First swarm - and at night. Suggestions?

[redpola]

Hi all,

So, it seems my single hive has decided it's time to swarm. The swarm is in a tree about ten feet from the hive and are easily accessible. There is also a small "beard" of bees in the hive. A tap on the box tells me there are plenty of bees left inside.

Now, this being still my first year of beekeeping, I was anticipating sorting out my second hive in a few weeks time and then splitting my existing hive. The bees clearly have other ideas and like to surprise me.

While I've just built 6 frames in half an hour, the light is fading and I'm concerned about collecting the swarm tonight. Should I just leave them until the morning or should I get my gear on and put them in the new hive in half an hour or so when I've finished knocking frames together?

Will the swarm still be there in the morning?

Thanks,

Neil.

 

[VEG]

Get them in the hive asap

 

[Andre cardona]

Get them in the hive asap

good luck hope you got them

 

[ROACHMAN]

Priority is to get the swarm before building the rest of the frames.

I made this mistake last year, I saw a swarm collected on a branch. I had no spare frames so I quickly built a few. In the meantime the swarm had decided to depart to their new home, I followed the swarm for about a mile then they then crossed a busy road. By the time I had found a gap in the traffic the swarm was out of sight and gone

 

[oliver90owner]

Well, they are not going tonight. That is fairly certain. If not a big swarm, a nuc may be enough to hive them initially.

 

[tonybloke]

just get them into a skep or a cardboard box tonight, then re-house them in the morning

 

[richardbees]

An inverted cardboard box will do for the next 24 hrs - so collect them now (if you can still see!)

 

[redpola]

Got em.

After an hour of banging frames together and a hastily assembled spare hive, I dropped half of them into a cardboard box and then scooped as many of the rest in with my hand. I'm hopeful that I got the queen, though it was hard to see anything and my girlfriend who was holding the box was about to run a half marathon in the opposite direction.

I tipped them into an empty super on the new hive along with any bits of branch which I'll fish out later.

Fingers crossed I got enough of them to make a new colony sustainable.

And now, I'm knackered and sweating like a pig, half through fear and half through panic, so I think I deserve a beer.

Thanks for all the good advice.

Neil.

 

[VEG]

Nice one

 

[tonybloke]

well done, enjoy the beer

 

[adrian wilford]

brill will just share this with you, got a call late one night of swarm in tree on low branch, no vehilce and it was about 3 miles from home so, dug out the exped rucksac, took it to apiary and a nuc just fitted in the rucksac, so biked to the home of telephone caller, collected the swarm with head torch with lense painted with red felt tip, sealed up the nuc into rucksac and biked home, and hived swarm, a good nights work it was.

 

[redpola]

Cool story.

 

[enrico]

So come on Redpola ....... Did you get HM ......dying to know

 

[TJSnapper]

The baying crowd want an update, how are things today, did you get the queen?