CAMDEN — It's been four weeks since one of our honeybee hives swarmed into an adjacent cedar tree, and on Sept. 14 we opened the hives and discovered we could harvest the first few pounds of honey. The following weekend, we harvested some more, which for first-time beekeepers with new colonies is a surprising way to end the active honeybee season. But our summer with the bees, as many readers know, has been full of surprises, so we thought, what's one more?

Many of my 791 Facebook friends know now how much honey we harvested this year, and that a hive we took in as a foster mid-summer now inhabits an observation hive with 4-foot-tall panes of glass on both sides — inside our spare bedroom.

For the rest of you who have been following the story of our beekeeping adventure via Penobscot Bay Pilot, this is your catching-up story.

Let me recap for those just joining us. My husband, Dave, and I are new beekeepers this year, having attended bee school and joined the Knox Lincoln County Beekeepers club. We built and set up two new hives in our backyard in Camden in April, and on May 28, we installed a colony of bees into each.

At some point that first week, the smaller (in bee population) of the two hives swarmed, and we lost the queen they arrived with. Not wanting this new hive to be without a queen for the length of time it would take for a new queen to hatch and be mated, which would interrupt worker bee egg-hatching, we introduced a new queen to the colony and they were back in business, "queen right" as they call it.

Both hives were humming along, growing in numbers and strength until Aug. 18, when we noticed the bees in the hive we re-queened had built two or three queen cells, an indication they were (again?) planning to swarm. A quick call to an experienced bee club member and we learned that since two of the queen cells were sealed up, they were likely to swarm within 24 hours.

We tried some swarm prevention measures, including adding a box and 10 more frames to give them more space to grow and sealing up all the entrances to encourage them to stay put. But the bees' minds were made up: they were going to divide and half the colony was going to fly off and take the old queen with them, which is nature's way of reproducing.

The swarm happened less than 24 hours after we reopened the entrance holes in the hopes we had prevented it.

My husband's text on Aug. 22 read: "Just got a call from Sue next door, the bees are swarming."

My reply: "Peter (our mentor) can't help; I don't know what to do."

Husband: "Research. – Set up a hive box with frames from the empty hive. – Remember, don't panic, we have time. – Clean out ash can vacuum."

That is exactly what I did, after driving around the corner and borrowing my brother's 12-feet step ladder.

Dave's next text: "I think the ash can will work great since they are around the trunk. – The vacuum has a low suction so I think it's OK. – I can get them tonight when I get home."

Little did he know, I was setting up the ladder next to the tree and plugging in the vacuum after my first reply.

Another text from Dave: "Hello?"

My reply: "I am working on getting them now."

Dave: "U go girl! – See if u can get one of our neighbors to record it!"

Ninety minutes later I texted him two videos of the swarm catching adventure, including video of the bees marching into the box I had put them in, signaling that I had sucked up the queen and she too was there, which would attract all the thousands of others inside with her.

Dave built some more hive boxes to add to what we now were calling the swarm hive and within three days, those bees had drawn out honeycomb on all 10 frames inside, which is a remarkable feat and a sign they planned to stay.

As if we needed more hives, I should also mention that during the first week of August a new club member contacted us and said she heard Dave was going to be building an observation hive to put in our house this winter and might need bees to go in it. She had a new hive, like us, but it didn't seem to be doing well and she didn't think it would make it through the winter.

So we took on this very small hive, with only about 3,000 bees in it, and started nursing it back to health.

Since this hive would have no chance this late in the summer to build up enough numbers to keep warm or store food to get them through the winter, we moved it to the front of our house in Camden away from the other hives. We placed their single box of 10 barren frames on the south side, just below the second-floor window where they would eventually be entering and exiting through a tube into the observation hive.

We also found the queen and replaced her with a new one we purchased that had already been mated and would start laying eggs in a few days. Slowly, their numbers increased and they began to act like our other hives, albeit much smaller in numbers.

So with our original two hives, and the foster hive and now the swarm hive, we have come into September with four hives.

