Swarm pictures.

[Anonymous]

Pictures of a swarm I helped Bob with. Excuse the pictures they were taken with film and scanned. I'llfigure out a way to crop the unused stuff latter.

Twenty feet or there abouts in a oak tree.





Moving into the deep with frames of drawn comb sprayed with honey. About half are still on the limb. They have made 9 frames of cut comb honey in 3 weeks.





 :D Al

[Anonymous]

Bob's bee yard June the 12th.



Bob's bee yard Jume 18th. Note the bearding.



About a hour latter after the above picture was taken.



The tub is full of gravel andf water. It is the bees water sourse.
Bob was able to draw them into a new deep hive.
 


 :D Al

[Anonymous]

A swarm Bob captured on the 28th of June. He had forgot he had the camera in his pick up till the last miniute.



 :D Al

[buzz]

Great pictures! What did you use to get it down from 20 feet?

[Anonymous]

We used an extention pole with a clamp mounted on one end where we used a couple of different hooks to get ropes over the branch without stirring the bees up. Once we had the rope fastened to the limb the bees were on we ran it over a limb above them then I held the rope while Bob sawed the limb off with his extention pole pruning saw enought to allow the limb to swing down. Then we took a break to allow the bees to settle down again from the swing. Then Bob finished sawing the branch off, installed a different hook to the pole, hooked the branch pulling it away from the ones below it as I played out the rope lowering it to the waiting hive body.

 :D Al

[Agility Mom]

I'm begining to get the picture now. Pretty ingenious. What kind of hooks are you using to get the rope over the limbs? How do you tighten the clamp?

[Anonymous]

The hooks are fashioned from 1/4 inch mild steel round stock. For lifting the rope over the limb the hook looks like an upside down J with a right side up J welded to it. Imagian a J then a upside down one welded to the bottom part. I forgot to say that the rope does have a weight tied on to help pull it down once it is over the limb.
The hook to pull the limb away from the lower branchs is juat a J made the same as above.
The clamp is one of those big steel spring clamps sold at Lowe's and used mostly by wood workers to clamp glue joints together. So each time you want to change a hook you have to bring the pole down anyway so a quick squeese does the trick.
 :D Al

[Agility Mom]

Thanks, Al. I find this swarm catching fascinating. Wish I lived closer to Michigan so I could tag along to see you guys work.

I'm going to show your answer and other descriptions to my husband. Maybe we can rig something up, too, to get any high swarms  we have.

[mick]

Loved the pics Bob. I counted 14 hives in one of those pics in to me what seems a small space but I know nothing. Its cool how they all get along and know where to go etc.

If I ever win the lottery I reckon Ill get into honey full time, lots of sitting around and watching sounds good to me.

[akarlovic]

more...
http://www.pcelarstvo.hr/index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=71&catid=5&PageNo=1

[buzzbeejr]

thats a lot of bees and beehives!!!! :shock:

[mick]

I love swarm pics, I have my open for one!

[Kirk-o]

It looks like you know what you are doing
kirko