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Our sign in peace

Our sign in peace
Our sign in peace

Thursday, May 15, 2014

'Tis swarm season...

 It is that time of year, honeybee swarm season! We have been holding strong keeping them from swarming, making splits, pulling queen cells to help a hive that was not "queen right", but to no avail, they still swarmed!
With a special swarm attractant wipe, I went to work preparing a "swarm trap". These wipes have worked for me in the past.
 Using a contraption I have used in the past I fashioned my swarm trap, put it in a bush and hoped to catch my bees...and guess what? I did not! I watched for a little bit and about 1000 bees (which is not much) began to swarm and then flew away, but it was a very small swarm!
 But then I got a call! There was a call into a local animal control that a woman had a swarm in her back yard. I went and found this monster huge swarm! This swarm was about 20 times of the one I lost.
 I rushed home, got my equipment and ran back for the swarm. With the woman's pool skimmer I dropped the swarm into the nuc box and hoped I had the queen in there. It was evening so I left the hive there until the next morning.

 When I returned the next day, all the bees were in the nuc hive! The queen was in there along with about 20,000 bees! The size of a bee package!
 I taped up the box and went home with my newly caught hive! Nothing like free bees to make a beekeepers day!!!

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