I caught a swarm! And it's still here.

[Duane]

Three days ago, I saw a swarm hanging in a tree near my boxes.  I had wanted to see them march in, but after laying it near the entrance, some went in, but mostly stayed out.  It was storming that night, and in the morning they were all in.  I had empty frames except for one moth riddled frame I put in the center.  Today I looked in and they had mostly filled an adjacent frame with comb.

Wondering where it came from, and noticing my best box nearby seemed to have less bees hanging out on the side, I looked in and found no eggs, honey everywhere there wasn't brood, and sure enough, several queen cells and about three had hatched out.

This was a box that I noticed was filling up and so added an empty box of frames.  Remembering my past experience, I moved a frame of brood up.  The brood hatched out and they filled it with honey.  They had started comb next to it, but really didn't draw any out.  Not sure what to do, but I kept checking and they still had space.  And this at the best of our flow.  Obviously, my thought at the time was something needed to be done.  I had added the empty box about a month ago.  Now, the swarm, which didn't draw in their box, is drawing like crazy.  What should I have done?

And now, I'm concerned about two other boxes.  They still have eggs, but they seem to be filling the brood area with honey instead of drawing frames above them.  One box has gobs of bees hanging outside it.  And this is one where I was also noticing issues and placed an empty box of frames above the brood with their honey box above that.  I placed empty frames among the brood, but instead of drawing them, they made the side frames thicker.  (The box that just swarmed did the same and one had comb about three inches across!)

One of my nucs does not seem to have many bees.  Is there a way to take those bees hanging outside the one box and combine them with the small nuc?  A newspaper combine or something?  I'm not sure what "backfilling the brood box" means, but if this is an example of it, what do you do when you notice it?

[cao]

Obviously, my thought at the time was something needed to be done.  I had added the empty box about a month ago.  Now, the swarm, which didn't draw in their box, is drawing like crazy.  What should I have done?

Probably exactly what you did.  Maybe a little sooner.  They were probably preparing to swarm when you added the empty box. 

And now, I'm concerned about two other boxes. 

They may be doing the same as your first one.  If they are, the only way I know of to prevent them from swarming is to split them by removing the queen along with enough bees to simulate a swarm.

[BeeMaster2]

Duane,
Before my observation hive swarms, they create a large ball of bees out side of the entrance. This year I used a beevac to collect up the bearded bees and took a weak hive that had swarmed 3 times, and moved it to a friends house, 8 miles away. I added the bees from the beevac. They are now a strong double medium hive.
The observation hive had 4 drawn (brood filled) frames in the top of the hive and 4 empty frames in the bottom. This is after I removed a very strong queen and 4 frames of solid brood and moved fed to a full sized hive.   I added 2 drawn frames, each next to an empty frame, in the bottom of the hive. This was enough to stop the swarm. They have now drawn and filled the frames with brood. When they start bearding, I will watch for queen cells and split this hive in half and move this strong queen to a full hive and let them start over.
If you have some drawn frames, insert them above the brood box to give them a starting point to work. This will probably move the bearded bees back inside the hive. If not too late, it will stop the swarm mode. If you have queen cells, split the hive and move the queen to the new hive.
Jim

[Duane]

Ok, so maybe I should have done it a little sooner.  Maybe this is where the "art" portion comes in, or the intuition.  That is, I thought they should be behaving a little different, and that is the time to do something.  I find this like a balancing act.  The bees want to reproduce, and I have to stop them.  But not too soon, but soon enough.  I shouldn't mess up their brood area all the time, but yet some of the time or they are going to swarm.  Guess that's where experience comes in.

So what exactly is this "back filling" process?  They need some honey next to the brood, but how do you determine there is becoming too much?  Is it just a feeling, 'I think there's too much'?

When you used the bee vac to add to the hive you moved away, what about fighting, what portion of new bees to the weak hive?  I'm just thinking of a past question about trying to merge too many to too few.

I don't have any empty drawn frames.  I have some partial frames, but the box I'm concerned about also has some partial frames in the brood area they're not completing.  The bees that beard outside, are they nurse bees or worker bees?  Or a mix?  Any way to move them within the bee yard?  What about my newspaper combine, any ever tried that before?  I don't want to redo something that doesn't work.   And, would it stop them from swarming if they haven't started queen cells, and would it be helpful to the weaker box or would they just beard outside it?

