Swift Swarm Catching

At the community garden, our bees in one hive didn't make it. They actually dwindled and died before winter. I neglected them with my injured shoulder and they were a swarm that I installed last summer.

They probably came from a yard where the bees were treated and I don't treat my bees, so these bees may have not been able to survive without treatment. In addition, you never know about swarms. Since they didn't come from my bee yard, I can't rely on their genetics. Often swarms don't make it.

But that meant that I was one hive short at the community garden where like in all of my bee yards, I want to have two hives so one can serve as a resource if the other needs it.

So I was DELIGHTED when I got a swarm call from my bee club's swarm list. The swarm was in the yard of a beekeeper who did not have the equipment to keep them. They were described as being six feet off the ground and easy to get.

Now, the call came in at 2:15. The bees were 25 minutes from my house. I had to drive there, get the swarm, drive back to the community garden (25 minutes), install the bees, and get myself to a 4:15 doctor's appointment that is also 25 minutes away (more with the current state of Atlanta traffic due to the I-85 collapse). I had at least 1 1/2 hours of driving with little time to spare to collect the swarm or to install the swarm.

Everything had to run smoothly.

I arrived to find that the swarm was indeed just about six feet up or so.

I had brought my swarm catcher. Here's a photo of it from an earlier swarm catch in 2016.

For this swarm, described as six feet up, I didn't bring the painter's pole in the photo above, but rather brought a mop stick to screw into the swarm catcher. I didn't even use it - instead, I used the swarm catcher on its own. 

I spread the sheet I had brought under the swarm as quickly as possible. I took the swarm catcher and while the man whose bees these were bent the tree branch down, I jerked up on the swarm catcher and the bees fell into it. One more jab at the tree and I had the bees in the box I had brought.

Here you can see the bees in the box under the ventilated hive cover, the swarm catcher to the right, the bottle of sugar syrup which I had used to spray the swarm, my bee brush, and the yellow bungee cord set to secure the ventilated cover to the plastic box. The bees on the upper edge of the box are sending out Nasonov, letting me know that I have the queen.

The whole thing took ten minutes. There were many bees on the outside of the box, but I didn't have time to wait for them to find Mama. I wrapped the box, bees on the outside and all, in the sheet and raced for my car.

I drove the 25 minutes to the community garden. By the time I got there, at least 100 bees were gathered on my back window. I jumped out of the car, put on my veil and jacket, grabbed the bees and my bee brush and carried all of it up the hill to the hive. When I arrived, I could not pry the top off of the box!

I went in my veil to the car where there was no hive tool. What had I done? Cleaned out the car and moved the resident hive tool? ARGHHH. Leaving the bees, I jumped into the car and drove in my veil to my house about two blocks away. I ran into the house in my veil and down the stairs to the basement. As I headed for my bee kit to get the hive tool, I tripped over a box in my way that I couldn't see for the veil and landed smack on my hands and knees on the concrete floor. 

Note to self: Next time, take off the veil before going inside.

Hive tool in hand, I raced back to the garden, opened the hive and dumped in the bees. I grabbed the hive top, put it on solidly, and ran to the car. I got to the 4:15 appointment at 4:13 (with many bees still in the car). 

I didn't have a long doctor's appointment, but right after it I had to go babysit grandkids, so I hadn't been back in my neighborhood since I installed the swarm about 3:30. I was leaving town the next morning, so I stopped by the hive that evening just after dark around 9 PM. I could see bees on the entrance and felt good about it.

I came back to town on Monday and stopped by the other day to check on the hive. While there are bees flying in and out, the numbers don't compare to the overwintered hive which is booming (I know, I know, the robber screen is off and needs restapling. I'll do it when I'm over there on Sunday).

This was done in such haste and today I stopped back by to see how they had survived today's rain and horrors! I noticed that the hive is barely supported on one side. That's something to fix this weekend as well!

Don't know how it is barely on the corner of the cinder block, but that obviously will not do and both hives need entrance reducers.

Indeed it is SWARM season!

On Monday, my house is going to be all topsy-turvy as my kitchen renovation begins and for about six to eight weeks, I will be without the ability to cook at home - at least not as I am used to.  I have spent the last few days organizing and re-organizing to make ready for the big event.

I was walking out to take some recycling to the curb (result of all my cleaning/organizing) when a neighbor and great gardener, Hal, walked up.  "Fortunate that you are here," he said.  He sounds like the perfect Southern novel when he speaks.  He told me that there was a bee swarm just down the street and he wondered if I could come see it.

