No one could be found!!!

[merylvingien]

Well bugger my old boots, i picked up a chuffing great swarm yesterday evening, and with only one spare brood box left i decided that these were to be given away.
This morning phoning around to find a suitable home, no one was in or phone numbers could not be found. It got to 11.30 and i thought sod it. Took me over an hour to push them all into the box.

 

[terryme]

wish I lived closer *sigh* there are no flippin swarms round here!

 

[Queens59]

Swarms here are tiny -- casts over 2ish frames!! Knew I lived in the wrong place...

 

[merylvingien]

I picked up a tiny weeny swarm last weekend, took a quick peek today and they are going great guns, one frame of foundation drawn with eggs, 3/4 of an empty frame drawn with natural comb and another side of foundation starting to be drawn, which condidering the size of the swarm is pretty impressive.

I am doing some experiments by placing foundation then an empty frame, foundation and empty frame. Seems to be working well so far, touch wood.

 

[oliver90owner]

Your experiment may go well with a swarm, but could end up as a mess of brace comb.

Better to draw as narrow as practicable (12 frames in a National) initially and space them out later as they start to be drawn.

Regards, RAB

 

[simonf]

not heard of any swarms up here yet

 

[Silly Bee]

Collected another swarm yesterday in a pear tree on my alottment.

Someone close to me must be on holiday or something, it's my third in about 3 weeks.

I have two bait hives on the plot, I must be using the wrong aftershave in them, two have settled almost midway between them.

 

[Mike a]

Collected a good size swarm on Sat 23rd April in a 6 frame lang deep nuc with all new undrawn frames. Since then I've just left them to it as I've been busy with other things. Today I thought I ought to lift the lid just to see how they were doing.

Much to my surprise all six frames drawn out wall to wall, 4 of which are completely full with nectar and small patches of pollen, the last two are half full of brood almost across the full length of the frame and topped by capped honey. As well as 7 swarm cells very close to being capped as they are honey bound, so much so that they have build comb on the inner side wall and part filled it with excess nectar. 30 minutes later I've rushed home to pick up a full size brood chamber and transferred them over and added 4 new undrawn frames checker boarding the brood nest frames as well as adding a super. Should of known better than ignore them for so long, just hoping they won't swarm in the next two - three days after I knocked down all the queen cells.

 

[PaleoPerson]

I am doing some experiments by placing foundation then an empty frame, foundation and empty frame. Seems to be working well so far, touch wood.

I have been trying this method this year in my supers with very good results. It would appear to work a lot better than foundation or fully drawn comb only. The colonies I have given fully drawn comb to have not done as well.

Do not understand why yet though.

 

[Worldsend]

South Central Hampshire loads of swarms here


Also many calls re mining bees and bird boxes full of bumble bees!!

 

[louiseww]

I picked up a tiny weeny swarm last weekend, took a quick peek today and they are going great guns, one frame of foundation drawn with eggs, 3/4 of an empty frame drawn with natural comb and another side of foundation starting to be drawn, which condidering the size of the swarm is pretty impressive.

I am doing some experiments by placing foundation then an empty frame, foundation and empty frame. Seems to be working well so far, touch wood.

Do you mean that you are leaving an empty frame between each one with foundation? Are you putting any melted wax at the top of the frame and are you leaving in the bottom runner? Is this brood or super? I had been wondering about trying something like this so would be interested to know more detail.
Thanks
Louise

 

[merylvingien]

Do you mean that you are leaving an empty frame between each one with foundation? Are you putting any melted wax at the top of the frame and are you leaving in the bottom runner? Is this brood or super? I had been wondering about trying something like this so would be interested to know more detail.
Thanks
Louise

Thats exactly what i am doing. I havent put any wax at the top of the empty frames, it doesnt appear to make any difference.
I am using commercial brood boxes, so the frames are fairly large. Only concern is lack of wire reinforcement. But if i handle with care i think it will be ok.
My main reason for this is to allow the bees to build natural size cells in an effort to reduce varroa.
Note this is just a trial and if it does not work out then i will revert back to foundation, but if it works ok then no more foundation for me in brood boxes.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm