Swarm challenge

[odfrank]

Ollie's eating our lunch!!!

I had a homemade salmon taco for lunch and then I went out and found catch #46 in Hillsborough in a jumbo depth four frame box, not a big swarm but satisfactory. I have caught two swarms at that site this year but had three colonies swarm, so I am negative there for now. I am very proud of catch # 2 at my house on 3/21. It is drawing out it's third section shallow box with ten frames of foundation. I think catch # 45 yesterday in Belmont was also out of one of my own hives. Can't say we are having a great flow this year with all this cool weather, but it is stirring up some later swarms.

[BayHighlandBees]

I think catch # 45 yesterday in Belmont was also out of one of my own hives.

Ollie, do you have hives in Belmont or did your bees travel?

[odfrank]

Ollie, do you have hives in Belmont or did your bees travel?

I have five hives below Carlmont Shopping Center. Five now that I caught a new swarm. It has been swarming madness there this year because at least one colony I brought there already swarmed three times last year and two times this year. When you build an apiary with caught swarms you have to expect that those bees might have excessive swarming tendencies. I did not use any queen excluders this year, kept well ahead with empty supers, and still had a lot of swarming. I was drawing out new foundation which seems to act like a honey excluder.

[CSMint]

Caught my first and second swarm. Noticed them on 5/28. Two swarm traps filled up on the same weekend, only 30 yards apart. Can't complain...I'm only working with 6 traps and only needed to fill two hives.

[Solomon Parker]

Ten swarm traps all over the county and not a thing. I think our record breaking year last year was too much for the feral bees and many of the kept bees as well. I'm going to haul them in and cut my losses.

[Buzzsaw2012]

Well I'm a little behind the rest of you !
I'm a new bee keeper and decided to put out 2 nuc size traps just to see.

well , i got what i believe to be a very nice swarm .
I even managed to transfer it to my mighty bee yard {now 3 hives strong }
So we shall see, but they seem to like building comb fast as can be and I would guess there is 3-4 lbs of bees so it should build fast from what i am seeing.
I am definitely hooked.

Lee

[rwurster]

Caught swarm #10 a few days ago.

[BayHighlandBees]

I talked to ollie yesterday. He's still plateau'd at 46. I think its because he's too busy monitoring his traps around the corner from my house waiting for my bees and my bees aren't budging!

[Charlie B]

Here's how I choose to look at this competition. I started this thread because Jollie Ollie aka: Ollie "The Bull" Frank was bragging about luring other beekeepers bees when they swarmed. So far Ollie has captured 46 swarms. He may have captured the most swarms numerically but none of these were from any Bay Area beekeepers hives (on this thread anyway) so you can make the argument that we all actually won. He wasn't successful at attracting any of our sweet girls to his T-111 olive drab bomb crates with his little pink spinning wheels.

Victory is ours!

[odfrank]

I feel sorry for Charlie's wife, she is a nice gal. It must be miserable living with his drinking problem when he says up until 12:51AM at night commiserating to himself about how jealous he is over my swarm trapping success's.
1. I did not brag, I keep swarm trapping under covers as to minimize competition. I have however been overly generous giving my advice to all on this board. I even gave
BayHighlands some old comb as lure.
2. I have not targeted any specific beekeepers hives, I had been trapping 1 mile from Charlies's site before he became a beekeeper, I have not caught a swarm there in four years. I have been trapping swarms at my house near BayHighlandsBees since before he was born. I certainly do do enjoy taunting him (and Charlie) about trapping his bees next year.
3. I have caught numerous quiet, gentle swarms this year which I assume are out of someone's last year package. More feral bees are better.
4. I have filled most of my green, grey, brown, silver, other boxes and just yesterday painted those amateurly constructed inner covers that Charlie sold me the same green color .
5. None of the wheels are pink.
6. The swarm season is not over, nor should bee the competition. I caught a supercedure swarm on 9/17 last year.

Charlie, i advise that you frequent one of those medical Marijuana Dispensaries near your house rather than the liquor stores. You might be less delusional.

Your design of this elevated staple on inner covers to create a permanent ventilation gap is ingenious however. It must have been the Jack Daniels speaking to you. The Formica faux marble board is a nice touch also. I guess you find all those leftover construction materials on the sidewalk as you stumble around your neighbor hood in the fog late at night.

