We knew that we needed to deal with the swarm today, because there’s only so far a few squirts of sugar water will go.
A call went in to Beez Kneez as soon as they opened at 10, and Jim suggested that it was Hive West that swarmed. I didn’t have enough data to back my theory that it’s not either of our hives, so I tabled that until we can do a full inspection.
As with everything else, there are a number of ways to handle a swarm. In any case, though, they need to be hived, even if only temporarily, so we needed to go up there and buy parts for a third hive. Kristi and I briefly considered buying a “Nuc” hive, which would have been significantly cheaper, but decided that having a full sized hive was going to be helpful when we needed to start swapping equipment around. We bought a new deep brood box, and 10 frames of black plastic foundation. We also bought a new hive entrance, cover, inner cover, a bit of extra wax, and a second deep box body (no frames) in case we want to put on the feeders.
We bought all the stuff unassembled, and I popped it all together with the air nailer once we got back to the shop (not before taking careful measurements of all the parts, though — they’re now stored in SketchUp for later perusal). We waxed up the frames, and prepared a site for the new hive. It’s over in the northern part of the Jungle area, about 15′ from the chicken coop.
We got in our gear, set up the hive, got the swarm box ready to go, and began the process of hiving the new swarm.
As soon as we opened the box, about 100 bees boiled out — I guess they didn’t like living in the dark. We started dousing the opening of the box with sugar water, and everyone calmed down a bit. I grabbed the branch, lifted out probably 3/4 of the bees with it, and gave it a good shake into the hive.
Hive North in the early stages.
I am pretty sure that one of the splat of bees that entered at that point was the queen, more on that in a bit. The bees got a little excited at that point, and the air was filled with about 1,000 bees making the “swarm” sound. Most of the bees were staying put where they got shaken; on the ground, in the hive box, all over my clothes, and some on the white sheet we’d laid out in front of the hive. We decided to leave well enough alone for a moment, and give everybody some time to calm down. At this point, about 40% of the swarm was inside the hive body, with 10% airborne, 10% wandering around on the ground (needed to tread carefully getting out of there), and 40% still on the branch/in the box.
We regrouped, added the rest of the frames to the hive, got a camera, and started taking photos of the hiving-in-progress. I shook the branch again over the hive box, dislodging another big clump of bees into their new home,
Action shot! Note the number of bees on the top of the hive box, versus the number on the branch.
In mid-shake, you can see some bees being actively dislodged onto the top of the hive.
Check out the branch, it’s mostly empty at this point, with a ton of new bees on top of the hive.
and then I moved to shaking the branch over the sheet, so I could make some progress without worrying about whacking the bees already inside the hive. This got everybody excited again, and the air was filled with buzzing. I dumped the cardboard box out onto the sheet, and tried to leave the branch in a place where bees could climb up it into the hive. At this point, there was a huge beard of bees on the front and side of the hive, strong evidence that the queen was inside. Bees were trooping up the sides and in through the entrance fairly quickly. I would say that 80% of the bees were touching the hive body in some way at this point, with a large group still on the sheet, fumbling around on the ground, or airborne. I decided to leave them alone again, and work on feeding the chickens.
I fed and watered the chickens, and by the time I’d finished, the branch was empty enough that I put it on top of the cardboard box so I could see the sheet clearly; there were maybe 50 bees still on the sheet, a couple dozen more still on the the branch, and about 100 flying around. I was able to see bees fanning their wings near the openings of the hive, to get the smell out that the queen was in residence. I took this as a cue to close the hive up and let the girls get to work on their new home. I carefully slid on the inner cover, then put the empty deep body on top of that (in case we want to put on feeders, otherwise we’ll probably remove it), and the outer cover above that. At this point, it looked like a beehive. There was still a bit of beard, and bees trooping in, but things seemed pretty under control at this point.
There have been a few (maybe 100?) straggler bees flying near the tree where we’d originally found the swarm. I was a little worried about them, but hey, we got the queen, so they will either figure it out or die.
After dinner, the whole family went out to take a look at new Hive North, and the beard was gone. There were essentially zero bees on the sheet (maybe 3 that were still moving, and 10 dead? This is about the same as are in front of any of the hives on any given day), all the bees were gone off the branch and from the cardboard box, there were no scouts in the air, and the hive was not making the swarm buzz noise anymore. I think they’ve settled in! We even checked the stragglers in the tree, and there were only about 3 bees flying around — I think they found the hive, too.
In all, I’m really proud of our accomplishment. Kristi and I captured and hived a bee swarm! It’s something that you never would have even considered trying 6 months ago, and we just walked through the steps, and got it done.
Welcome, Hive North. Our best wishes are with you. I hope to figure out where you came from.