[John Scifres]

I have one hive and was going to do a full inspection today, the first in 2 weeks. I didn't see much reason to believe it was overcrowded at the last one but man did they come on. I planted some stuff in my garden and was watering it when I looked up at a lilac bush on the property line and saw the swarm. It looked huge to me but it's the first one I've seen. I was able to get a 10 frame deep under it and shook it in. It worked pretty well and I hope that I got the queen. I put 2 partially drawn frames of nectar and 2 frames of capped and uncapped brood in with them. They seem happy 6 hours later so I am hopeful. I am going to have to get another set of wooden ware as I have a package of bees coming next weekend. This bee stuff is fun!

The original have has a bunch of queen cells, lots of bees left and much brood including a good deal of drone comb. Plenty of food looks like to me too.

Lots of lessons learned today. Glad I have youtube and Beesource.com to show me the way. Thanks.

I got it on video and will try to post on youtube.

 

[John Scifres]

Here's the shake. It was really windy today. I look a bit timid A big portion of the cluster was on the fence so I had to go back for that bit. After things settled down, I put the box on the ground and all of the bees down there crawled right in. Lots of butts wagging in the air too.

Great fun!

 

[John Scifres]

Here's the swarm before the shake. I decided to get the box up a little higher so this was a false start

 

[happyflorencebees]

Nice catch! I caught a swarm from my first hive last year. I was on my way out to do an inspection and they were heading out in droves to a nearby tree. I cut the limb, put it in a box, then shook them into a deep I had ready. It was pretty exciting for this novice beekeeper. One thing I've learned this year is to have more hardware on hand than you expect to use. I had to make an emergency order because I had to make an extra split I wasn't anticipating.

 

[GaryG74]

Nice swarm! Like happyflorencebees said, you can never have enough hives, nucs, or boxes. You never know when a swarm will show up from your hive(s) or someone else's hive. I made two splits and thought I had done everything right to prevent swarming from my hives. In three weeks I hived seven swarms! I'm scrambling now to build additional supers and frames. Cross my fingers that no more swarms show up until I'm ready.

 

[juzzerbee]

Gary- Send them north to Wisconsin. I'll take however many you don't want!

BTW- great video! I plan to do the same thing if and when I find a swarm....or one finds me. juzzer