naturebee
03-25-2006, 07:38 PM
I want to beeline swarms back to the mother colony for two reasons.
1) Many times I come upon a swarm and
although the mother colony is probably within 100
feet, and it can be near impossible to locate where the swarm came from.
2) I want to find a way to make a colony swarm in the bee yard with some degree of predictability so I can film the swarming in progress.
In theory, if you come upon a feral swarm you can
remove the queen and the bees would fly back to the mother colony. Providing they didn't start building comb, according to Seeley they will be accepted back at the mother colony (I understand that old timers did this all the time as a practice killing a swarming queen). This would make locating the well hidden mother feral colony thru beelining possible to an observant beekeeper.
You can then release the feral queen after the bees have reentered the colony that you have just beelined. And having no place else to go, the queen would fly back into the feral colony and the swarm should re-issue very shortly, likley landing at the same spot due to the residual nansnov! You would discover the location of the mother colony thru beelinging the swarm, and also get the swarm back. Is there written refrence to, or has anyone beelined swarms back to the mother colony in this fashon?
IÂ’m assuming that one could do the same in a beeyard to predict that the colony may swarm within minutes making it possible document the process without staking out the beeyard for days on end. Comments?
1) Many times I come upon a swarm and
although the mother colony is probably within 100
feet, and it can be near impossible to locate where the swarm came from.
2) I want to find a way to make a colony swarm in the bee yard with some degree of predictability so I can film the swarming in progress.
In theory, if you come upon a feral swarm you can
remove the queen and the bees would fly back to the mother colony. Providing they didn't start building comb, according to Seeley they will be accepted back at the mother colony (I understand that old timers did this all the time as a practice killing a swarming queen). This would make locating the well hidden mother feral colony thru beelining possible to an observant beekeeper.
You can then release the feral queen after the bees have reentered the colony that you have just beelined. And having no place else to go, the queen would fly back into the feral colony and the swarm should re-issue very shortly, likley landing at the same spot due to the residual nansnov! You would discover the location of the mother colony thru beelinging the swarm, and also get the swarm back. Is there written refrence to, or has anyone beelined swarms back to the mother colony in this fashon?
IÂ’m assuming that one could do the same in a beeyard to predict that the colony may swarm within minutes making it possible document the process without staking out the beeyard for days on end. Comments?