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Author Topic: swarm season here  (Read 11186 times)

Offline danno

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swarm season here
« on: April 17, 2012, 01:51:50 pm »
Got a call on a swarm yesterday afternoon.  First of the year.   Imagine my suprise when I got there and there was a 2nd one just alittle ways away. 

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2012, 08:43:34 am »
Swarm season started here this week with my bees leaving on me. Be sure you have a look at all of yours to check for cells. That one was some of my best bees. I'm angry off at myself about it.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2012, 10:04:19 am by tefer2 »

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2012, 08:52:58 am »
I am going to start supering this weekend.   

Offline Joe D

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2012, 07:14:11 pm »


Danno, I need some of them bees.  Catch them on Monday and putting on supers the next weekend.  Ha Ha  Yep have had some of my bees to fly off.  Good luck with all of yours.

Joe

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2012, 08:49:48 am »
I have about 40 colonies with 3/4 of them boiling over.  If I dont get queens soon I will be in trouble

Offline greenbtree

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2012, 11:57:14 am »
I've already had to super some hives.  Flip side, I have one I WANT to start making queen cells that is being stubborn.  I don't see how they can even walk in there, it is so crowded.  Patience.... they will when they want to, I guess.

JC
"Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken, or life about to end.  No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend, like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again!"

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2012, 11:49:11 am »
shook swarm #3 last night.  So far I lost one of mine (that I know about) but the 3 I caught were not from my colonies so I'm plus 2

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2012, 12:19:38 pm »
My queens are late coming too. I ended up doing my splits last weekend. They will just have to raise their own till my load gets here. Lost three to swarms already. Supered the rest and have been pulling frames out to make room. Hard frost coming tonight again. I like the normal spring better than this crap. :(
« Last Edit: April 26, 2012, 09:32:56 pm by tefer2 »

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2012, 12:28:56 pm »
danno, almost forgot. Don't just super, you need to look at them for swarm cells first. Just adding supers is how I lost the three. They had enough cells built to requeen half my group. Out of nucs now.

Offline Joe D

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2012, 01:00:39 pm »
Yes you will need to look for swarm cells, sunday a week ago I had 3 hives this past sunday I had 9.  Had 6 good size swarms from mine in 1 week, did catch them.  But running out of boxs.  Last saturday nite was local bee club meeting, a 82 year old beek there had lost his bees so I gave him 2 swarms.  Good luck with yours.

Joe

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2012, 03:11:11 pm »
Our weather has just sucked.  Right now its cloudy 42 deg and gust in the 30MPh range.  This is almost been the norm with about 1 day a week nice enough to look through monster colonies without getting mauled.   Last night I shook that swarm in the rain.    I know I have a bunch of swarm cells.  I want to split this weekend and queens should be here about tues. I have a bunch of empty nucs and will stock them with frames with cells.   

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2012, 09:28:45 pm »
I didn't have a choice. It was do something cause they were leaving town. I just dug out my suit and went to work.
I never wear the thing and it's still white colored. Using less smoker makes finding the queen less difficult.
After the first few, went smokeless and just let them bounce off of me.  :-D

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #12 on: April 27, 2012, 09:48:01 am »
well my queens are being shipped from HI on Monday so I should be getting them on Thurs.  Not a moment to soon.   Terry I was in GR last week and have to say that the 90 miles you guys are south of me is a huge difference in weather.  Living on Lake Michigan always put us at least a week behind you guys.   I think I should be ok

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #13 on: April 27, 2012, 10:27:23 am »
I've been behind in my keeping for a few weeks now. We normally have queens when we do splits. This will make more work for me this way. I'm shopping for lumber to build more nucs today. I'll need somewhere to put the queens they are making on there own. Still waiting for the pick them up call.

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #14 on: April 28, 2012, 11:10:04 am »
I caught swarm #4 last night.   This one came from one of mine and was the size of 2 basketballs.

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2012, 11:43:16 am »
danno, got your message, I have not caught one swarm yet. The pollinator down the road only brought back 100 nucs instead of full size hives this spring. He was the main source for my spring swarms. Guess he got tired of losing bees and figured it out. I have traps at numerous places that have caught swarms in the past.
Dandelions are about done for the season down here.

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2012, 04:33:54 pm »
New yard is set up with 5 pallets in place.   Weed wacking is done. Trailer is loaded with split boxes.  Tues split the hives with 3 or 4 frames each.  Set up new yard and replacments in old yards late tuesday and Friday queens will be here from HI.     

Offline tefer2

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #17 on: April 30, 2012, 10:03:08 pm »
Well, sounds like the real bee work is about to begin for ya danno! I worked my tail off digging through mine. Hard work throwing boxes around, but fun at same time. Won't be many from my groups thinking about leaving for a while now.

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #18 on: May 01, 2012, 08:51:44 am »
I wanted to be quick and organized doing splits so I bought thumb tacks and pressed them in the frames that come out of the split boxes.  Had second thoughts though.  I'm going to the new yard 1st today and placing hive bodies on all the pallets then filling them with   frames leaving the center empty.  This will cut down on the lifting.   It nice to have a extra hundred hive bodies laying around.   Caught another swarm last night.  Basket ball size.  This one was in a pine tree about 30+ ft up.   I was about 2 ft short with my paint pole and bucket setup so got a step ladder.  Thats #5 and the traps have not even started working yet

Offline danno

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Re: swarm season here
« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2012, 10:27:23 am »
Splits are finished on the only sunny day this week.   This is the last year I'm doing splits with 10 frame boxes.  It was a motrin evening!!!   I have almost enough nuc's to do my yearly splits but end up using to many for swarm traps.  For next year I will build enough luan swarm traps that I dont need nuc's.   Also will make sure I have 24 nuc's ready for splits.  Only found queen cells in one colony. 

 

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