Reluctant Swarm

[SteveJ]

Picked up a lovely big swarm last Sunday. Just about filled my skep. So ran them into a commercial hive. The all went in. Went back yesterday to put some feed on them. Hive was empty and all the bees where hanging on the front of the hive. Any thoughts on what's wrong and why they don't want to go in?

SteveJ

 

[YorkshireBees]

Old hive or new?
Onto foundation or old drawn comb?

Missing Queen?

I always use a used Poly Nuc for swarms (even large prime swarms) with a mix of roughly 50:50 frames of foundations and grotty old comb. Since I started using this combination I haven't lost a collected swarm once.

** If it's a large prime swarm they will need transferring to a full size hive after a few days or the queen will lay up every available frame and they swarm!**
(Only happened once but I learnt from it.

ps Using a skep or any other temporary container and running them into a hive is really nice but I don't have the time to do that so collecting them in a PolyNuc that I can just call round late in the evening closeup and move is my preferred method.

 

[SteveJ]

Old hive new foundation. This one wouldn't of fitted in a poly nuc.

SteveJ

 

[flytrapman]

Old hive new foundation. This one wouldn't of fitted in a poly nuc.

SteveJ

Like Yorkshire Bees I always use Poly Nucs for swarms, the ones I use are Paynes 6 frame 14 x 12 and if that isn't big enough I always have their Brood extensions with me which make them 12 frame

 

[YorkshireBees]

Old hive new foundation. This one wouldn't of fitted in a poly nuc.

SteveJ

Maybe they don't like just foundation. I always put at least one old frame in my box (of course it doesn't help if you dont have any old frames).

In terms of fitting a large swarms into a polynuc. I use a std. 6 frame (Paynes) box and have not come across a swarm that will not fit (at least for collection). The last one I collected was hung in a bush over 1m long. One of the largest I have collected fo quite a while and they were all crammed in the Polynuc when I went to collect in the evening.