I've only done one other removal this year, my first cut-out, which I detailed back in March/April. We had a cold snap and those bees simply did not have enough to cluster and died out.
Oh well.
Its was a crappy Mother's Day today. Low 60s upper 50s, rain and some breeze, no sun at all. I get a call from a guy about 20 minutes away up in Ross, Ohio. He has a swarm in his tree, a foot of the ground and could I come to get it? Internet works well in getting your name out. He found me on a website and called me. Decided to do that rather than spray. It was about Noon and I headed out.
Well, they are not going anywhere its cold and nasty and raining off and on. They are actually starting to apply the first bit of wax onto a section of branches directly in the middle of the cluster.
They were huddling as close as they could to each other to warm the cluster. I squirted them with some sugar water, shook the few out that were on small branches and then sort of just dug into the cluster, knocking them to the ground. I gave them a chance to calm down and then started looking for the queen. Where's Waldo? There were easily 4 to 5 thousand bees and happened to nab her. I placed her in the box put the lid on and placed the box about a foot from the base of the tree and began working the bees down. Once they were grounded they started their walk to the opening of the box. I got all but a couple dozen stragglers. I taped up the box smoked the random fliers and got the box to the car without loose bees getting in the way.
The Husband hung out with me the whole time (I had given him my extra jacket) and one of their sons made a pipe cleaner bee for me...pretty darn cool if I do say so.
I got the bees back to the farm around 3:30 and released the queen after getting the frames together (I was already pretty much set up). I included 3 frames of drawn older comb packed with honey and granulated honey. I only have 4 hive top feeders and nothing to put syrup in to feed so I hope the frames will fill the gap for right now. I'll let them sit and relax for a week before I check in on them to see if the queen has bulked up and is laying eggs.
THe weather is crappy so I decided to just go with a reduced entrance. I was going to use one of those "mouse guards" that uses the queen excluders to keep her in, but I figure that I just gave them some soooo MUCH better than freezing to death in the rain that they should calm down and get into the grove. Its not like they are going anywhere. More rain later today and part of tomorrow.
Some pictures:
Queen
The Gift
Topic: First Swarm Call (Read 3584 times)