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My son and I are going to try to catch a swarm in a tree. It just swarmed today and has moved once so it may be gone in am?
It is about 12-15ft up at the end of a cedar tree branch. We attached a 5 gallon water jug with top removed to a pole and our plan is to try to knock them in, dump in the hive. It may take several bumps?
We are hoping to do this in early morning. Should we screen hive closed or leave open for stragglers?
I was thinking we leave it open and if we caught the queen we would know because they would go in the hive and we could screen it shut and move to its new location when it was dark. ?
I have a new hive started from a nuc two weeks ago which has a nonlaying queen and several supercedure cells, although no eggs to make a viable queen, or I am just wrong(inexperienced). How soon could I combine the swarm with hive? Newspaper combine and remove virgin? Queen.
It is a decent sized swarm, bigger than a football. Would it make sense to remove the queen with a couple frames of bees to make a nuc? Assuming she gets herself mated/laying at some point. I guess I don't like disposing of her. Despite the hives queen issues it does have a decent population.
It is about 12-15ft up at the end of a cedar tree branch. We attached a 5 gallon water jug with top removed to a pole and our plan is to try to knock them in, dump in the hive. It may take several bumps?
We are hoping to do this in early morning. Should we screen hive closed or leave open for stragglers?
I was thinking we leave it open and if we caught the queen we would know because they would go in the hive and we could screen it shut and move to its new location when it was dark. ?
I have a new hive started from a nuc two weeks ago which has a nonlaying queen and several supercedure cells, although no eggs to make a viable queen, or I am just wrong(inexperienced). How soon could I combine the swarm with hive? Newspaper combine and remove virgin? Queen.
It is a decent sized swarm, bigger than a football. Would it make sense to remove the queen with a couple frames of bees to make a nuc? Assuming she gets herself mated/laying at some point. I guess I don't like disposing of her. Despite the hives queen issues it does have a decent population.