March 8, 2008 Swarm News

The swarm is still enjoying the new hive body.  I still have a few more tasks to complete.  I have to elevate the hive onto a platform and put it in a more user friendly area.  Since it was still on the sheet I placed under it, I just pulled on the sheet and got it closer to the area where I would like to put it.  Tomorrow I will actually lift it up in the late evening.

After that I have to focus my attention on the first hive, see if they are "queenright"...

Bees keep the brain active for sure!

Swarm Update 3/6/08

6:30 am Thursday morning.  Still a cluster of about 1/5 the bees clinging to the side of the hive body.  I went inside and planned my strategy.  Suited up and went out around 7:30am...took 2 dust pans and a bucket.  Placed a little stand next to the hive body with a sheet  under it.  I placed the sheet so in case queenie fell onto it I could hopefully see her.  I very gently lifted the lid and placed it on the stand.  Squatted down and took the dust pans .  I took one pan and placed it under the cluster then took the other and gently but firmly scraped the bees in a downward motion into the lower dustpan, put them in the bucket then dumped the bucket into the hive, placed the top back on the hive...Noticed that after about 1/2 hour, all the bees were in the hive.  That means the queen was inside her new home!

Swarm Update 3/5/08

Wednesday am...still in the oak...the short oak, on a fat stump, nearly impossible to try to scrape/brush them into anything.  I attempted, but I figures I wasn't helping them by stressing them out, so I went to the grocery store to buy more sugar to make more syrup. When I returned from the grocery store around 1pm, they were gone from the scrub oak...Oh my where did they go?

I saw bees flying around my little work shed.  There was an overturned metal garbage can.  They all decided that the can would make a good home I guess...

Well I stood and pondered, how to remove 30,000 bees from an upside down garbage can? Think like a bee?  I placed the hive body, which I put on a sheet, next to the garbage can.  Sprayed the bees down with syrup as best I could, as most of them were IN the can!  I gently lifted the can and gingerly lifted it over the hive body and thumped it down...bees poured into the hive, I quickly set the lid on and put a bucket of sugar syrup in for food.  I noticed a cluster of bees on the side of the hive body...and though best just to watch and wait.

Swarm Update 3/4/08

On Tuesday morning I ran out to the back deck, and saw that the swarm cluster was still high in the old oak.  I had to drive my daughter to the airport that morning, so I would need to leave my observations for a while.  I left the house around 11:00 am, returned at approx 1:30 pm.  There were no bees in the old oak.  They had left.  I went outdoors to do some work approx. 2:30pm and could hear a loud hum again.  Looking towards the Southwest, I could see the cluster swarming again...WOW, amazing yet again!  They looked as if they were aimlessly flying, after al that chaos, the settled on a short scrub oak on my lower property.  I set the hive body next to the oak hoping they would enter, but they remained on that little oak.  I attempted that late afternoon to hive them after spraying them with sugar syrup.  It had been a day since they swarmed and I figured they might be hungry.  The syrup did keep them occupied.  I was not successful in trapping them. Leaving it up to fate, nature & the Universe, I left them alone...

Hived a Swarm

On March 3, 2008 I heard a LOUD hum, looking up toward the sound I saw a cyclone of golden bees swirling swarming.  It was quite the site to behold, and had an extreme humbling affect on me.  The swarm clustered high in a huge old oak that sits to the East of my back deck.  There really wasn't much I could do, it was pure nature.

Fellow beemaster.com folks gave me wonderful instructions as to how to capture this swarm.  I set out 2 swarm traps.  One I had purchased from Mannlakeltd.com.  It is a large sort of conical shaped pulp thing.  I placed lure in it, this lure has a swarming pheromone in it.  The second trap I made out of an old hive body, and some drawn comb that I had saved in the freezer.  Now all I had to do was sit and wait...