10 days after hiving swarm . . .

[Keth Comollo]

Hived a swarm 10 days ago at a friends beeyard the other day and he didn't have more woodenware so I "helped" him by taking them away. Queen was a Carniolan from one of Vermont's best breeders. Swarm was too big for a single deep so they have been in two deeps of drawn comb.

Today I inspect for the first time and that black beauty has filled six frames with eggs and larva. Very little capped brood at this point EXCEPT for a swarm cell on the bottom of a frame! Didn't take them long to decide on this apparently.

I took the queen, which surprisingly hadn't left yet and three frames of brood and nurse bees, one frame of nectar and a frame of mixed nectar and pollen and dropped them in a nuc and put them on a stand a few feet away. Probably will need to shake a frame or two of bees into it soon. Only concern is that there wasn't much pollen on that frame but we will see I guess. Added five new frames to the original hive and buttoned them up.

10 colonies and counting. This is fun.

[dixiebooks]

"...I "helped" him by taking them away."

You're such a good friend to that poor pilgrim.

So far, I've gone from 6 to 18 this year and still have more bees to remove from an old water heater tank.

-james