Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The swarm looked normal enough except they were very close to the ground. Then I noticed a small fist size clump of bees near the mother hive, when I looked they were actually gathering around a queen! So I put her in a cage just in case. Then I cut the branch off with the main swarm on it and shook it into a new hive. I think I should have moved the hive further away from the mother hive before shaking, much of the swarm ended up back on the mother hive, I put the queen I had found into the new box then closed it up.
Then I started thinking, that maybe this small queen was just a virgin that ended up outside the hive when the main swarm left.. Time will show whats what, I will wait and see what happens. Too bad it couldn't be a straight forward kind of swarm. But swarm season has struck! Time to check my bait hives.
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5 comments:
Sam,
To think you did not have enough bees to split them. Guess the bees know what is best for them. At least you were around to catch them. We lost a small swarm over a month ago.
Well I did not have enough comb to make a split (at least I felt I didn't) bees they had in spades :)
Congrats on your first swarm. Looks like a lot of bees. I am always amazed at how other beekeepers can find queens. My eyesight is good, but I can never seem to find em.
Keep us posted on your bait hives. This years first swarm call for me was 4/30. Last year was 5/27. Everything seems to be early this year.
Lucky! I hope we can get a swarm this year. We've been very careful with our hives--giving the queen LOTS of room to lay her brood, but we'll see with our swarmy hive. No matter what we do, they just like to swarm!
I did checkboarding last year, and it seemed to work a little better. They just emitted a small swarm that I later found in our worm box...
All you can do is give em room if they want to swarm they will :)
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