[KQ6AR]

With you're track record, you have a right to brag. I've been reading about you're swarm trapping success a few years now.
Sorry Charley!

[Charlie B]

Ok, ok I'll admit he's Mr. Magnificent. Look at him, you just can't help loving this guy!

Jollie Ollie.jpg

I think the faux marble inner cover goes well with the olive drab!

[NasalSponge]

I guess my measly 9 don't stand a chance but I have run out of room and gear, put in a big order today for more just to get everything I have now into two deeps. I have received at least 40 calls so far, many of them in the last week. There are either many hidden beekeepers around the City or the ferals are making a comeback either way I am happy about it.

[odfrank]

There are either many hidden beekeepers around the City or the ferals are making a comeback either way I am happy about it

Those 12 million new hobby beekeepers are now a swarm trappers best friend. They pay for the $75 dollar package, babysit the colony while it supercedes it's queen replacing it with a much better locally mated queen, feed it through the winter, and then overfeed it in spring sending a lovely swarm into our traps. Thank you bay area bee clubs for importing about 1000 new colonies into our neighborhoods.

[bevy's honeybees]

I'm still at the 4 I got in March. I have 2 boxes set out and nothing since then. I'm very pleased with the ones I got--3 are now in deeps with 2 having medium supers. One, the tiny swarm that got infested with shb and I had to pull 2 frames, is still struggling and in a 5 frame box.

Fla state discourages swarm catches which I don't quite understand. The bees are going to swarm, to where? Trees and people's eaves or cinder block walls etc, and the cost of destruction and removal if they can afford it, vs swarm boxes and requeen if necessary by beekeepers. Hmmm.

Between reading Odfrank and Michael B, and others of course, Charlie, thanks for all the great teaching and fun! My new bees and I are happy! One of my neighbors did not get her yearly swarm in the wall ($$$) gee I wonder why?

[BayHighlandBees]

Charlie,
we had a newbie beekeeper in our guild announce today that their hive had just swarmed. That can only mean one thing ...

... that OD has gotten one step closer to #50!

[Charlie B]

I really don't know how Ollie sleeps at night, (He'll tell you "like a baby"). Most of his swarm catches have young newly mated marked hygienic queens that some poor beginner paid their hard earned cash for.

At our club meeting tonight many of our beginners said their new packages have swarmed already. I know Ollie has traps in SF so I warned all our members about him.

Ollie sleeps with this picture under his pillow every night. Is nothing sacred to this man?

swarmcelljpg.jpg

[odfrank]

we had a newbie beekeeper in our guild announce today that their hive had just swarmed.

Even funnier was that he was going to check if the hive was now empty. I caught two baits and one swarm yesterday after weeks of nothing. What was it? Full moon? It wasn't even hot. Wednesday the 13th? not Friday the 13th. I don't get it. What caused a lot of swarming yesterday? Both baits came into traps that had been set out for three months already and almost ignored up till now.
Subtracting queenless catches from the approximately 52+ I have caught, my tally of good catches floats around 47 now. Still three months to go.

[minz]

I got two just buzzing! Went from splitting into my spare gear to none left (maybe I could have just got rid of it and they would come).
Question: I pulled my trap a couple of weeks ago and it was empty?? Put it back up and it is singing again. Now I found another one that is also humming but the bees coming in and out have pollen. Should I pull them both since it is a night time run? Can I scare them away by pulling them?
I have one drawn and I think one wax coated plastic, 3 empty frames. How long can I leave them be before they really make a mess?
Sorry if you guys already covered this but I have to take off so do not have time to read all 14 pages.

[odfrank]

With great humility and hubris I hereby announce that I was unable to lure any of Charlie's San Francisco swarms into my bait hives. My site in San Francisco one mile from his rooftop apiary has failed for the fourth year in a row to lure in a swarm. On several days scouts inspected the traps, but no swarms were enticed. The man is truly a master of swarm control. I was however, able to catch several wax moths and their larvae, so not all was lost. Two of my three San Francisco traps are back in San Mateo, twenty miles away from his hives, his sleepless nights are over.