I was delighted and walked with him to the corner where there was a huge swarm on a branch about seven feet up in my neighbor's tree.  Scott, the neighbor, said the bees had just landed there about 10 minutes before.  I have all of my windows open and would have heard a swarm gathering in my yard if they were my bees, so I am pretty sure they came from somewhere else.

About two cats, I'd say.  I went home to get all my swarm catching gear:  sheet, spray container of sugar syrup, ladder, banker's box, ventilated hive cover, straps, bee brush, veil, jacket, old comb, my swarm catcher and mop handle.  I came back and up walked George Andl, a neighbor, beekeeper, and fellow blogger.  George wanted to help and went home to get his gear.

When he came back, I climbed the ladder and held the branch in one hand and the plastic banker's box in the other.  I shook the branch and most of the bees fell into the banker's box.  I used the water cooler bottle of my swarm catcher to gather most of the remaining bees.

I set the banker's box on the ground and the bees began nasanov emissions.  I assume that means I got the queen but a number of bees stayed on the tree branch, drawn, I suppose, to her pheromone.  I forgot to bring anything to cover the ventilated cover and make it dark in the box, so I just sort of wrapped the sheet up over the box.  Bees continued to go into it.

Since I literally live three houses away.  I didn't strap the top onto the box, but instead completely surrounded the box with sheet and gently lifted it into my car.  

When I got home, the bees were mostly clinging to the underside of the ventilated hive cover.  I poured the bees into a waiting hive box.

When I brought the bees home, there was a small clump still up in the tree.  I went back to Scott's house and put an old nuc box under the cluster.  I put in the nuc box the old comb that I had baited the banker's box with when I shook the swarm.  I thought that might smell like "mommy" to them.  I left the nuc box with the lid ajar and went to dinner.

As dark fell,  I returned to Scott's where all the bees had pretty much gone into the nuc box.  I brought it home and set it on the banker's box so that the entry to the nuc box faced the entry to the hive in which I had put the swarm.  In the morning perhaps the nuc bees will go home to mommy in the new hive box!

ANOTHER Swarm at Tom's

This morning I got a call from Tom - the second hive had swarmed!  He sent me these photos:

See it on the right, hanging from the cherry laurel.  About two cats, I'd say.  Here it is up close:

It was hanging on the same cherry laurel that the first swarm had chosen only this one picked a branch lower to the ground and about a foot closer to the hives!

Jeff met me and we put a sheet under the swarm.  I brought a plastic banker's box,

 a ventilated hive top cover and straps.

First I sprayed the swarm with sugar syrup.

It was close enough to the ground that we didn't need a ladder.  We just shook the branch and the bees fell into the banker's box.  We put the ventilated hive cover on it but the bees were accumulating on top of the screen.  Then we covered the screen with two hive drapes to give some closure to the feel of the box.

Over about 20 minutes, during which Gail, Tom's wife and a graduate of the short course, made us tea and brought it to us outside - how luscious - and what luxury - who gets tea during a swarm capture!!!

The bees were emitting nasanov at the entry to the box.

We strapped the banker's box and the ventilated cover together and I drove home.  I had to be at my office at 12:15 to meet an appointment and when I arrived at my house, it was 12:00.  I never even went into the house.  I went to the backyard, grabbed a bottom board, a slatted rack and a box of frames.  I put two drawn comb frames in the center and put the box together on stacked stones (had no cinder blocks).

I took an empty super to be a funnel and poured the bees into the hive.  Then I put the frames into the hive box.  I got a third box with frames in it and gradually put the frames from it into the empty hive box.  I threw an inner cover on the box and the telescoping cover.

I jumped into the car and drove to my office and got there at 12:20.  (My office is 5 minutes from my house).  Fastest install I have ever done.  I hope the bees do well.

I don't think I can put any more bees in my backyard.  I think six, even though one is weak and pitiful, is enough for a neighborhood where there are at least five beekeepers each within a block of my house.  The next two hives go into Jeff's yard.  I'm picking up two nucs from Buster's Bees on Friday night and we'll put them over there.  I have two more nucs coming that will go to the Morningside Community Garden.  

Then I have three nucs coming that I have not a clue where I will put them!  (I was pretty pessimistic at bee ordering time that I would have any hives survive the winter.)  Maybe I'll buy an electric fence ($$$$$$$$$) and put them in the mountains.

When I came home at 2:30, my yard was aswarm with bees.  All of the hives were sending out hoards of bees to gather and forage on the warm mid-April afternoon.  The new hive was orienting and working hard to claim their location.  It's going to be a good bee year!

