4/21/07 swarm in Southern NJ

[JBird]

My booming Russian/Carniolan hive threw a swarm yesterday which I managed to hive after a few exciting moments. Now I'll just hope they remain in the hive and may give them a frame of brood, a hivetop feeder and confine them later today to increase the chances of them staying put. As it is, they only have two old drawn combs with eight frames of foundation, so I'm nervous about them accepting their new digs as is.

This is as early a swarm as I've ever seen in these parts. The weather has been absolutely bizarre with 5.5 inches of rain followed by sleet and snow last Sunday into Monday and then yesterday it got up to 80F and out they came. I knew I had to get in this hive and open up the brood nest but with this crazy weather and work, I didn't get a chance to do so in time to prevent swarming. I have a bait hive (5-frame nuc) about 9 feet up in a nearby locust tree and on 4/20 when I got home from work there were about a dozen scouts checking it out, so I knew I was too late to prevent a swarm and that I should expect one soon.

Looking at the parent hive, you could hardly guess they just lost 2-3 lbs of bees, so I realize there is a good chance they could issue additional swarms unless I significantly open up the brood nest (2-4 frames). If the bait hive is any indication, there will be another swarm very shortly since there are now about 25 scouts checking it out.


Justin

[peggjam]

Put a frame of brood in with the newly hived swarm, this will help them choose to stay put rather than find somewhere else . If you are worried about more swarms, split the hive and place a queen cell in each split....you can always recombine later when a good flow is starting .

[Brent Bean]

Peggjam has some good suggestions, also another method to discourage an after swarms is to go threw the parent hive and remove all but two queen cells.

[JBird]

I do very much appreciate your suggestions, Brent and peggjam. As it turns out, the same hive just issued another large swarm which I managed to hive. This second swarm was around 4lbs of bees while yesterday's swarm was around 3 lbs of bees. So two swarms in two days from the same hive. I'm planning to take a few frames of brood out of the parent hive and give them to the swarms. NJ law only allows three hives per residence so tonight I'll be taking these swarms to another outyard ~30 miles south of here. Sure hope that is the end of the swarming from this hive!!!

[Keith Benson]

NJ law only allows three hives per residence so tonight I'll be taking these swarms to another outyard ~30 miles south of here.

You could combine them with the newspaper method. I think such a colony would draw comb like nobody's business.

Keith

[JBird]

You could combine them with the newspaper method. I think such a colony would draw comb like nobody's business.

Thanks for your suggestion, Keith. As it turns out, while I considered combining the two swarms and keeping them in my home yard, I decided to thin the herd a bit and drove the newly hive swarms to another outyard, but not before going through the parent hive and giving each swarm a couple of frames of brood, pollen and honey. Here's hoping they make it!

Justin

[Keith Benson]

Thanks for your suggestion, Keith. As it turns out, while I considered combining the two swarms and keeping them in my home yard, I decided to thin the herd a bit and drove the newly hive swarms to another outyard, but not before going through the parent hive and giving each swarm a couple of frames of brood, pollen and honey. Here's hoping they make it!

Justin

Sounds like they will do very well - ahh the joys of increase . . .

Keith "can you ever have anough colonies?" Benson

[JBird]

Sounds like they will do very well - ahh the joys of increase . . .

I sure hope so, Keith. These were actually my first ever swarm captures and attempts at making increase so I'm nervous yet hopeful. Both swarms were easy captures, fortunately, with the first settling on my fence among some honeysuckle and the second swarm actually just covered the ENTIRE hive on three sides (elevated hive stand, both deep hive bodies, beemax hivetop feeder and telescoping cover). I was lucky the queen didn't fly by the time I got out there and sprayed them with sugar water. I thought it a bit odd that this swarm settled on the hive and was worried if the queen emerged or not, but after scraping ~4lbs of bees some workers began fanning enthusiastically so I felt I got the queen.

I think spraying the swarm with sugar water was the most important thing for me as it allows you to easily collect large numbers of bees and get them into the hive without a lot taking flight.

Justin