Our original two hives, with bees we bought from Sunshine Apiary in Windsor, have done well. We have watched turnover of old bees and new bees, and growth in numbers. During weekly inspections we nearly always found the queens, and if not the queen, eggs, which is a sign she is in there somewhere, doing her thing, and we could relax for another week.

Those two hives were also busy producing honey, which they would need to overwinter. For an average, strong hive with 50,000-60,000 bees, 60-90 pounds of honey is needed by the bees to eat throughout the winter. A weaker hive might need more, but if you don't have enough bees to keep the colony and the honey stores warm, you have to consider combining strong and weak hives to help better the weaker hive's chances of survival.

Last week we invited one of our bee club mentors, who has been very generous with his time and knowledge, David Spicer of Whitefield, to come and give our hives a quick inspection to make sure they were indeed ready for winter, in terms of numbers and honey stores. Despite all the challenges and surprises we dealt with this first year, we got a great report on both our original hives, as well as the swarm hive.

In fact, we found the bees had stored some extra honey in a third box, or super, we put onto the big hive, which meant we could harvest some of it and eat like our bees this winter.

So Sept. 14 we pulled two frames and processed the honey using the scrape, smash, drain and strain method. It's about as old-school as it gets. Our original frames have plastic foundation, on which the bees have built wax comb on both sides that they have used to store pollen, nectar and honey, and in which the queen has laid eggs and the brood has hatched. After scraping the wax comb off, we give the frame of foundation back to the bees to build more comb.

On Sept. 19, we pulled four more frames of honey, but this time we borrowed a club member's honey extractor, which would allow us to harvest the honey without smashing the wax comb. We could then store this comb to give back to the bees in the spring, and save them the time it takes to build anew.

Throughout the hive, the wax comb is used for multiple purposes in rotation. Nectar, which becomes honey through the addition of enzymes from the bees' stomachs and a reduction of water content, is usually placed by the bees along the top of the frame in an arc pattern. Pollen is sporadically placed in cells beneath the nectar/honey, and when the queen finds open cells, she lays her eggs there. The nearby pollen and nectar feeds both the bees and the growing larvae.

The bees don't necessarily place the incoming nectar and pollen where it will end up. During the day, bees are literally buzzing in and out of the hive, collecting and depositing their finds wherever there is an open cell. The bees then move the day's collection of forage that night to more permanent locations, and to make room for the queen to lay eggs.

In a "normal" hive, most of the brood (eggs and larvae) remain in the lower box on the center four or five frames, where it is constantly the warmest. Through mid- to late-summer, eggs can also be deposited in an upper box as the colony continues to grow in number and the queen is finding open cells. By late August and early September, the worker bees watch for hatching larvae, quickly clean the vacated cell and deposit nectar in to prevent the queen from laying eggs there again.

This deliberate move serves to push the queen "downstairs" so the workers can start filling the top box with all nectar, so it has time to cure into honey before it gets too cold.

When I explain what this looks like to friends and family wondering how our bees will make it through the winter, I tell them to think of the lower box as home, and the upper box as the freezer. The queen slows down laying eggs, and the bees keep some honey stored in the lower box for consumption, moving up when that's gone.

If we wrap the hives well with an insulating blanket or tar paper, and properly vent it to minimize and help remove condensation, the bees, with their current honey stores, have a good chance of emerging on the other side of winter. Another factor that will go into their success is whether or not conditions inside and a strong queen will lead to brood rearing midwinter, when temperatures begin to fluctuate with the impending arrival of spring.

As the weather warms, and the bees emerge, we want to see new, healthy bees coming out of the hive in the spring, not the winter's old bees, which will soon die. It's a delicate balance, encouraging consumption of honey but not encouraging brood rearing too soon, when their winter honey stores could become depleted.

Most of those variables will be up to Mother Nature and the bees to decide. But right now, we're doing all we can to ensure they have all we can give them, and all we can encourage them to do themselves, to come out strong and healthy.

In the midst of finishing harvesting the honey, we decided it was time to move the foster hive colony into the observation hive and into the house. The observation hive is essentially a narrow box, with front and back panels of glass for viewing the entire width of the frames. This hive holds 10 frames, with two frames hanging side-by-side, five frames high. The top is hinged and has three screened holes large enough to fit the lid of a mason jar. There are screened vent holes, two on each side, and a hole with a tube on one side that would be the bees entrance/exit to the outside.

