Package O' Bees

[Michael Palmer]

They don't make packages like they used to. Now, this here's how we make 'em in Vermont.

[JPK]

Whats the story behind "The Blob"?

[Terry Small, Jr]

Bee flood

[m.zook]

10 gallons of bees in a 5 gallon bucket

[Ski]

Might need to add another box or two or three.

SOOO how much do you get for a package like that lol.

[bhfury]

That's a beautiful sight!!!!!!!!!

[Beeslave]

If you are doing the "shook swarm" method for comb honey production you would be better off using only one deep hive body then the excluder and comb honey supers. With that many bees and a good "nectar"flow I would add at least 6 Ross Rounds supers to start.

[Eyeshooter]

Oh, man! I am sooo glad I just bought one of your queens!

Great talk today, Mike!

John

[Tom G. Laury]

Mike your photos and your bees always are fun to see.

But I thought everything was bigger in Texas, not Vermont! You are testing their pride sorely congratulations.

Two combined?

[Barry Digman]

We need a new term for something as awe-inspiring as that. (And maybe that 11-story hive of odfranks!)

May I suggest that we call this thing a "beevalanche"?

[JensLarsen]

That is a lot of bees.

Let me guess, you are uniting a bunch of failed nucs (no mating, egglaying worker, etc) by moving them to a new yard and dumping them in front of a empty hive?

[Keith Jarrett]

Nice... really nice.

[Dunkel]

Passed out with the bee-go on again?

[Michael Palmer]

These monsters are really amazing to work with. They aren't actually swarms in the true sense. They're shook swarms. When I catch queens, the mini nucs are usually too strong with bees. If you leave all the bees after catching the queen, they get so crowded that you can't find the next queen. Or...when they're too crowded, the cell acceptance rate goes down.

So, I make up a shaker box. Empty hive body with screen on bottom. Hive body with 9 foundations and 1 comb of brood in the middle. Another body of foundation on top of that. A body with queen excluder nailed on bottom...on top of the stack.

As we catch the queens, we shake half the bees...or more...into the shaker box. They go down through the excluder, and onto the frames of foundation. After some 250 mating nucs, the "blob" is what you get. They'll draw out those 19 frames of foundation in a few days, and need another body or two in a week.

This year has been really fun. Good help and lots of work getting done. Too much rain, but bees are bees are strong and still storing a fair crop. Hundreds of colonies requeened, and 500 nucs made up for wintering. I get to spend most of my time with my queens and nucs...what I love the most.

Because of all the bees from wintered nucs, and wintered mating nucs turned into colonies, and these monsters....and the "Bee Bombs"...which is another story...there are bees coming out of our ears. They've become like grains of wheat in a huge pile. I've become spoiled rotten. And I'm enjoying it to the fullest, because......

.......I know it can all change in a second.

[JensLarsen]

Awesome, you deserve that kind of success. Thx for sharing.