So far my girls are not trying to swarm....but my stepdaughter just texted me with news of a swarm in a tree at school. Charlotte, NC(just a few minutes from downtown is where her school is), about 12.30. Some lucky beek was already on the scene taking care of business :thumbsup:
If she can ID the tree they were on, I'll update this.
caught swarm from own apiary on 4/2 in afternoon @ 85 degrees, beautiful day. volleyball size. noticed that swarm cells are being built on bottom deep frames this year compared to between double deeps. I use screened bottoms and leave mite board in until mid april.
NC 28782 June 16th , Sunny in the high 80's
Actually drove through a swarm today! Incredible. Turned the car around and they were gone:s. I ran home and set up my hive! (but they didn't find it)
April 03, Verona NC, zip 28540...beautiful sunny day, 68-70 F.Medium size swarm, started swarming as we watched the hive, talking about bees......buzzing and creating a cloud of bees, they've got up into an old maple tree around some mistletoe, aprox 25 feet up...tough to get to. The owner got to it with a bucket/pole combo, and was able to shake maybe a quarter of the bees. Too many branhes in the way...Placed them in a nuc with a few drawn frames, and as we watched, in less than 20 minutes the rest of the bees started to fly from up the maple tree into the nuc box...Amazing stuff
Both swarms min of 4 Lbs each, cut out of tree limbs within 500 ft of hive's.
Both on "Honey Super Cell" and Pierco full drawn out comb with a little honey left in it.
checked on them this afternoon and they both were Orientating in front
Western NC My largest hive swarmed april 10. 11 days ago there were NO queen cells. I was supposed to go through them after I ran an errand. husband called while I was out and told me they were swarming.
12 ft up in a norway spruce with wild rose brambles throughout. thanks, girls.
I learned to climb a ladder with a chainsaw in a bee suit.
They were about 2.5 basketballs worth. I only had a top bar hive around, so that is where they are.
NOW I understand the difference between swarm cells and seeing queen cells. They did have a weird pattern of laying going on and didn't know what that meant. :doh:
Caught a feral swarm on 04-07 at a blue berry farm I had some hives at. The owner said he had seen some bees coming out of a wooded area before I had brought my hives over so i set up a deep with a few frames and top/bottom of plywood with just 2-3/4" holes drilled in the front. I came back 3 days later and there was a colony in it. I didn't expect this but am glad to get it. The queen had laid in a couple of the frames plus 2 combs they drew that were hanging from the inside of the top. I took theses combs off the top and put them into a single frame. I got lucky not to loose the queen because there was one frame i had installed with the box that had the majority of eggs/brood in it and I was looking for the queen and it slipped out of my hand and one side dropped and hit a hive body and all the bees flew off this frame. I thought the queen would still be light enough to fly but I suppose she was in another area that I was able to put in the new hive. I don't know what the size of the swarm is but they are easily covering 5-6 frames of eggs & brood the queen has laid in. I filled the box with 10 frames with 3 that are plain foundation. They have not drawn this out and this surprises me. Other swarms I've gotten would draw out a frame a day easily???
It is just the beginning of the flow here and I am wondering if I could still get a bit of honey off this swarm. The queen is laying wall to wall so maybe there will be enough bee to fill a 2 deep hive in 30 days or so and I could try putting a super on?
4/14, Apex, NC
~4-5lb swarm, 10ft up in pine tree around 7pm.
was helping a new beekeeper split a hive that swarmed on 4/13. found 4 virgin queens, one flew so we split into three hives. counted 15 swarm cells. when split was complete noticed the secondary swarm about 30 feet away. large swarm for secondary.
I got a call today about a swarm. I went to the call and there was a large swarm about 7' off the ground on the limb of a dogwood. It was the ideal situation. All I had was cardboard box and I took the limb, shook off the bees and hived them back at my house in a deep super with drawn comb.
Caught one of my own swarms today....after coming home from the bee supply store. About 20 feet up above the hive they left.Too bad they didn't wait til Sunday, would have been my daughters birthday party! Glad to have caught them as the Tulip Poplars are about to bloom here!
Edgemont, NC 28611
9/24/11 Morganton, NC Had a swarm move into empty hive body from a last winter dead out. The weather has been cooling down and we have had 3 plus inches of rain over the last several days. The swarm is of unknown orgins.
9/27/11 Morganton, NC Caught a small swarm grapefruit sized swarm. They will be combined with larger swarm from 9/24/11.
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