Anything I've forgotten re this swarm

[nelletap]

Just heading back to somewhere I hope will have my ****** nuc box full of a swarm of bees.

Do I need to cover the entrance during transit or is it enough to have it in a sheet?

I have a hive ready for it, with QE underneath the brood box. Should I shake them straight away into the waiting hive or leave them in the nuc placed more or less in the same place?

It may be that the swarm is too large for the nuc box in which case there is little choice.


Should I leave the entrance closed up overnight?

There is ventilation below the nuc.

Quick answers appreciated as I need to head off in a few minutes!

yes, I did my course etc, but somehow I can forget things in the excitement.

Tricia

Tricia

 

[Sean.]

You should cover the entrace as they will come out in transit, as the car will cause the hive the vibrate and they will come out to see what is going on. An entrance block will do, but you need to make sure they don't overheat. Take some water in a clean (new) spray bottle if you have one so if they are on a long ride with a solid floor they dont die. If you have a mesh top for the nuc hive great other wise some very fine mesh wire that can be strapped on to the roof even better.

Long journey would be more than 15 or twenty mins I would guess given the heat. Keep your car windows open a litte for ventilation.

The rule with moving them, is less than 3 foot or other 3 miles for a few days then move to another place in your garden for example. If they are a new swarm the queen may still be a virgin, so will have to go on a matting flight so no to the queen excluder for now.

What do you mean by 'There is ventilation below the nuc.' Always leave the hive open, unless it's late on in the year and you are reduce the entrance due to wasps.

 

[Silly Bee]

I like to hive any swarm asap if the weather is good. Late afternoon/early evening.

 

[VEG]

Spray them through the vent holes with water mist if you have far to travel. As you said they look a bit cramped I would move them into a hive this evening.

 

[nelletap]

Thanks everyone. I have helped with a swarm before but somehow it seemed different when I was the only one available. Luckily a 2nd beekeeper helped me after a while. I have them in the hive that was waiting for them, with a few stragglers. It did seem a large swarm. The journey was about 10 minutes tops.

Fingers crossed they will stay - I have heard of so many swarms who want to move on after having a load of syrup from a beekeeper!

 

[Moggs]

Sean - Forget the 3 feet 3 mile 'rule'. A newly hived swarm loses its orientation and should be quite happy, wherever placed.

 

[Sean.]

Hi Moggs,

When does a swam 'gain' it's orientation to the hive, e.g. how long untill the 3 mile rule comes into play? I understand it's a few days for bees that had not swarmed.

 

[Moggs]

Hi Sean

I don't know - haven't had cause to move one so soon after placement but suspect that it would be as soon as orientation flights have been fully completed. It's nature's way - 'twould be daft to have swarms suddenly remember where they once lived and toddle off back to join the party. But they need a quick fix on their new location.

 

[village girl]

Good Luck. and safe jorny with your new swarm, i picked up my first swarm yesterday and i must admit i was releved when i got them home safely with no excapees on the way

 

[nelletap]

Thanks again, everyone. What a night they had as their first night - and they didn't all go in there were a couple of straggling clusters in sheltered corners - eg under the roof. In the end I decided to remove the QE below the brood box. I was worried that if somehow the queen was not inside it would be a worse threat to the swarm; better they survive and leave me than not survive. I also gave a small amount of syrup hoping that the nasty weather would make them think that staying where they were was a lot better than heading off into wild weather. I knew that when in swarming mode the 3 ft /3 mile rule doesn't apply.
Can anyone tell me - are all the bees that leave foragers? Presumably house bees don't go - or is it an opportunity for a faster career advancement? So the hive the bees come from will have a much reduced number of foragers exiting and entering for a while?

 

[oliver90owner]

Can anyone tell me - are all the bees that leave foragers?

Bees become flyers at a fairly early age (from 4 -5 ? days after emergence). They don't beecome foragers until around the 3 week mark.

Swarms are flying bees, not necessarily foragers.

 

[Firefly]

I also gave a small amount of syrup hoping that the nasty weather would make them think that staying where they were was a lot better than heading off into wild weather.

I did the same to a swarm that was hived on Sunday night. They are still here and we gave them another feeder full last night (it was empty)

There appear to be four good seams of bees (though of course with feeding they may be clustered at the top of the frames, and I did not want to alarm them by moving frames about)

Should I now stop feeding?

Many thanks
David

 

[oliver90owner]

Should I now stop feeding?

Of course! A better way is to say suspend the feeding, the decision to feed being dependent on whether they are increasing stores with their current foraging activities, and not starving if the foraging conditions are rubbish.

You are the beekeper. That is what inspections/stores checks are for. They will develop fine if conditions are good. They would likely die if they run out of stores.

The beekeeper is the difference between managed and feral swarms. Intervention when necessary, not blindly and automatically. In nature they survive or die.

I didn't feed a swarm recently, and three weeks later they definitely need a second super over the 14 x 12. May even really need a third, as well. I will check later today.

 

[susbees]

Yep, swarms can do incredibly well (with a low varroa load) and are much more use than AS set-ups. Stuffing them with sugar is a bad idea in general unless the weather turns seriously bad before they've got their act together.