I picked up a good sized swarm yesterday in Edina, MN. Edina is on the south west side of Minneapolis (6/11/07). The Swarm was good size, bit bigger than a basket ball. Homeowner got my info off of the beesource website.
Weather was the first hot/humid day of the year. Mostly sunny.
2 small swarms from colony in oak tree. both about the size of a 3# package. dark queens (probably carnie lines). Hived in 2 nucs. will put traps out near this feral colony next year.
The van was packed with people and gear and we're backing out of the driveway when I noticed a couple dozen bees flying around some boxes waiting to be scraped and scorched. I stopped the van and told the family that I'd be right back...
I wandered around to the back of the barn and there was a football-sized swarm about 8 feet off the ground in a boxelder tree. I ran back to the van and said "give me a minute..."
I grabbed a ladder, saw, bottom board, deep full of drawn frames, and an inner and outer cover. In about 5 minutes I had the swarm in the box and we were on our way.
I got back to town three days later and the 'swarm hive' was empty, but...
they had moved into the original stack of empty boxes. They had built enough comb to fill about half of a deep. I got them moved into appropriate accommodations and moved them to an out-yard that evening.
My bees swarmed today and are still hanging in a tree. Unfortunately, the tree is in the middle of our pond and they're 20 feet up. Weather has been unbearably hot and humid. New package, hived May 7th on undrawn foundation. Package from California and they were MN Hygenics. My Zipcode--56301. (7-20-11)
We had a brand-new hive swarm on us on 20 July 2011 in St. Paul MN--hot sticky weather (low 90s, high humidity) for 10 days. The other new hive threatened to swarm the day before, but hastily adding the third deep settled them down. The hive that did swarm swarmed the day after they got their third deep. They hung around in a tree for several days, and then (I think) took off for good.
After a couple of hours, the box is ready to be moved to its new home: IMG_1170.jpg
This swarm came out of one of my hives just prior to me getting to the yard. They had just formed three clusters in the oak. In about 10 minutes they consolidated into a single cluster.
I had to improvise a bit as I was in the yards to pull feeders, add 2nd deeps and trim weeds. Ended up using a scythe to pull the branch low enough to grab it. The swarm box is simply a box with two drawn frames and eight frames with new foundation. I set the can of scrapings on there as there was lots of drone brood in it (Not sure if it made any difference...).
I shook the cluster off of the branch and went to work a couple more yards in the area. When I came back two hours later, all of the bees were in the box. I added a frame of honey/pollen and moved them to their new home.
A local farmer called to report that there were a bunch of bees going crazy near a small spruce tree. We couldn't get there that evening but drove out there the next day around noon. The bees were still on the spruce. They were clustered about 3 feet off of the ground. A quick shake and they were mine.
date when the bees swarmed or when you found the swarm.
comments - example: if the swarm came from your hive, or if you were called to pick up a swarm, how long was it there. This is not for cutouts unless the bees just took up residence and are not established. It would also be great to include a small photo of the swarm.
-Welch, MN
-5/24/16
I don't believe this is from 1 of my 2 hives although this is my first year and I did start out with 2-8 frame nucs 3 weeks ago. Currently have a second brood box on both hives.
5 miles north of Cokato 6 July hot hot humid edge of woods behind a bean field in a deep box on a tree stand about 4' (metric-centric 1-1/4 meters) off the ground maybe 4 lbs?
Not my bees, larger, darker than mine and mine are still home. Wild or someone else's. They seem friendly not much smoke needed to move them.
Minnesota
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