What chance a swarm in August?

[rockdoc]

Just had an old brood box occupied by a reasonable sized swarm. The box had been left out in the garden ready for cleaning and, after 5 days of curiosity, this lot decided to call it home. If they came in yesterday (could have been Friday) I guess I'm on a deadline to get them to my out apiary which is just over a mile away before they orientate themselves. However, I'm interested to know how viable a swarm at this time of year might be? I know the sayings for June and July, is there one for August?

 

[oliver90owner]

The saying has nothing to do with viability. Purely economics.

 

[itma]

The sayings are to do with getting a crop off that skep, that same same year. Pretty irrelevant today.

They aren't going to give you a crop this year, but - with a little TLC - they should be able to get through winter without much trouble -- especially here in the 'mild' south, though you probably get more of the Arctic blasts than I do!

But if you have another understrength colony, you might see this as an opportunity to combine them and get a bigger more productive (and short-term more self-sufficient) unit.

 

[susbees]

The sayings are to do with getting a crop off that skep, that same same year. Pretty irrelevant today.

We had an apiary visit to a skep beekeeper yesterday...

 

[YorkshireBees]

I've collected 2 swarms in the last week!

The 1st last Sunday was actually more like a cut out as they had built 4-5 lovely natural combs 10ft up a tree!

The 2nd was a medium sized swarm at chest height taken from a bush on Friday.

Both are now housed in Polynucs in my back garden (which is acting as a temporary isolation apiary).

I'm happy to have them, I will monitor how they build up before making a decision to combine or overwinter them in the polynucs.

The 1st (cut-out) already had sealed and some emerged brood in the natural comb, so as long as I managed to fix it into the frames ok and assuming the queen is with them and un-damaged after my rescue attempt I have high hopes for them building up fast enough for winter!

 

[rockdoc]

My thoughts exactly ITMA. I do have an ailing colony, and I was going to simply place the swarm bb in its place and move the old bb some distance away and hope there is not too much fighting on the landing board when the flyers return to their old site. Then decant the remains of the old colony into a nuc as insurance.

 

[Queens59]

I had 2 swarm calls at home - and there was a swarm in the apiary while I was taking my Basic @ Buckfast...

 

[Mike a]

I have a colony which has been used this year by a film company, I hope to get the colony back which is currently in a skep some time in September so I can transfer them into a poly nuc ready for Winter.

Currently I've got colonies in the new forest collecting heather honey so I'll put to one side a few frames of sealed honey just for this colony to over winter on so effectively they will be shook swarmed at possibly the worst time of the year.

Just make sure your colony is able to build up as much as possible before you think about combining them, if they are a good size and they are well fed and treated hopefully they will come through Winter.

 

[BILL.HEARD]

Hive type Commercial 4 Supers, last years queen. Yesterday morning at 09:00.
Never had such a large swarm this late in the year.