Disclaimer:

This blog explains how I keep bees. It works for me, it might not work for you. Use my methods at your own risk. Always wear protective clothing and use a smoker when working bees.

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Hiving a swarm

I caught the swarm in a cedar tree. It was about 6 - 7 lbs of bees. I sprayed them with 1:1 sugar syrup to get their wings wet so they wouldn't fly as much. I put a 5 gallon pail underneath them, a sharp shake of the branch and most of them fell into the pail. Dumping them into the hive is easy. After doing this three times, I had captured most of the bees. Being they stayed in the hive, the queen must have been in the mass. The white towel under the bees in front of the hive helps them crawl inside. There was so many bees they all did not fit in the 5 frame nuc box. I put them in a deep hive body the next morning with some feed. At present they like their new home and seem to be staying put. I will add these to my weakest colony in about three weeks. The swarm queen will be killed off because I don't know how old she is. By then the swarm should have 4 -5 frames of brood and drawn out the 7 frames of foundation I put in with them.The new combined hive will be strong and will produce honey this year. Had I not added the swarm, the weak colony would not have given me any extra honey.
It was getting dark when I caught the swarm so the video quality is a little lame.