Swarm Catching Fiasco!
Successful story time 😊
On Sunday, 5/30: I was walking my dog, Casey, around 6 p.m. and spotted this swarm about 60 feet away from the home apiary. At the apiary they had a deep with drawn comb available for occupancy but apparently decided not to use it.
The swarm was only about 5' above the ground and looked like a firm shake would drop them into a box. After taking Casey back to the house I went back to get the swarm and felt that the branch was a little too stout for a good shake. I decided to cut the branch slowly with a lopper so that it would slowly bend over and into a cardboard box. Good plan, but the branch snapped and fell, nicking the side of the box and tipping it on its side. About 25% of the bees landed in the box, and the rest landed in the long field grass. Now what?
I walked away to think about my next move, and decided it would be best to just leave them alone and maybe they would regroup and eventually decide to move into one of the swarm lures I had in the vicinity. I went back about 15 minutes later to see what they were up to and noticed several bees on the top of the box fanning, and bees were flying into the box. The queen was in the box? Lady Luck must have been in the area.
So I pushed the box down so it made good contact with the ground and shot this short video:
A most amazing thing! Streams of bees going to their queen. The majority of these bees had never been out of the hive before swarming and instinctively knew what to do. When I had collected the majority of the bees I poured them into a deep, and bees immediately started fanning to call their sisters home. In the meantime the air was filled with bees flying between the deep and the bees in the grass. They were also collecting on the tree. Within one hour there were no more bees in the grass or on the tree! The only bees in the area, around a dozen, were hovering and flying slowly over the grass. I presume they were emitting a pheromone trail so as to 'leave no bee behind'. Amazing!!
Hope you enjoyed it.
Gerard
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