Was out checking the garden last night and spotted a swarm on my wisteria frame. I was waiting for a swarm because I wanted to put them in a top bar hive without having to cut any comb. Got some stings through my suit, one got in my suit- no idea how- stung my belly.
Managed to get them in the hive, super excited! Later that night there was a massive thunderstorm and a quick heavy downpour. I guess that was one reason the bees were cranky.
Today is supposed to be super windy so the bees (hopefully) won’t have a chance to disappear on me.
So this evening I noticed two more swarms in my almond tree. These look like after swarms. I didn’t spot them until about 8:30pm and darkness was fast approaching. By the time I got suited up and the ladder out the bees got pretty stroppy pretty quick. So I noped it out of there and will attempt to capture them early morning.
So my question is did the bees get stroppy because night was falling?
I wanted to check on the hives today but it was cloudy with a top of 15C, which wasn’t too bad but the wind chill let me down. The weather has been all over the place since I caught my first swarm and I have been itching to see how they fare.
Morning all. I captured one swarm successfully I think but the other was a tad more difficult. There are still leftovers on the tree and the majority that I put in a hive have disappeared. I don’t know where the virgin (?) queen is or whether the bees went to the hive 3’ away.
I was wondering @JeffH , the hive these bees came from is nearly empty. Probably has about 2 frames of bees, maybe less. I knocked out all but one queen cell which is capped. Should I put these bees in a nucleus hive or just see how it goes? We don’t have shb here and I haven’t seen any evidence of wax moth.
I’m not sure I’m following this, but your one hive has become three?
Can you merge the two smaller ones back together, assuming there’s only one queen between them (or make it so there’s one queen between them)?
This hive has produced 3 swarms so there isn’t very many left in the hive. I am not very good at spotting the queen so virgin queen spotting would be even harder.
Should I wait 2 weeks for the virgins to mate and start laying then pick one and recombine?
Hi Kristal, I would keep the weak colony in a brood box, on account that, with sufficient resources, you can quickly boost the population again… Baring in mind that winter is a long way away.
I’m also a bit confused: At first I thought the swarm you caught took off. Then you mention “recombine”. So it appears that you have a captured swarm, plus the colony that issued the swarms. Because I’m addicted to new queen bees, I would let each colony carry on with their new queen, provided they successfully mate.
Yes, always good to “shame” the branch!! If it blushes enough, the bees will fall off! By the way @Skippy1 our forum member @Rmcpb is very experienced with a large number of hives over several years, so his advice is always golden. He knows what to do. Same goes for @JeffH. We have some highly experienced people here!
Hi Noni, I try not to shake bees if I can help it. Instead of an old frame of comb, I like to use a frame of as much open brood as possible. Then place the capture box directly under the swarm, touching it, if possible. The frame of open brood will entice all the females down to take care of all the babies. This works really well when a swarm can’t be shaken. On a fence for example.
I had a strange occurrence today. I went to check the bees (swarm season) and found a huge pile of bees on the ground, below a blackwood tree, about 15m from my hives. I pushed a swarm trap to the edge of the (ground) cluster and within seconds the bees moved into the hive. I quickly realised my 6-frame bait hive wasn’t nearly big enough and came back once I put together an 8-frame bait hive (with extra space for the cluster). By this time the bees had totally covered two walls of the 6-frame bait hive. I plonked the bigger hive on top of this just to thoroughly confuse them. Before too long, they seemed to stop moving into the 6-frame but it was hard to tell as the whole front was covered in bees. There were lots of scouts checking out the 8-frame bait hive but the bees ultimately re-formed at the top of the tree in a big cluster (out of reach).
What I hadn’t realised was there’s now a swarm in the original 6-frame bait hive I put next to the cluster. They seem to have accepted their accommodation and are coming and going, for now. The remainder of the original pile of bees is still high in the tree and it’s dusk (with a cool night forecast of 8 degC). My question is…how can a swarm split? Might it have been a merged swarm that later separated? Or a swarm with two queens?
I’ve added extra bait hives around the farm and hope to attract the mob in the tree tomorrow.
Can anyone enlighten me on what might have occurred? @Rmcpb or @JeffH or @Dawn_SD
Also, if I caught the swarm today, how long have I got to move them (just in case the rest up in the tree decide to join them) before they reorient to that position?
Entirely possible. @Girl_Next_Door_Honey once discussed a huge swarm that she captured. I think she called it “Swarmzilla” and if my memory is correct, she found more than 10 queens in that swarm!
Hi @Outbeck , we can only guess what happened. A virgin queen might have joined the primary swarm, so therefore whichever queen is in your 6 frame hive might be holding part of the swarm to it.