Swarm at Tom's - Two Cat Size

Yesterday it rained in Atlanta and Tom texted me at about 1:30 PM when the sun was just occasionally breaking through, that the bees at his house were "going crazy."  He sent me this photo that he took of the front hive:

Sure looks like a swarm to me, but it also looks like a swarm that couldn't get the queen to come along so they are out and ready but needing her to join them.

I told him they might not swarm until tomorrow but they would keep trying to get the queen.  Later he reported that he came home to find the bees gone - definitely they had swarmed and left.  He didn't see them anywhere.  Later that day he saw them up in a large pine tree on the edge of his property.

As I drove up to N Georgia, he said the hive was going crazy again.  Bees were everywhere and appeared to be gathering on a tree at about chest height.  I told him I would get Jeff and come to his house at 4:30 as I drove back into Atlanta.

Jeff was already there when I arrived and they were discussing that the bees were no longer in the pine tree and the group consensus was that the bees had moved from the pine tree to the shrub on which they now hung.  It was a HUGE swarm - about the size of two cats and gathered around a branch that hung down.

We spread a sheet under it and put a nuc box (looked really inadequate but that's what I had) on the sheet under the swarm.  We had brought the huge water cooler swarm catcher bottle.  Jeff climbed a ladder and although I was going to hold the bottle, it worked better for him to do it, so he was really the swarm catcher par excellence.  

Jeff shook the branch and the swarm dropped into the nuc box.  We then had to shake the tree a couple more times.  I set the box onto the sheet again (one shake was directly into the box), and the bees began doing the nasonov butts in the air to let the other bees know the queen was in the box.  We put the nuc top on catty-corner, leaving openings for the bees to join Her Majesty and worked the other hive.  There were layers and layers of bees in this box.

Because this hive had swarmed, we wanted to make a split from the back hive.  The second hive was full of queen cells.  We took a couple of frames with good queen cells on them to make the nuc.  The hive was left with at least seven other queen cells that we saw.  It too was preparing to swarm.  

We have not been able to do good swarm control (ie, checkerboarding) because this hive was in a deep and a medium.  As a result you can't move frames in the checkerboard pattern because a deep frame can't move into a medium box.  We had given these bees all kinds of room but you can't argue with the Darwinian imperative to split and survive!  So we did our own split on the second hive.  They may still swarm.  I don't think they have already because we found a frame of eggs, indicating that the queen was probably laying today.  

We made our nuc (in a deep box) up of both deep and medium frames.  At worse they will make drone comb off of the bottom of the medium frames.  But one of the queen cells we took was on a deep.  

I'll cover installation in the next post.  You can see the capped queen cell near the rubber band and another queen cup with larva in it to the upper right.

Making a Homemade Swarm Trap

While wandering around various bee sites the other day, I found this post about how to build a swarm trap from two flower pots. The idea originally came from the Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping by Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer. I admire Dean and read his posts gladly when he posts on Beemaster.com.

At first I was defeated by the unavailability of these pressed fiber pots in Atlanta - that's right - in Atlanta. The big nurseries use them to pot their trees and rosebushes but are unwilling to sell them. I found everything else at my big box hardware store, but ended up ordering the pots online.

Jeff and I built three swarm traps today. The whole operation takes about 15 minutes, not counting the time it takes for the goop that you use to fill the holes to cure.

First we drilled two holes in the pot that would be the top to put a cable zip tie for hanging. I confess it took me several tries to find the right size drill bit, but once that choice was made, we were up and running. I threaded the cable zip through the holes from the inside, fastened it on the inside, and we had a handle/loop for hanging.

For bait I put two pieces of old comb into each swarm trap. I also smeared the inside with homemade swarm lure (a recipe I posted several years ago) and shook some lemon grass essential oil into it as well.

Then we put the two halves together and Jeff screwed them together with 1 1/4 inch screws.

Then we went out on the deck (Jeff and Valerie live in my old house where the bee hives used to be - if the area where we are looks familiar to you) and used this goopy stuff to fill all the drainage holes but one. The open hole is supposed to provide an entry for the swarm scouts (first) and then the bees.

Since I've caught a swarm on this deck every year since I began beekeeping, we thought we should hang one on the deck. Also if Colony Square does swarm, this might be a place they would go and I wouldn't lose my precious bees!

It was too cold to make another nuc today so we put off another foray into Colony Square for another few days.

I do hope at least one of the three traps draws a swarm.  I'm putting the other two in other places - one at my house and one at the Blue Heron.

Jeff and I decided that hanging this up is a little like fishing - you might not catch a thing, but the process is really fun!  If we do catch a swarm in one of these, we'll unscrew the four connecting screws and dump the bees into a real hive.