Oh no... They swarmed!

There has been some really neat research done on bee swarming. Particularly by Tom Seeley in the US. I found his online explanations really helpful. If you are time poor google for this publication that outlines what bees are looking for in a new home Bait Hives for Honey Bees by Thomas Seeley, Roger Morse, and Richard Nowogrodzki (Cornell University extension publication no. 187, download free from their website hopefully this link works https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/2653/Bait%20Hives%20for%20Honey%20Bees.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y ). However if you have the time I highly recommend setting aside the hour to watch the longer lecture it not only outlines what they are looking for but how they reach consensus on the new site.

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Thanks for posting this, Adam. Thereā€™s so much to learn about bees. This was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative presentation.

If you have even more time, I highly recommend reading ā€œHoney Bee Democracyā€ by Thomas Seeley, as it has all sorts of gems in it, like why you need a 40 liter swarm lure, and why a 15 square cm entrance is optimalā€¦ :blush:

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Ive been meaning to get it for a while but only ordered it a couple of weeks ago. Its yet to arrive and Iā€™m looking forward to settling in to read it.

I finally had the chance to watch the video - very interesting. Thanks for posting the link. I also have intended to order the book and was given birthday money for it. This has motivated me to follow through and actually order it!

In my apiary as of yesterday, I had one flow hive with single brood box and flow super which had been split in late winter and had subsequently swarmed spectacularly (and I lost) two weeks ago (colony 1). I also had a small colony which was a swarm on 6th October which has built out to about 4 frames (colony 2)and a brand new tiny swarm in a nuc box (colony 3) just enough to cover a frame of brood.

Then yesterday at 2pm, Colony 1 issued another big swarm which went into a neighbourā€™s tree just over the fence. I begged access to their yard and climbed a very tall ladder and shook most of them into a box. The ones that fell clustered on the fence and later, when I realised they were there, I scooped them up too. Looking back I am pretty sure the queen was in the cluster that was on the fence because it was substantial. So thatā€™s colony 4.
I would like to get back to two colonies and prepare one nuc to sell. I guess there may need to be queen pinching involved. :frowning:
My flow super is just about empty of bees, other than those corralling the beetles into the end cells of one of the frames. I had been actually wondering if I should have taken the super off BEFORE the swarm happened and now thereā€™s even less bees to guard it. I definitely need to remove it now and store the frames in the fridge.
Ok soā€¦ I guess I will take the super off colony 1 and check out what bees are left in the brood box and if there are more queen cells. Presumably there is a queen in there but if I donā€™t find her what do I do?
Iā€™d like to recombine the swarm to the main hive ideally because I want more honey but I have to find the queens and pinch one I guess so I need to work out which one to keepā€¦any guidelines here?

Colony 2 has a big, yellow queen doing a great job. Colony 3, the one-frame swarm, has a sweet but smaller queen who is definitely laying - she had gotten to work as soon as they made a tiny bit of comb. So Iā€™m thinking one of these queens with some additional nice straight frames from the other colonies will make a lovely nuc to sell soon.