If no one has done a newspaper combine with bearding bees, what would I need to do?  I could put a screen top on a box so they don't overheat.  Do they need water or honey?  Without a bee vac, any ideas of how to get them in a box?  I could easily use a plastic container and place them in it and put a lid on, but then what.  A box with a bottom gets heavy to juggle and then you have to remove the bottom to place them on the other box.

[Duane]

I noticed last night, with the cooler weather, they were all in the box.

This morning I correct that statement to say they were not hanging on the outside of the box.

Too late.  I heard this noise while I was getting ready to go through the box and guess at what to do.  I wasn't sure it was bees or the wind.  Then I saw this mass of bees flying through the air, waving their tiny hands at me with a smile on their faces as they headed off towards to northwest, never to be seen again.....

I went through the box, found several capped queen cells.  Cells I didn't see just a week ago.  I'm noticing that the bees seem to cluster over the cells and move around on them with greater activity than elsewhere.  A week ago, I didn't expect to see any, and didn't.  Today I expected to see some, and did.

So, I'm thinking that first of May, I was noticing it wasn't how I thought it should be.  I kept trying to get them to make new comb like other boxes in the past, instead of adding honey to the brood area.  And seeing that great glob of bees out front was another thing that I didn't think should be.  (Or by me trying to get them to move up to the next box caused them to have too many bees and therefore swarm?)

I think I'm confusing myself and forgetting some basic things.  Bees need some honey in the brood area, right?  And if they are getting ready for winter, would they fill the top brood box and be moving down lower?  Or is this too soon for that?

What should I had done when I noticed things aren't what I think should be, like maybe a month ago?

What should I do now?  I did separate the boxes into two groups with multiple queen cells in each.  But the brood area has honey all through it except for the capped brood.

[cao]

Don't feel too bad.  If you are a beekeeper long enough you will feel the dispair of being minutes too late to catch a swarm.  They were probably hanging out on a branch somewhere overnight and just decided to leave when you came by.  I had a swarm land on the back of one of my hives this spring.  I was just lucky enough to walk behind them at the right time to see it(and catch it). 

>I think I'm confusing myself and forgetting some basic things.  Bees need some honey in the brood area, right?
 
They need nectar near(normally above) the brood area.  If they are replacing brood with lots of nectar then that is a sign they are preparing to swarm(unless it is late Aug. or Sept, then they are preparing for winter).

> What should I had done when I noticed things aren't what I think should be, like maybe a month ago?

If you catch it you can remove the queen and a couple of frames of bees to simulate a swarm.  Remember as soon as there are drones flying in the spring a hive can swarm.  Mine started swarming about two weeks after I noticed drones in multiple hives.

>What should I do now?

You did what I would have done.  While waiting for the queens to hatch and get mated the bees will prepare a new brood nest for the new queen to start laying.  They will rearrange the nectar and pollen to suit them.  Since you have capped queen cells, I would leave them alone for 2-3 weeks.  In 3-4 weeks you should start seeing eggs and larva.

 

[Duane]

Too late again!  To do what, I don't know,  and not really too "late", but got out there just as they were leaving the box. 

But not too late to try my lemongrass theory.  As they were filling the air more and more, I noticed they were starting to land on the pear tree, most likely the area I heard the previous swarm take off from.  They were starting to gather about six feet up on a thick branch.  That was not convenient for me.  The apple tree nearby would be better.  So, I started blowing across the lemongrass oil and noticed the flying swarm seemed to move closer to me.  I picked a branch I thought was convenient on the tree and rubbed lemongrass oil on it, and blew some more.  For awhile, I thought they were going to cluster on my hands!  I thought maybe I should have some fear, standing in the midst of thousands of stinging insects, but instead, that was great fun!  Bees were landing on my hands, my glasses, and I had no fear.

