First Swarm

[steveouk]

Caught my first swarm today. as i was leaving work i noticed a swarm on a tree, after getting my stuff headed back to the site and they was still there. Maintenance had said you can have the bee's just dont damage the tree's. Not sure if i got the queen , so not to sure how to proceeded. i was thinking of either putting a frame of brood in from another hive or  combining them with one of my other hives. if i combine i was thinking of putting a queen excluder between the two boxes and a sheet of news paper and make a top entrance. What do you guys think ?

[Moonshae]

If the bees didn't fly back out of your box back to the branch, you probably got the queen.

[SystemShark]

Grats on your first swarm! I'm having a blast with the swarm calls these past few days. Nice that you found one tho, I'm always looking in trees as I drive/walk around.

Thats an interesting methood of combining. At some point do you remove the newspaper but keep the queen excluder? Do the other bees get along even tho they are from two different colonies? With all the swarm calls I've been getting I'm running out of bottom/top boards (and space ^^). So if I can slap a queen excluder on and newspaper that would sure help, maybe prop the top open as the entrance.

Anyway grats again!

[steveouk]

the bees will chew the newspaper, but by the time they do they will have got used to each other, well thats the theory

[JP]

Caught my first swarm today. as i was leaving work i noticed a swarm on a tree, after getting my stuff headed back to the site and they was still there. Maintenance had said you can have the bee's just dont damage the tree's. Not sure if i got the queen , so not to sure how to proceeded. i was thinking of either putting a frame of brood in from another hive or  combining them with one of my other hives. if i combine i was thinking of putting a queen excluder between the two boxes and a sheet of news paper and make a top entrance. What do you guys think ?

I think I would try and find the queen. With your idea you could wind up with a two queen hive that will build major numbers. I just don't like excluders, an includer in your case.

...JP