Dave made an early version of an observation hive, with hinged, collapsible panels along one side to allow for removal of frames from the top to the bottom. But this version proved a little too flimsy, and he made a second version with solid side and hinges to open and close it like a gun or curio cabinet.

As the sun began to set Sunday evening, it was time to suit up and move the foster hive inside. We did this in the evening, when it was cool, to ensure we had as many bees inside as possible. Having helped move a couple of hives this summer, there is nothing more agonizing than to close up the hive entrance only to have four or five or 10 or 20 bees fly up wanting to get back in. Another bee club mentor, Pete Lammert's, saying at that moment is, "Don't let them in, because you'll let just as many out."

So with some rehearsing of the frame order we thought we would go with, honey and a foundationless frame at the top (so we could watch them build it out) and brood near the bottom to middle, we removed the hive lid and started moving the frames of bees over. Due to the cold, we only did a cursory check for the queen, which we didn't see as we moved back and forth.

The cold kept the bees from flying around too much, and everything went well until we tried closing the observation hive the first time. The bees had built out honey too far on a couple of the frames, and bees were getting squished between the glass and the capped honey.

We quickly opened it back up and tried to rearrange the frames to minimize the loss of capped honey and bees, and tried to close it again. A third try and we called it good, leaving it to the girls to clean up what damage couldn't be avoided.

Dave had already set up the spare bedroom window on the south side of the house with an entrance hole for the tube to pass through, and disguised it outside with one of my yard sale finds – a natural, unpainted birdhouse. Neighbors and visitors walking by our house will now wonder why there's a bunch of bees clustered at the birdhouse outside the second-floor window, but I find that kind of charming. If they only knew what was on the other side of the old double-hung window!

We picked up the observation hive and slowly made our precarious way up the steps to the second-floor and put the hive in the spare bedroom. We were having fun watching the bees, until we heard a loud buzzing and saw two bees flying around. We tried to catch those bees in a jar, but then three more appeared. Then another three after that.

Without bothering to try and catch the remaining five that were flying around the bedroom light, with the door closed, Dave looked hard to find where they were getting out. That's when he discovered that the open side of the observation hive had wedged open just enough to let a bee pass through near the bottom while we carrying it, and a quick push stopped further egress.

We left them closed up inside the hive overnight to settle down. We turned off the light and let them be. It was fun at first though, to open the door every once in a while and flip on the light, because it sounded like we had turned on the fan instead. They were agitated, confused and did not like the light and buzzed loudly each time, so we stopped messing with them.

Sunday morning, Dave hooked up the hose to the outside hole and off they went, a steady stream of bees down the tube and outside, even in the drizzle.

Spicer Bees and Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers: We have met many friendly people during this year of beginning beekeeping, and one in particular has helped us out of a lot of jams. David Spicer of Whitefield owns and operates Spicer Tree Service as well as Spicer Bees. He has been beekeeping for about four years, and he is working toward becoming a master beekeeper and for many, he has the knowledge of someone who has been doing it for much longer. We attended nearly every Saturday morning hive opening at his place this season, starting before we had our own bees, and we have seen and learned a lot. We learned how to get into the hives, how to handle the bees, what to look for and what to be aware of. We have watched David find and requeen a hive, and we've learned how to spot eggs and how to know when a hive is happy and when it's time to just walk away. David opened his own bee supply store on his property full time this summer, selling everything from the little pins used to hold beeswax foundation on the frame as well as the frames themselves, and the nails to nail them together. He also has veils and gloves, honey jars and medications and soon, he'll be gearing up to sell Maine-raised bees for those looking to raise their own colonies for the honey, the beeswax or to help bring more pollinators to the neighborhood. We have found David Spicer to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful, and easy and fun to be around in the bee yard. David is currently vice president of the Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers Board of Directors. We attended bee school through KLCB and it is chock full of interesting and experienced beekeepers, of both the commercial and hobbyist variety. Bee school is a great way to get started, because they cover everything – and there is a lot to cover for a newbie. But when it's all done, and you have decided to get bees or if you're still on the fence, you leave knowing you have a great circle of friends to call on when you just can't find the answer to your question and your notes are a little fuzzy. If you have any inkling to become a beekeeper, or want to check it out before buying your first package of 10,000 bees, a veil and a hive, I encourage you to find a bee club in your area and invest in bee school and a club membership. It will pay off in spades, especially if you become as hooked on honeybees as we have.