I rubbed some more oil on the apple tree, blew some more, but noticed there was a cluster starting on the pear tree.  That wasn't good.  So I went up and vigorously shook the tree, blew on the bees to dislodge them, and went back to the apple tree to blow more across the oil.  Shook the tree some more, and had the thought occur to me that that may not be the wisest thing to do.  Maybe my imagination, but a bee seemed to show more than a little curiosity to my face.  I walked over to the apple tree, and after awhile went back and shook the pear tree again.  This time, I'm pretty sure a bee was trying to tell me, 'Didn't we tell you that was enough?'.  It flew quite a bit in front of my face, followed me a ways, was in my face again, followed me another 50 ft. where I weaved between the trees, and then found me again.  Ok, enough fun, I decided.

Anyway, after I felt safe enough to venture back to the apple tree, there they were on the branch I picked out for them.  Every once in awhile, a bee seemed to fly near me, but not aggressively. 

So leaving multiple queen cells in each group did not prove a good thing this time.  There are others in the other box.  What advice should I do now if there are still multiple cells in the boxes?

[GSF]

Some swarms will hang close by for a couple days, others only a couple of minutes.

[Duane]

Yeah, I don't know whether to panic or take my time.  When I think of it as $100 flying away, I want to grab it as soon as possible.  When I think of it as a "silver spoon", not so sure.

Well, anyway, that swarm that I got to land on the apple tree, was not there when I came back later.  I noticed a lot on the front of the parent hive, so figured they flew back home.  Not sure if I hurt the queen in the shake or they actually left.

So the next day I thought I'd just walk by and see if the bees were hanging out and again noticed the air was full of bees.  This time they were higher in a cedar tree.  I climbed a step ladder, and tried to cut carefully, but most fell on the ground, and then were in the air.  They regrouped on another tree, but about the height of a double deep, which I placed under it and then knocked them onto the frames.  It took awhile, but soon their behavior changed and they started defending the hive. 

I went out later, and bees were all in the air.  But the hive still had bees on it and all seemed calm there.  So swarm #5!  And there's still at least one more queen cell.  Guess not knowing for sure, I shouldn't destroy it.  The other box that I separated from seems to be drawing a lot of comb, but this one is filling the brood area as fast as they hatch.  Not sure what to do.

Things learned:
Scraping bees off the side of the box, and putting them over a weak hive with a newspaper in between doesn't seem to work.  Especially since I felt sorry for them after a day and thought they were getting hot and so moved the box ajar so they could get out.  Maybe they left and went back to the parent box to make this swarm #5?

Brood comb with larva does not by itself guarantee boxing a swarm.  I held a frame up to a swarm, saw the bees crawl onto it, and placed it in the box.  I thought they would tell the others to come on, but they soon left.  After knocking the bees over the top of the frames, eventually they seemed to claim the brood comb as their own and stayed.

Knocking a swarm into a cardboard box and only turning it over top of the hive does not seem to work.  They just stay in the upside down cardboard box.  Need to shake them, but they some clustered on the outside, but eventually went in.  I think keeping swarms in the hive could be tricky at times.

Bee scouts may be interested in boxes on the ground, but in my instances, they soon lose that interest and soon no scout bees flying around them.

[cao]

>Brood comb with larva does not by itself guarantee boxing a swarm.  I held a frame up to a swarm, saw the bees crawl onto it, and placed it in the box.  I thought they would tell the others to come on, but they soon left. 

If the queen was with the bees they would have stayed.  They had to choose between the frame of brood and their queen with the rest of the swarm.

>After knocking the bees over the top of the frames, eventually they seemed to claim the brood comb as their own and stayed..

The queen was there so they weren't going anywhere.

>Bee scouts may be interested in boxes on the ground, but in my instances, they soon lose that interest and soon no scout bees flying around them.

There are lots of scouts out looking in a lot of places.  There must have been somewhere else that they liked better.

[GSF]

Duane,
When I shake a swarm into a super I place a queen excluder "beneath" the super. Once I shake them I throw a towel on top to gently force them into the hive, which usually has a frame of drawn comb in it. Then I feed through the inner cover for a couple of days. After about 3 days (I don't know why 3 I just do it -lol) I lift the super, remove the queen excluder, put the super back down, look for the queen on the excluder, if not there I lean it against their new home. For me that has just about been a fail proof system to keep a swarm in a box. I guess once they put a couple of jars of feed in the hive they call it home.