'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!!!