Bee Removal Service Contributes to Coastside Climate Health

It’s the tail end of bee swarm season: from February to May, bees increase their numbers and crowd their hives. The trigger? An increase in nectar and pollen produced by winter rains and warm springtime weather.

But that’s not stopping Montara beekeepers and neighbors Julian Schafer and Catherine Fraley from posting their fliers which offer Coastside residents free bee swarm removal services.

In fact, over the past few days, it’s been pretty busy for the pair. Schafer and Fraley fielded calls from residents in El Granada and Montara to capture bee swarms in their yards and neighborhoods.

Looking ahead, the season could very well continue beyond May throughout the summer, they say.

“The main food source for Coastside bees is eucalyptus blossoms, and the eucalyptus is still blooming, especially in Montara where it starts later,” said Schafer, who’s actively kept bees on the Coastside since he first placed hives in his Montara backyard 20 years ago.

“Eucalyptus will stop in two to three weeks. By now, other flowers have added to the food supply and, since we are still expecting more showers this month, the blooms, though fewer, should continue well into July and August. My guess is that we will still see swarms as late as mid June, even later where there are orchards or big fields of flowers,” Schafer said.

Just last week, he took a call from El Granada resident Liz Waters, who noticed a swarm that landed in a tree in her front yard. She called the number on the flier and the next morning Schafer arrived to capture the swarm.

At the house call, Schafer put on his beekeeper suit and set up a platform with a ladder and an upside down garbage can. He placed a beehive box with honey inside on top of the makeshift platform, then climbed the tree on another ladder and shook the tree branch, gently dropping the swarm down into the box.

“I induce the bees to move into an already prepared beehive and take them to a location in Moss Beach and Montara that is both close enough that I can maintain them, but isolated enough that they are not a problem for neighbors,” said Schafer.

Schafer is a beekeeping hobbyist who rescues bee swarms to replace the bees that he loses every year. His bees produce more than 10 gallons of honey a year, which he gives away to family and friends. He also installs bees: this year, he received a request to introduce two hives at the Montara Nursery.

Bees swarm because their old hive becomes too crowded. As a result of the crowding, the group produces another queen, which means that one of the queens must take off to find a new home elsewhere with her portion of the colony. According to Schafer, a swarm is usually anywhere from 10 to 15 thousand bees.

“They are relatively easy to catch because they are looking for a home,” he said. “But because a swarm can move around, people need to call the same day that they see it.”

Fraley just captured a swarm this week that “had been hopscotching from yard to yard over the last three days on Harte Street in Montara,” she said. “By the time I caught up with them they were on the lawn in a tight circle, so I just laid a box with a frame, some honey and wax on it's side next to the swarm and they all marched in within 15 minutes. Pretty civilized little creatures.”

Fraley came up with the idea to post flyers when Schafer realized that this year would be a good swarm season: in March, he noticed that his hives had greatly increased in number over the winter, and he knew that swarms would be on the rise.

“It fit with our mutual desire to increase our supply of beehives after having lost several last winter,” said Schafer. “By February, I was making plans for catching swarms other than those that happen in my own apiary because we were continuing to get mild temperatures and more rain than usual."

They received their first swarm call on March 13th and since then have captured up to five swarms. Fraley has also been approached by six different organic farmers from Montara to Pescadero to install hives on their properties this year.

“I will be moving many of the swarms to these different properties to fertilize different crops as a free service," she said. "[It's] mainly the pumpkins for now...also at a lavender farm to harvest some lavender honey this year for sale at the farmers' markets in Half Moon Bay and Pacifica.”

Fraley became interested in beekeeping when she visited a friend back east, who had purchased a 200-year-old dairy farm. Her friend had some bees on her property.

“I approached a neighbor who used to keep bees, and he put me in touch with Julian [Schafer],” she said. In 2008, Schafer had an extra swarm of bees that had taken up residence in his storage shed. He gave them to Fraley that year.

Fraley says there is a need for beehives to be placed on local farms because the feral bee colonies are dying out and crop production is significantly better when there are bees nearby or on site.

“Typically, a bee hive is rented out for $150 or more during the bloom cycle of a crop, but I would like to repurpose the captured swarms back to the farms at no cost to the farmer if possible,” she said. To accomplish this, Fraley is researching grants that would enable her to subsidize the material costs of $250 per hive, as well as her time for maintaining the hives.

Since Fraley feels there is no doubt that using chemicals on crops is a factor in the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder among bee hives, she will only install the bees on organic farms to bypass the chemical fertilizer factor from the equation.

If any of the hives that are placed on the farms swarm, Fraley said, which she says they usually do at least once every other season, "the swarms will go back to the wild and boost the numbers of feral bee colonies,” she said.

Fraley sees that keeping bees is a way “to think globally and act locally,” she said. Rescuing bee swarms helps the overall climate health of the Coastside area, she said.

"The response to the bee swarm flyers was a bellwether," she added. "Everyone is concerned about bees right now, and rightfully so.”

Not only do the organic farmers want the bees, but Fraley has met many Coastside beekeepers that want to connect with others in the area. "They need to organize for mutual support and promote beekeeping," she said, saying that others wanted to connect with beekeepers to learn how to start their own hives.

"I’m amazed that the bee population is a true touchstone for connecting our Coastside community,” Fraley said.

Fraley has also taken to selling her honey and products (featured on the website Coastal Bee) at the Farmers’ Markets in Half Moon Bay, Pacifica and Millbrae. She has a Certified Producers' Certificate from the San Mateo County Department of Agriculture which allows her to sell her products to the public.

“Honey, like wine, is a product of its terroir; in this case, the flowers that the bees collect their nectar and pollen from within a three-mile radius of their hive. My bees forage from the wildflowers of the open space next to my yard,” she said.

When swarm season comes to a close this summer, Fraley will begin to extract small, single varietal batches of honey, like lavender and squash blossom, from hives in her backyard and from those she maintains on local farms. 

“I will also be developing new products that use local honey and essential oils from local flowers to present more health and beauty products,” she said.

She’ll also continue to organize with other bee keepers on the Coast, mentoring other first-time beekeepers as well. “The hobbyist beekeepers around the world are helping save the bee populations,” she said. “Beekeeping is headkeeping. I had no idea of the purpose I would find when I first started keeping bees.”

And all this began with “a little flyer offering a free local bee removal service,” she said. “I had no idea of the chord this would strike in so many people.”

Have you seen a bee swarm in your neighborhood, yard or nearby? Call Fraley  (650-728-5478 or 650-451-8825)  or Schafer (650-678-1756 or 650-728-0932).