W.H.A.T.
It looks like the swarm I captured is happy and is going the stay around. I removed the leafy branch today and added more frames to fill up the hive. I also did a quick inspection and saw a red marked queen, so I’m pretty sure they swarmed from my hive.
After this video I condensed them down into an 8 frame box with a screened bottom board, slatted rack, and an entrance reducer.
I caught my first-ever swarm today. I looked outside around 12:15 p.m. and there was a cloud of bees in a frenzy. I suited up and grabbed a 10 frame box and bottom board, 3 frames of comb, a sheet, and a 6-foot step ladder. I also found an empty 5-gallon bucket and my pole saw. I removed the saw end and attached the bucket.
Continue reading “It’s 2019 Swarming Season”Discovered today that our last hive did not make it through the winter, so we will order two new packages to start over this year. The bees we have been seeing were actually robber bees that we just stealing honey from the hive. You can see by the photo below that there was plenty of honey, but the cluster was too small too survive the winter.
