, bee food, and human food!

What if a threat is out of range from hives? I was discussing the hive security principle with a friend of mine when he made the joke “Why don’t you just make mini hives to launch at bad guys?” Not long after that comment, I inadvertently tested that principle. I had a small nucleus box knocked into the air by my own clumsiness, and the bees poured out the second they hit dirt. It was a cloud of bees, so I quietly apologized and stepped away for 20 minutes with full bee gear on to let them chill out. I pity the poor soul without gear on who gets a bee bomb broken at his feet! Africanized southern bees really shine for this, due to their persistence in attacking.

Get creative if making a “fling box”. Any strip of wood with an edge down its length will allow bees to make comb; they just have to be around 1” wide and spaced 1.25” center to center to make proper comb. An item 6-8 inch cubed works perfect for a fling box. (I just had to try it with comb and no bees.) The box will be a one-time use, so take that into account when building. The best way to make these is to make the bottoms removable and set them next to each other on top of an active brood area (preferably from your launch position). Lift the box off the hive, lock on the bottom, fling, and pity the target. They can get heavy, so trial with some bungees so you know which works for you. I had success with four strands of heavy surgical tubing each side with a leather pouch.

Just be sure that when you launch the box, you do so slowly and gradually; think a sling and not a cannon. Otherwise, the bees are on you. I’m glad I tried this with no bees, as the first box helicoptered out of my DIY dog ball launcher and broke 10 feet in front of me! If a person could raise or harvest hornets/yellow jackets, this would be a dynamite application for SHTF. I haven’t been brave enough to try that, yet. Stinging insects = natures biological weapons

Finding Bees: Before and After SHTF

During normal societal operation, bees can be purchased in “nucleus” colonies or “packages” of bees. Either one ranges from $75-$150, and both will get you started easily. I happen to prefer nuc colonies, since they have everything they need already and are less likely to leave to find a new home if they don’t like your hive.

Bees can be purchased or traded from a beekeeper, but you can also find wild sources in addition. The easiest way to find wild hives is to “bee-line” field bees back to their home. To do this, you simply need some honey, a container of some sort, and some powdered sugar. I put out a chair and sit in a bright colored shirt (they will use you as a landmark), with the honey out in front of me on a flat surface. The forager bees can smell honey from a long way off and come quickly. I have attracted them best in the fall, but I have had this work all year.

Once a bee is eating the honey, carefully place the container, preferably a clear container, over the honey. (I like a container with a big hole in the bottom covered by a window screen.) Let the bee(s) in it eat their fill, and then try to cover them with powdered sugar. This does not hurt them, and is actually how I treat them for mites in my hives come fall (as it encourages grooming). It stands out just enough to identify them upon return. After they are full, they will want to fly off in a bee-line back to their hive, where they will likely tell others and come back. Take the container off and let them leave.

Once a bee leaves, start a timer and stay put, noting the exact direction it went. (It helps to draw on paper with a compass.) Wait for powdered bees to return. Once you see your first bee come back, note the time on your timer, and repeat as necessary. After a few minutes, you will see more and more bees returning to you. When the marked bees leave and return in three minutes or less, its hive is within a quarter mile. When your marked bees leave and return in 5-10 minutes, their hive is likely a half mile or more away. At 10-20 minutes leave-return, their hive is likely more than a mile away. You can do this multiple times on farther travel lines, moving a quarter mile at a time on the line the bees take. This will get you close to the hive, so use your eyes and ears and you will see them zipping through the fields and trees when close to the hive. The timing thing was documented a long time ago by others, but I can confirm that it is fairly accurate from the hives I have tracked. Just remember, the hive you find could be a beekeeper’s, so be polite.

It is very important to remember that, although this can be done in times of normalcy or of turmoil, it is important not to destroy any wild hives. Honeybees have enough trouble living in this contaminated world we have created. I do have a recommendation though for everyone– take pieces or use traps.