Tuesday, June 14, 2011

swarm catch ventura

Caught a swarm yesterday with Jeremy (his first)
We climbed onto a garage, cut some branches and shook them into a nuc box.
When we got back, we opened one of my hives, took out a frame with brood (majority was drones).
Tied it to a top bar of the warre hive, shook in the bees from the nuc box.
Will check tomorrow if the bees like their new home.

2 comments:

  1. Let me know if they're happy in their new home! Only a few bees came back to the tree looking for their swarm, a couple hundred or so maybe. They were pretty upset that their queen was gone I think! Thanks for coming out so quickly and moving those bees to a better permanent home. The only injury is to our cat. She got stung on her nose sometime yesterday but she'll be OK.

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  2. Haha... everything that moves, cats go after ;-)
    They learn quick though. Our dog seems to step on some bees in the grass once and a while.
    Sudden heavy licking on this paw.

    There are always some bees that won't go in the box. I am building a battery operated bee vac today. That would minimize the bees left behind. And than the foragers and scouting bees that return will have to find a new place to live.

    Yesterday I needed to open an other hive to get brood for this swarm.
    Otherwise you have a 50% chance of the swarm leaving. I was standing in front of the hive, didn't smoke them. One bee was able to crawl in my veil and sting me on _my_ nose ;-)
    Plus 3 on my knee, because of shorts only single layer of protection. So got nailed 4 times in total. But it was totally worth it!

    Will post some pictures in a few days. will need to give them time to settle. Thanks for not killing the bees and calling me.

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