On the way home from work tonight, I got a call. I was asked if I was a beekeeper and if I caught swarms.
He had found my name on the internet on the BeeSource Bee Removal list. I told him that I would be over in about an hour, I had to stop by my house to pick up some equipment.
When I was out in my apiary picking up some empty boxes, I passed by a cloud of bees where they shouldn't have been. I looked down at the source and found a swarm of my own (2-3000 bees) on a small spruce about 30 feet from my hives. I quickly grabbed a nuc box and bushed about half of them in and shook the rest off. I put on the lid and left it by the tree and ran off to the call.
When I got to the call there was good sized cluster on a lilac bush, maybe 5000 bees. They were all on one branch, luckily the homeowner had a large pair of pruners (mine were just too small to handle the 2 inch branch). I just shook them in the box. Let them settle in for about 1/2 hour, buttoned them up and brought them home. It went very smooth.
When I got home I found that the other swarm had all moved into the nuc. I covered the entrance and moved by my other hives where I already had the hive from the call set up. I set them both up with sugar syrup and done.
Man youtube and this forum are wonderful. I have never done this before, but I had seen it done so many times and heard about how other people have done it, it was just easy, I did not have to think about how to do it.
What fun. Thanks to all of you.
He had found my name on the internet on the BeeSource Bee Removal list. I told him that I would be over in about an hour, I had to stop by my house to pick up some equipment.
When I was out in my apiary picking up some empty boxes, I passed by a cloud of bees where they shouldn't have been. I looked down at the source and found a swarm of my own (2-3000 bees) on a small spruce about 30 feet from my hives. I quickly grabbed a nuc box and bushed about half of them in and shook the rest off. I put on the lid and left it by the tree and ran off to the call.
When I got to the call there was good sized cluster on a lilac bush, maybe 5000 bees. They were all on one branch, luckily the homeowner had a large pair of pruners (mine were just too small to handle the 2 inch branch). I just shook them in the box. Let them settle in for about 1/2 hour, buttoned them up and brought them home. It went very smooth.
When I got home I found that the other swarm had all moved into the nuc. I covered the entrance and moved by my other hives where I already had the hive from the call set up. I set them both up with sugar syrup and done.
Man youtube and this forum are wonderful. I have never done this before, but I had seen it done so many times and heard about how other people have done it, it was just easy, I did not have to think about how to do it.
What fun. Thanks to all of you.