A few did orientation flights, but mostly they clung to the outside of the birdhouse, probably just going out to poop and then flying back in, taking turns. We also watched some bees stand inside the tube and fan their wings, which was a good sign that they were making sure everyone knew this was home by spreading the queen's pheromone smell down the tube and outside.

And speaking of the queen, we spent some time Sunday afternoon looking for her, but we were also busy harvesting honey with the borrowed extractor, which was a lot of fun and very rewarding.

The extractor is a big round barrel with a sturdy basket inside that holds four frames standing on their ends. My almost-9-year-old niece, Kyra, came over to help and she worked with a metal-tined scratcher to open the capped cells of honey. The four frames went in the basket and then it was time to turn-turn-turn the handle that cranked a pair of gears to whirl the basket around while it literally flung the honey out the cells by centrifugal force.

When we finished both sides of the four frames and opened the extractor gate, out flowed a thick river of gold, mixed with small bits of the honeycomb caps that had been scratched off. Straining the honey through two sieves, we bottled 11.5 pounds! The honey we harvested using the smash and drain method yielded about 4 pounds, so our total harvest this summer was 15.5 pounds.

After cleaning and sterilizing the extractor, it was dark outside and we wanted to check on the bees. We located a red light bulb to replace in a lamp in the spare bedroom and found a headlamp with a red light, and headed upstairs. To our surprise, the bees had already built a palm-size piece of new comb on the foundationless frame, and they were busy continuing the work.

Also surprising was to see that the bees were chaining and hanging in a veil, clinging by the feet of the bee above them, in front of the work, three veils deep. Beneath the veil, bees could be seen walking back and forth, using the chaining bees as scaffolding, as well as a wall of warmth to keep the wax warm and pliable.

After about 30 minutes of looking up and down the five frames on one side, and then checking the five frames on the other side, and going back and forth four times, the queen finally appeared. This queen, a gentle Italian, has a large and long yellow abdomen, and when she inserts it into a cell to lay an egg, her black thorax, the part located between the abdomen and the head, can throw off the person trying to find her.

Not only did we find the foster hive's queen, which was a huge relief, we got to watch her lay a couple of eggs, and then spend a long two minutes being groomed by her attendants. Worker bees do everything for the queen, including feeding and disposing of her waste. Contrary to popular belief, the queen is not the ruler or decider of the hive, but rather the reproducer and mother of all the bees -- males (drones) and females (workers).

We are now close to the end of the active part of this year's beekeeping work. Most of the drones (males) have been driven out of the hives or killed, since their voracious appetites are not welcome during the winter. We will give each hive some treatments for mites and other health issues they might encounter in the coming months, and then we'll remove the feeder buckets, wrap insulation around the hives and add a cup of granulated sugar under the outer cover in case they run low on food. We'll make sure there is ventilation to help with condensation, which can quickly freeze and kill the colony, and cross our fingers that the winter won't be too harsh

Luckily, our location in Camden is not prone to bears, so we won't have to worry about that. But we do have to add mouse guards to the entrance now that it's gotten cold at night, and we'll make sure there are no mice in there looking for a warm home before we totally close them up, around Nov. 15.

The hives outside will soon be dormant, as far as the beekeepers are concerned, but we will have a colony of bees to nurture and learn from all winter, so we won't be stir crazy, though some might call us bee crazy.

Related stories:

• Honeybee swarm catching, I'm adding that to my resume

• Jean Vose to speak on overwintering honeybees in Maine

• Thomaston beekeeper makes quick work of Main Street honeybee swarm in Rockland

• Two new hives of honeybees residing, pollinating in Camden

• Bzzzz, there's a new crop of beekeepers preparing for their bees this spring

 Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards can be reached at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com or 706-6655.