[Flosbees]

Hi everyone,

My wife and I just removed supers from two of our langstroth hives from Ontario Canada. We are third year beekeepers just gaining experience. One of the hives is a double brood chamber and the other is a single brood chamber.
Both had two supers that we removed yesterday.
Today went to check on them and the bees appear to have swarmed onto a nearby tree from the single brood box.
There was a significant amount of bees that we had to brush off of the supers from both but not sure what we should have done different to help prevent this? Maybe waited a little longer in the season to remove supers from the single brood box?

Thanks!

Graham

 

[LarryBud]

I'm not sure of your local weather but assume you're colder than us. When I harvested our first group of supers, I threw an empty deep to give a big population somewhere to go, extracted the supers and got the wet comb back on top. Do you have any extra boxes or can you get the extracted boxes (and comb) back on, collect the swarm and let them settle in until nature adjusted the over all population. I use double deep on my two hives and plan on letting them ride out the rest of our year with supers on top. We're just starting our fall flow and I have three supers on one and four on the other so I am expecting one last harvest end of the month. Our first frost isn't until mid-November so late October, we wrap and consolidate. Best of luck

 

[Flosbees]

Thanks Larry,

Just gave it a go this morning. Two different collection attempts with tucking in my bee coat a little better on round 2. They were a little challenging to collect with them being up in the V of a maple tree but feel like a got the majority and hopefully the queen. Stuck them back in the hive add readied the supers.
I will let you know the results.
thanks

 

[Flosbees]

Well... not sure just looked at them before i went to work and they seem to be gathering back up on the tree. Maybe missed the queen? I will check and see if they are still around when i get back this evening.

 

[fieldsofnaturalhoney]

Stuck them back in the hive add readied the supers.

This will not end well If they swarmed the day after you removed the supers, that part was just coincidence, but you cant put them in the box they came from?