Catching a Swarm

This morning before we left to go to Fargo for Harold's radiation, he noticed one of our hives had swarmed.   He tried earlier in the week to prevent the swarm by removing swarm cells, and dividing the hive, but it didn't quite work.  The hive swarmed anyway.   When a hive swarms, it takes the queen and almost 1/2 of the bees and they just fly somewhere and land on a branch of a tree and surround the queen.  This is their attempt to make a new hive.  We tried to use a vacuum system to retrieve the swarm, but didn't succeed and I got stung a few times in the scalp.  We couldn't do anything else about it because we had to leave, but when we got back from Fargo, Harold called our neighbor Josh who is also a beekeeper, and they tried to get the swarm out of the tree.   By the time they finished, it was almost 8:30 p.m. and so some of these photos might be a little dark.  But they got the swarm into a box and hopefully the queen is in there, too, and after a day or so we can put the bees into a new hive box.  Here are some photos of the challenge of trying to retrieve the swarm!   Never a dull moment when you are a beekeeper!   By the way, my head is fine now, but all afternoon I had a real sharp headache from the bee stings on the top of my head!

Here is the swarm in a tree branch.

After cutting the branch part way, Josh went up the ladder with a nuc box and Harold lowered the branch.

Josh carries the nuc box up the ladder

Josh brushes bees into the box while Harold holds the branch down.