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My first swarm of the 2019 season - a personal video

2K views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  JWPalmer 
#1 ·
#2 ·
another fine job at video making dan, i enjoyed that a lot.

crazy early for a swarm at our latitude. did you see it issue?

my luck has been poor in terms of getting a fair weather day home from the day job this spring. have yet to do my first inspections and anti-swarm manipulations.

guess i'd better blow the dust of my traps and get them set. :)
 
#3 ·
another fine job at video making dan, i enjoyed that a lot.

crazy early for a swarm at our latitude. did you see it issue?

my luck has been poor in terms of getting a fair weather day home from the day job this spring. have yet to do my first inspections and anti-swarm manipulations.

guess i'd better blow the dust of my traps and get them set.
Thanks!
Very crazy early. I checked and last year and the first swarm that I saw was March 23. And I was commenting on how early that one was! I hope this one is only a fluke.
I haven’t even begun any swarm management either and have only inspected a handful of hives, so far.
Pretty much my first thought when I saw it was that I needed to get my swarm traps out!
 
#4 ·
with bees it seems there are always exceptions to the rule. :)

i've only see one single drone entering a hive so far and that was yesterday.

it makes me wonder if your swarm might have been an abscond due to some issue within the hive, or perhaps if a neighboring beekeeping has been providing syrup and the broodnest got plugged out?
 
#5 ·
i've only see one single drone entering a hive so far and that was yesterday.
Actually, when I did get into a few hives last week I was stunned to find lots of drones and drone cells....and emerging workers.
I'm sure it came from one of my hives. It could be an abscond....but I don't think so. I did a walk through the yard when I first saw them....they were flying and hadn't congregated yet....and all of the hives in the yard had activity at the entrance.
With the nasty weather coming this week....I won't be opening any hives so I probably won't find out where they came from for a while....if ever.
 
#6 ·
glad to hear you are seeing plenty of drones. that should give the replacement queen a decent chance at getting mated. i may have to mark a day or two off the day job and get busy...

your method for hiving that swarm is exactly how i go about it when i can reach.
 
#7 ·
Hey guys, I got into one of my hives yesterday that is easily capable of swarming. No cells yet but it has 7 frames of capped brood and plenty of drones. I have had syrup on them and have been open feeding Ultrabee, but no patties in this hive. (Makes me wonder if the queen ever shut down completely for winter.) Point is, I am a good 400 miles north of y'all and if I am getting build up like that, I am sure there are a lot of folks in the southern states that are too and are not preparing or even looking yet.
 
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