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Author Topic: trying to swarm?  (Read 1316 times)

Offline Carol

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trying to swarm?
« on: July 25, 2013, 12:59:10 pm »
Had a large orientation yesterday afternoon....this morning I thought they were orienting early but the bees just kept coming out and the air was full of circling bees....I read you could get a swarm to land low if you banged on a pan. Got my spoon and cake pan and started banging away....bees eventually started circling lower and lower and settled on the front of the hive...finally going inside.
Don't know if the banging pan had anything to do with it...but keeping it handy.

I was going to wait a few days before moving a frame of brood to the medium above it and pulling a couple frames of honey to make room for empty frames. I think they may have been back filling the brood nest as some have suggested. We were gone almost 6 wks and there was nothing new in the supers we'd put on and palms were starting to bloom when we left.

After the large flight this morning...should I just go in and get the rearranging done first thing tomorrow?  Or should I do it now...and not wait.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: trying to swarm?
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2013, 01:15:39 pm »
If you can, and the sky's are clear (Blue) I would do it now. Sometimes the bees will do that if they have a new queen going out to make her mating flights. I think they do it so that if there is a preditor in the area waiting for a nice, slow, plump queen, they saturate the area to protect her as she takes off.
I had it happen. Saw a warm start, I sat and waited until the queen came out and I caught her and put her in a nuc. The swarm would not follow her into the box. I added some bees to the nuc and then ended up with the original hive being queenless.

Look for capped queen cells while you are in there. Never destroy all of your Q cells. You will probably end up Q less.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Carol

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Re: trying to swarm?
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2013, 02:11:53 pm »
Clouding over...storm coming....if they were doing a "protect the Queen" flight...then they must have swarmed or lost their Queen while we were gone. Correct? Whatever it was...it was interesting...the air was full of bees. As I said....I don't know if the banging on the cake pan did anything or not....but they eventually all circled back down and settled on the hive....this is what it looked like as they started marching back in.


Offline iddee

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Re: trying to swarm?
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2013, 02:46:10 pm »
If you have an excluder on the hive, remove it until they are using the super, then put it back if desired. They hesitate to go through an excluder when there in only foundation above it.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline Carol

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Re: trying to swarm?
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2013, 02:56:23 pm »
no excluder....probably won't use one at all. The 1st super looked to be filled out but did not open it. Will do that tomorrow, and move some brood up into it. I want that to be brood chamber too.