Hiving a swarm

[Jimmy]

Just hived a swarm

There are often pictures on here of people hiving a swarm with a sheet to walk the bees up to the hive in broad daylight.

How is this possible if the swarm is collected properly? By which I mean not removed from the swarm location until late evening. I collected my swarm into a box around 7pm and then returned about 9.30 when all the flying bees had returned.

Not an arrestable offence but surely not best practice?

 

[VEG]

doesn't really matter which way as long as they end up in a hive.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Just hived a swarm

There are often pictures on here of people hiving a swarm with a sheet to walk the bees up to the hive in broad daylight.

How is this possible if the swarm is collected properly? By which I mean not removed from the swarm location until late evening. I collected my swarm into a box around 7pm and then returned about 9.30 when all the flying bees had returned.

Not an arrestable offence but surely not best practice?

When I have had to collect a swarm late in the evening then occasionally I have left it in a cool dark place and hived it the next morning.

But tbh I only walked them into the hive once, mostly I tend to tip them in as I don't have time!

 

[Queens59]

When I collected a swarm bees were all there - not off foraging, so hiving them was the immediate common sense route...

 

[the beehive lodge]

would it not be a god time if as swarm was left till late evening to spray with O/A and put on a wired floor in a cool dark place so if any varroa was presant you could check the fall before they start a new colany with eggs/ brood

 

[dudley]

They were exactly my thoughts when I started taking swarms a few years ago. How can you bring a swarm home late in the evening and still hive in daylight.

Well the only way is take it home before all the flying bees have returned to the swarm. I only do this if there is some urgency, like taking a swarm from under a market traders table on market day in a busy High Street when the Police have closed off the area. (should have photographed that one)

But usually I box it and leave it until dusk, I just hate the thought of those retuning bees coming home and everyone has gone

I use this method so as to keep them cool. Start as usual with a sheet on ground, knock/brush cluster into box and close lid or fold over flaps. I flip it over putting lid or flaps onto sheet. Gently tilt up on one side to allow swarming bees to enter. When calm and bees are entering nicely I raise box a bit more and check inside, usually they have clustered again and are now hanging from the underside of the now upside down bottom. I then remove the lid or fold and tape back the flaps up the outside of the box. When I decide to go, I lightly fold the sheet over the box.
When home I put on a concrete floor in a dark cool place.
So I now have just a thin cotton sheet between the open bottomed box and concrete. I lift one side a little and the bees have air flow through the cotton.
I hive at my leisure in the morning.
I do make sure to have a box much bigger than the swarm.

 

[susbees]

Most of mine are hived as it gets dark. Straight in the top with a couple of frames in either end then the rest sink gently in.

Took my first outside swarm in the dark this evening. A prime, eight foot up a copper beech tree embedded in a hedge. Worked well if differently - using a space light, a car inspection light and an LED array....best bit was they didn't go back up the tree. Interesting response to the lights....ahem.

Sat in the skep overnight...five call-outs one after the other! Ten year old might be a tad tired for school as she came too...

 

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the replies.
Leaving them in the collection box/skep overnight and then hiving them in the morning makes sense rather than flapping around in the dark.

 

[Poly Hive]

It's obvious when you see it.

KISS

PH

 

[Pete D]

Local member left a swarm in a skep wrapped in a sheet in the back of his pick up (with a hard top thinghy over it) last spring in the warm weather overnight and they were all dead the next morning. Ventalation is a must.
Ohhhhhh here we go, just got my first call of the day, prime swarm 5ft up a hedge on the roadside of a quiet country lane............