As I was walking down to the hives I heard the buzz and saw the circling cloud of bees emanating from the wbc hive. Having seen a swarm gathering previously I recognised the signs so I sent a text to my son who fortunately was on leave from work so he could come and look.
The swarm drifted off South but happily gathered in my thorn tree about 30 metres away and around 4 metres high.
By extreme good luck I had assembled a hive yesterday so we gathered it together, made up some frames with wax and using a national flat lid plus cardboard cover we placed it on the ground close to the swarm. With a pair of tall stepladders and lopping shears I trimmed around the swarm, then as it bridged 3 separate branches clipped these in turn and passed the clumps of bees down to my son who shook them into the brood box. The last on sprung a little resulting in a lot of bees on the grass so we gave the a cardboard ramp to go in.
I spotted the marked queen as she was going inside and once she was in the bees followed her example. Once all but a dozen or so were in we closed up and with a barrow transported everything gently back to the apiary. Phew!
The swarm drifted off South but happily gathered in my thorn tree about 30 metres away and around 4 metres high.
By extreme good luck I had assembled a hive yesterday so we gathered it together, made up some frames with wax and using a national flat lid plus cardboard cover we placed it on the ground close to the swarm. With a pair of tall stepladders and lopping shears I trimmed around the swarm, then as it bridged 3 separate branches clipped these in turn and passed the clumps of bees down to my son who shook them into the brood box. The last on sprung a little resulting in a lot of bees on the grass so we gave the a cardboard ramp to go in.
I spotted the marked queen as she was going inside and once she was in the bees followed her example. Once all but a dozen or so were in we closed up and with a barrow transported everything gently back to the apiary. Phew!
