Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Moots on December 03, 2013, 09:47:42 pm
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Digging through some old pictures today and came across this one from March of 2004 snapped in my front yard....First and only swarm i ever saw before getting heavily involved in the hobby this year.
They were probably about 15 feet, I called around but the Beekeeper I found was obviously ladder averse. :laugh: He advise me just to leave them alone and they'd go away, which they did.
If only I had known then what I know now... :-D
(http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s664/jeffrobert41183/Bees/0B4B5E9A-12B4-4733-87DA-6D8CDB40A139_zpsqbv9fa0g.jpg)
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that's funny. :-D you must not have been ready.
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Man, that's pretty. Looks like they are covering a flower pot or something.
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Kathy,
I was so clueless as to what I was witnessing, "funny" doesn't even begin to describe it. :laugh:
GSF,
While I was clueless, I do remember being quite impressed with the whole ordeal...And as swarms go, in hindsight, it was a pretty darn nice one! :)
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There was two big swarms this year that got away. One flew off when I was about 15 yards from them, the other was in the top of a pine tree. But we can't complain over what we didn't do or catch, just chalk it up to
wasn't meant to bee. And catch the next one. Good luck to you and your bees.
Joe
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Funny, I had a somewhat similar experience some years back too. I had a swarm move in and establish underneath the cover on the bbq, I just hit them with the fly spray until they didn't respond anymore. I kind of regret doing it now :oops:, but I hadn't considered beekeeping back then.
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Talk about 'the one that got away'!
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Yesterday my husband and I were discussing our plans for the spring, equipment that we need to purchase or build, what our goals are, etc., and he suddenly said, "I wish we had started this years ago." We've been on our property 8 years and we are just now beginning our bee adventure. But what makes it worse is that we have had at least 2 swarms come through every year and land in the same tree. If we knew then, what we know now we would have easily collected them and been in business.
Oh well, better late than never. :-\
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Nice swarm!
However, I have found out that everything happens for a reason :-D
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JanO, at least you know where to put a swarm trap.
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Maybee that swarm was there to plant a seed in your mind.
It took a little while to germinate ;)
mvh Edward :-P
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Its only wasted time if you've learned nothing or done nothing.
Obviously you have learned and done many things over those years, no?
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Probably about the same time you saw these bees, maybe a little earlier, I had a subcontractor doing some work on a scaffold in an four unit apartment building. He kept getting stung be bees to the point where something had to be done so he could continue.
We knew the bees were in the attic. I tried to find people to come and help us to no avail. That sort of amazes me now that I know what I have learned in the past year about bees and beekeepers. I never thought to seek out a beekeeping association and locate someone who would come and capture the hive. The owner's son-in-law finally went up into the attic after dark and killed the entire hive with spray. I never took a look and didn't ask him how large the hive was.
It hurts me to think of that now. We just didn't know any better.
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JanO, at least you know where to put a swarm trap.
Oh, that's for sure. :) I'll be putting a trap in that tree before the end of March.
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Mothers-day weekend last May (2013) was when I saw my first swarm (at least since I was a young child and my dad kept bees) It sparked my whole interest in keeping bees. Couple that experience with what I had heard about the recent plight of the honey bees on the news and interwebs..... here I am now. Can't wait till spring!!!!
What prompted you to start keeping bees, if you do not mind me asking?
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What prompted you to start keeping bees, if you do not mind me asking?
Variable,
Don't mind at all, kind of funny/strange the way it actually came about.
In the closing days of October last year, I was playing on Facebook and had jumped into a political discussion on the page of a good friend of mines wife. One of her friends, some guy i didn't even know, and I were having a pretty good back and forth, and not quite seeing eye to eye. :-D
So at some point, I remember thinking, "let me see who this clown is..." :), So I clicked on over to his Facebook page. And there it was, some photos of him and his wife doing their honey harvest.
I can't really explain it, but at that moment, within seconds, it hit me like a ton of bricks...Kind of a cross between, "I bet that would be interesting" and "I think I'm going to do that". :laugh:
Figured it might be a great hobby for me and my little nephew that lives right next door, he and his step dad had done a number of animal related hobbies which he enjoyed....(chickens, ducks, goats, etc.)
So, within minutes, wanting to run the idea by my brother in law, before mentioning it to my nephew, I shot him a text floating the idea, to which he was fully supportive.
At that point, I started researching bees heavily, In addition to the internet and local bee clubs, I decided to travel about 5 hours to attend the State Beekeepers annual convention which was November 30th and December 1st of that year. On December 2nd, I was back home and at Home Depot buying boards to start building my boxes. By January 15th, I was the proud owner of two Nucs.
And as they say, the rest is history.....