This morning as Harold walked out into the yard to do chores, he heard a loud buzzing of bees, which is usually the sound of a swarm happening! Sure enough - the bees from one of our hives swarmed high into a tree not far from the bee yard. He could see the swarm gathering around the queen bee in a tall tree. So Harold got into his tractor/loader and drove it into the woods behind the tree, and lifted up the bucket. Then he got a ladder to get up there, and prepared a 'swarm box', which is a smaller bee hive box with a few frames in it and a special ventilated lid that fits securely over the box. We managed to save the swarm and I am documenting the whole morning's work in pictures below. Later this afternoon or evening, we will carefully carry the hive onto the pickup truck, cover it with a tarp, and drive the hive to a friend's farm about 10 miles away. You must carry swarms more than 3 miles away from where they swarmed, or else they will go right back to the same spot. You cannot put them back into the hive they originally swarmed from. Hives are expensive, and we certainly don't want to lose any of them!
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| Here is the swarm in the tree - the bees are all gathered around their queen. |
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| A swarm box and lid. You can see that it is smaller than regular sized hive boxes. There is a screen in the lid section for ventilation. We build our own hive boxes and swarm boxes and supers. |
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| Harold begins to climb the ladder to where the bees are. It was too hot to wear a full bee suit, but he did put on a bee veil! The bees did not swarm in a really good spot either, as it was located in trees behind where we have a couple old cars parked. Harold had to maneuver the tractor behind everything by driving through the woods. |
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| Getting closer to the swarm! |
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| Harold begins to cut off smaller branches around the swarm. |
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| He now cuts off the branch that the swarm is on . |
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| While bringing the branch down the ladder, it brushes against other branches and the bees scatter! Fortunately the queen had not left yet! |
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| Harold sat on top of the loader for about 5 minutes while the bees re-assembled around the queen. |
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| He begins carrying the big branch of bees down the ladder. |
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| Almost there!! |
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| The swarm is then shaken over the swarm box in one swift action to dump the bees into the box. The lid is quickly put on. |
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| The swarm is now in the swarm box. |
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| The swarm box full of bees was placed on a flat pile of logs in front of the loader. There are still many bees in the air, and they will eventually go to the swarm box and hang on the sides. |
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| The swarm of bees has been re-captured! Success! |
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Later this evening when it is cooler, and all the swarmed bees are around the box, Harold will gently tarp it and put it in the truck and haul it off to our friend's farm. Over the years our friend Joe has graciously allowed many swarm boxes to be delivered to his yard for safekeeping. We check on these hives, in addition to the ones in our back yard, from time to time and add supers as needed. This basically gives us two "bee yards". When a hive costs about $130 you certainly don't want to lose one. Bees just naturally swarm - it's what bees do - a survival tactic for them. If we can catch them, it doubles OUR hives.
There's an old saying that goes like this:
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July isn't worth a fly
(not sure what a swarm in August is worth, the poem doesn't say, but it must be worth a lot less than a fly?)
After all this Harold needed a rest and a reward - there's a pan of cinnamon rolls rising in the kitchen as I write this! Good job Harold!
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