Swarm Tracking?

1446 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Bonterra Bees, Aug 16, 2010

Bonterra Bees

Discussion Starter · #1 · Aug 15, 2010

One of my 8 frame ObHs swarmed day before yesterday. I don’t blame them, that’s their mission in life and they were crowded. I’d seen it coming for several days and had been working inside near the Obh and heard the action start, the roar in the Hive. I grabbed my video camera and went out side. It was like a waterfall pouring out of the entrance. They went 10’ feet over and 30’ up in a spruce. Way to high for me and my saw and an empty super that I’d hoped they’d head for. So they spent the night there, next day kept watch hoping they’d move lower or perhaps find my super, there were a few scouts checking it out, but had to go to the Post Office. When I got back they’d vanished. I’ve 85 acres of dense forest and here they'll never survive.
Here are my questions: Where do swarms go, is there any predictability to it? How many hops, how far?, brush, high, low?. I’ve looked around but 3’ beyond my lawn would be like a needle in a hay stack. Incidentally at that height they look about like a porcupine eating a spruce top.
Anybody out there with experience tracking Swarms?
Mark
www.bonterrabees.com
got some good video if I can figure out how to get it on

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Bonterra Bees

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Joined Aug 30, 2009

121 Posts

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 16, 2010

Hey Specialkayme
Thanks for tracking down that info. Indeed they did not go far on the first hop and it kinda sounds like 3 or 4 hundred feet for the second hop. Given that I might make another search round. I hate to abandon them to a Maine winter. Poor girls just got rid of their sunglasses as a package from Florida this spring.
Mark