Did you hive a swarm last season?

[BKF Admin]

Did any members manage to catch a swarm last season?

How did you manage them,did you feed,requeen,give treatment?

I managed to get 8 swarms,kept half and gave half away to new beeks.

My management was to hive them with a QE above the entrance,feed syrup,remove QE after 48 hours and treat for Veroa.

I managed to keep all 4 of mine while 2 of the other 4 I gave away moved on.

All 4 queens seemed to be laying well into winter but on reflection maybe I should of requeened?

 

[Poly Hive]

No.

I got someone elses...LOL

 

[BKF Admin]

Was it free

 

[Poly Hive]

Actually no it was bloody expensive as it kick started me into bees again after a gap of some years, during which all my kit was lost. And I am talking a LOT of kit, three hundred supers for a start... and go on from there. all the gear you need for an 80 colony operation.

And so that wee swarm got me back and I am now pure poly. I had poly as far back as 1988.

I have used, Nats, Smith, Lang, Mod Com, umm... Mod Dadant, and Glens and WBC. I have converted from and to all these types.

My fav is Langstroth in poly but I am now comitted to Nats to produce nucs and comb honey for my hotel.

PH

 

[Polyanwood]

I captured one of my own and a wild colony. The others I went out to were wasps or hornets.

I didn't do the queen excluder trick, but would next time. Mine disappeared the next day and I had to go to get them again!!

I was told not to feed for 48 hours. Something to do with the fact that they swarm with stomachs full of honey. Honey can carry AFB spores (+ other stuff??) you do not want nasties in your nice clean foundation, or drawn comb, so don't feed them until they have emptied what they have on board.

 

[Poly Hive]

Remind me to comment on that tomorrow.

PH

 

[user 382]

I lost a big one this year (they'd just moved on to 14x12 as well, sigh) but still picked up 5 other swarms. I didn't go for a qx under the brood box but instead gave each of them a couple of drawn combs plus frames of foundation. It did the trick, none absconded. In each case I waited a few days before feeding them so they'd use up any stores brought with them.

One was too small and turned out to be queenless, so was united with one of the other swarms. All 4 are in my garden (quarantine apiary) and were treated with apiguard and feed up for the winter. So far, so good, although one will have to be re-queened in the spring as they tend to jump out at you when you lift the crown board.

Steve

 

[doorman]

.......... I am now pure poly. .. I am now comitted to Nats to produce nucs and comb honey for my hotel.

PH

Hi PH,

Do your poly nats accommodate 10 or 11 frames and do you use double brood ?

(Sorry gone a bit off topic )

 

[Mosquito]

My 1st year of beekeeping I lost a large swarm.
Recaptured them and put them into a new hive.
Half an hour later they swarmed again.
Turn out there was 2 queen in the 1st swarm.

And this year I collected a swarm, Put it into a WPC hive for the school I look after (with Q/E on bottom)
The Queen still found a way out and the swarm went into the other hive a few feet away, Witch was already full of gentle bees.
They are not that gentle now as the new queen kill the queen that was in there.

And Last year I got called to a swarm that was the size of a tennis ball.
There was a queen in it.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Only 4 swarms and 1 cast that i was called to deal with,one on side of a wall,one under a garden arbor,one in a pear tree,one under an old couples slatted wooden garden seat,and one in a hedge. All quite uneventful,shook them into box,put into hive and fed,then treat for 24 hours for varroa,but not until the queens were laying, but before any sealed brood. None of them mine,:they are now.

 

[Frisbee]

No I didn't catch a swarm, but the roof blew off my bait hive in a gale and one of my chickens started laying in it.

No one else keep bees anywhere in my vicinity so the bait hive was an insurance for my own swarming. Next year I am going to put a couple of bait hives at farms I work at - ones near villages.

Frisbee

 

[iombeeman]

got a call from a policeman about some wasps near a playground on
a bank holiday(senior race day,yes we get a bank hoilday to watch motorcycle racing).normally i would call the envoirmental people.but they are closed,no one else but me,and as it was by a playground.
said to the copper "you sure it wasps and not bees,i`m sure it`s wasps".
got there, and there was a lovely swarm of bees,just waiting.
so even a policman can`t tell the diffrence between bees and wasps
iombeeman

 

[Mosquito]

I got called to a swarm 2 years ago at a school.
But before I got there, some 10 year old boy kicked a ball and hit the swarm on the tree.
He and about 10 other kids got stung.
But one 8 year girl thought the swarm was a flies and ran into into the swarm waving her arms up and down.
She got over 50 stings.
But was OK.

Never did find the swarm.

 

[Hivemaker.]

That sounds like a bit of a horror story Mos. Did you get stung as well,or had they completly gone when you got there.

 

[Mosquito]

Yes when I got there I only found a few bees left on the tree.
I looked for over an hour, But could not find the swarm.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I tried to follow a swarm years ago that took off fom a tree,followed it across 4 large fields and then down into a valley,they then went high and out of sight,never saw them again,they go quite fast.I no longer do this trick.

 

[Finman]

.
It is a shame to say that my hives swarmed a lot. I have made crossing between different stock and result is this.

My neighbour 1 km away says that he did not get swarms.

 

[iombeeman]

hello hivemaker,
how did you follow this swarm across 4 fields,did you run after them?