Honey Bee Swarm

[btulloh]

Just ran across this honey bee swarm.  I've never seen on quite like this.  Pretty interesting.

I'm trying to find a local bee keeper to take it home with him.  Not being very deep in bee knowledge, I don't know how long they might hang around.  Maybe @Southside needs some honey bees.  I'd like to see them go to a good home, but I don't plan to help move them personally.   :D



 

Not the best pic because it's pretty close to dark here now.

[Southside]

I have a guy I can probably get to stop by tomorrow.

[thecfarm]

Nice picture!!

[btulloh]

Got a better picture this morning.  

Someone's coming over in a few minutes to collect the swarm.



 



 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I wish I were closer - I'd love to have them. They are easy to hive when you find them like that. Looks like a real big swarm. Good luck with them. Real nice pix too.

[btulloh]

A guy came and got them this morning. Turns out he's the son of an old family friend and he was delighted to get them. A good result, although I wish he had wanted to keep some hives here. 

[Roxie]

That is awesome!  

[Southside]

Did you ask the keeper if he could set a swarm trap at your place?  Might be able to keep them there that way.  

[btulloh]

Hmmm . . . no, I didn't.  I guess I don't know enough about bee behavior to have known that was a good question.

I kinda thought this swarm was a one-of-a-kind thing from who knows where that divided off from an existing colony and struck out on their own.  Should I be expecting another swarm?  I don't have any honey bees here unless there's wild colony somewhere in the woods.  I sort of doubt that, based on hardly ever seeing a honey bee.  I think I see more turkeys than honey bees these days.

Standing by for education . . . .

[Southside]

Odds are that swarm came from pretty close by, under a mile. So there may be a log, or building, with a colony in it somewhere.  We had swarm comb last week and split the hives to keep them from leaving. It should be a good year for them from how things look so far. We are expecting more swarms. 

I do keep a trap about 150 yards from my hives this time of year as it's right in their face this way and they should find it pretty quickly, so I should be able to catch them. 

Once you catch a swarm you do need to move it to a different spot or you will have issues, but with mine we will swap a swarm for another colony from a different location and everyone wins. 

[Ljohnsaw]

Once you catch a swarm you do need to move it to a different spot or you will have issues, but with mine we will swap a swarm for another colony from a different location and everyone wins.

I probably know even less about bees...  Can you explain further?  How far is a different spot (from where you captured them?)? And swap (your captured swarm?) with another colony?  Do you capture a lot of swarms?  Or is it that the swarm that split off of one of your colonies would battle the original if too close?  How close is too close?

[Southside]

You want to move a swarm at least a mile from where you captured it. I don't remember exactly why but I think it has to do with the genetic lineage of the two queens now and the hives will not get along if they are too close.

We caught 4 or 5 swarms on my farm last year. The guy who does all the hands on work caught probably 30 all together. 

So what we will do is catch a swarm of mine if we don't split them in time and he will bring it to another farm, in this case they are 20 or so miles from here, then when he catches a swarm somewhere else he will bring that colony here and we will set up a new hive. 

If nothing else it helps diversify the genetics and gives me better odds of winter survival. 

When I first started with bees we bought 3 lb boxes and I lost every colony, every winter. The commodity bred bees are mild, easy to work with, but weak, and susceptible to about everything. Now that we went to swam hives I lost 1 top bar colony and one langstroth colony last winter, and both are already filled back up from splits.  All before the Dogwood has even bloomed so they are very efficient workers. Just have to be a bit more careful around the hives, but I can live with that. 

[Autocar]

I have seen swarms over the years and was always told when there hanging on a limb you can go up there and cut it off and place it in the new box and they won't sting you. The last part sting you was my question will they get after you

[WV Sawmiller]

  When the bees swarm they soak up enough honey to last them several days till they get settled in a new home and they are not particularly aggressive so you can generally work them slow and gentle and not get stung as long as you don't pinch or mash one. If I find a hanging swarm like that I take a hive body with a bottom attached, full of frames of wax, and ease it under them and they will just melt down into it. Put a top on it and you have a new hive. Some people put a piece of plastic under them and spray them lightly with water or sugar water till they fall on the plastic then pour them in an empty hive body. If they are up high tie a rope around the hive body with frame, throw the rope over a higher limb and raise it till the hive body bumps the swarm, let them enter then lower and put a top on them and place them where you want to leave them. If you have a frame or two of brood to include with the wax that is even more incentive for them to move in.

[btulloh]

This swarm was hanging on a small cedar branch about 7-8 feet off the ground.  It really couldn't have been any easier.  It was in the low 40's overnight, but it was already about 55 by the time he got here.  He cut the branch off and put in his box and not a single bee even moved during the whole process.  

He belongs to a group of younger bee keepers that's just up the road from me.  There are people in the group that need places to keep hives, so chances are this will lead to getting some hives here.  

[YellowHammer]

I've got to say it, but if you spray those swarms with a good dose of pyrethrin, they are a lot easier to put in a plastic bag.   :D :D

[APope]

I've got to say it, but if you spray those swarms with a good dose of pyrethrin, they are a lot easier to put in a plastic bag.   :D :D

Not funny at all...
I would be happy to drive a ways the help anyone with a honeybee problem.

[YellowHammer]

 :D :D
Anyways , I'm just picking.  

Here, we have honey bees in seemingly every rotten hollow tree and every farmer has hives on the edge of his field, whether he likes honey or not.  I used to work with a guy who was (is) one of the South's most noted bee keepers and lecturers and he somehow, I don't know how, got pretty much everyone in my building into bee keeping, even the ones who were obviously not of the correct psychic personality.  

One of my buddies was about as high strung as a fiddle, and he started bee keeping, and everyday he'd come to work, all swollen up from bee stings, telling us all how well his hives were doing.  It was hilarious.  Seems we had about a dozen beekeepers at one point in time, some never got stung, some always got stung, some got in trouble with neighbors who got stung, but there was always an entertaining story to be heard.  

So most folks know I am a fun loving guy who likes to get people stirred up every now and then, so when they would all get together, at work, I'd make some off hand comments about a Global Warming, or deforestation, or Congress, UFO's, Bigfoot, or whatever I could do to get a rise out of them.  Nothing, Crickets, no reaction.  But all I had to do was make up a story about how I ran over a swarm tree with the tractor, or ran over my neighbors hive with my four wheeler, or swatted a little sweet honey bee with a tennis racquet because it was bothering me, and it was like I had thrown a hand grenade in the bunch.  Boom.  

Of course I never bothered a bee that didn't bother me, and my real enemy is wasps, anyway.  I was just wanting to see if I could still get the same reaction.  I hope no offense was taken.  Now, did you hear that there was a guy down the road who saw Bigfoot eating the tomatoes out of his garden last night?  

[Woodpecker52]

I don't bother a bee in the yard or forest.   Bumble bees can bore in my wood rail fence, wood pile or 100 acres of trees, but if you go after my house eves or workshops you get the death spray.