I think I would be inclined to take the 6 frame hive away, after giving the bees a frame with open brood. This would be to insure that the bees don’t abscond & join the rest of the swarm. The frame of open brood should also hold the bees to the box & give them some resources to carry on with.
I recently caught a small swarm with a virgin queen. I gave them a frame with open brood, including eggs, plus some nurse bees, before taking it away. An inspection after about 10 days revealed queen cells in the frame of brood I added. Something happened to the virgin queen, which was a mystery. Maybe some of the older nurse bees balled & killed her.
I agree Dawn, however at the time, I just thought that maybe by the time the queen went on mating flights, & didn’t return, the brood might have been just a bit too old to turn into a queen,
Actually thinking back, I did give the colony a LOT of nurse bees, on account that the colony was desperately small. Then I moved it straight away, so that no nurse bees would return to their original hive. A lot of bees do return, which makes me think that a lot of the bees are older than nurse bees, & the reason why they can’t fly back to their hive is because they don’t have enough honey to be able to fly. Then once they get inside the new hive, they can fuel up, before flying back.
I have worked out that if I want to add a frame of nurse bees to a hive, (which makes all the difference) I need to shake 3 frames of bees from brood frames onto the ground, in anticipation that 1/2 will eventually return to their original hive. I did this earlier today to boost a tiny swarm I caught late yesterday at my main bee site. I think it was a swarm with the first virgin to emerge from one of my nucs in a broccoli box.
I thought I’d move the swarm in the 6-frame, but was too late. As you warned, they did indeed abscond and I assume they joined back with the others. I should have acted sooner. I checked the swarm trap and there were about 40 bees in there looking very still. I put a few drops of sugar syrup in there and they tucked in.
Wait, there’s more! I caught a third swarm and slotted them in another bait hive. I watched them cluster on a fence post and suspect they were part of the original huge pile as they didn’t come from the hives - a second breakaway or perhaps the bunch that absconded
It’s all very confusing, but after all that, the large swarm is STILL clustered in the tree. The cool change has come through and they’ve had 5mm of rain throughout the day. I’ve put another bigger hive under them, if they hit the ground, but not sure what else I can do. Suggestions are welcome as they don’t seem overly fond of my swarm traps or the empty hives of different sizes I’ve positioned about the place.
If only I could just reach them…
There has been a lot of talk about bait hives on the forum. I think we have to think like a swarm of bees, or more so the scouts of a swarm. It seems that 40 liters of space is ideal. An important consideration for the scouts is to choose a spot that’s hard for natural predators to reach. I think 3 meters up in a tree is ideal. A lot of bird & possum boxes up in trees get occupied by bees. I think that another consideration would be, in or out of the sun & how easy it is for the colony to cool the hive during hot weather.
You can easily make a list of boxes to tick, based on what I suggest, plus whatever else you would consider the scouts are looking for in a home. It’s worth remembering that the scouts will comb the whole area, until the find what they consider to be the perfect spot for them. They will settle for the best they can find.
Thanks Jeff - I’ve based my bait hives on Thomas Sweeley’s design of 40L with the gap under the frames for the cluster. I’m using a whiff of swarm commander and position the hives to face north to north-east with morning sun etc. I chuck in old comb plus a few dead bees for atmosphere. The only thing I haven’t got is placing them above 3m - a few at around 3 metres, the rest below. I’m not that keen on juggling a hive at that height and read somewhere that bees already living in hives low to the ground aren’t as fussed about moving to higher ground (certainly not gospel though).
When I catch a swarm and put them in a bait hive, they’ve been happy enough in the past to settle in for a few weeks before I move them into a nuc box or deep). This is the first time they’ve absconded from a bait hive in that situation.
There’s certainly something they’re not keen on with the bait hives as a first swarm option - maybe it’s the height, the thickness of the ply, the missing lived-in look, who knows. I’ve also set up standard empty hives around the place to give them an option, but they’re sticking with the tree. Maybe I’ll hoist one up high tomorrow as a last-ditch effort
I would remove the dead bees, which is what I do myself, on account that dead bees get a horrible smell, which could put bees off. It must be because bees contain protein. Just a single dead bee can smell terrible if you get it close to your nose, as I found out one day, which is why I remove them.
Last night I mentioned a tiny swarm that I captured, that I added 3 frames of nurse bees to. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough for the older bees to fly back to their hive, because this morning I noticed a pile of dead bees on the floor in the corner. I could have let the bees clean them out in time, instead I quickly swapped boxes over, spotting a lovely light colored, gold queen in the process.
The cool change has come through and they’ve had 5mm of rain throughout the day. I’ve put another bigger hive under them, if they hit the ground, but not sure what else I can do. Suggestions are welcome as they don’t seem overly fond of my swarm traps or the empty hives of different sizes I’ve positioned about the place.