Lenny, thanks so much for the indepth answers. I think that you have provided fantastic information for many of us that will be keeping our eagle eyes out for swarms, in the hopes of catching one and increasing our colony numbers. Yeah!!!! Good for you, again thanks.
My first (and only) swarm that I caught was caught during my first season of beekeeping. It was one of the most incredible things that I have ever seen (or heard) in my life. In a previous post I recounted the experience. But I will briefly recap.
It was August 1, the day after a great big ceremony at our place. A friend of ours had got married on our property. It was a ceremony of great interest. My brother video taped it to make a documentary (he is in the film business). It was a paegan wedding, she is involved in the wicken. I loved every minute of it. Ooops, I am rambling.
I was going to go to the corner store to buy some bacon for our breakfast. (late one for sure). I walked to the back of my yard, (my car was at the back to free up room for parking out front). When I walked past the greenhouse, I heard a noise that made the hair on my neck stand up. It scared the crap out of me. It was loud, so loud, I thought that there may have been some kind of bear that had gone nuts. My curiosity reigned. I kept walking and looked for the noise. It was coming from the apiary site. I saw in the sky the sound. The sky was black with bees. I could not believe my eyes. So this is what a swarm looked like and sounded like. The sound was so loud I could never have in my wildest dreams the bees could make it to this magnitude. The bees alighted in a tall, tall, coniferous tree.
I phoned around and remembered that some guys from the bee club had given me their business card and they do swarm capture. I phoned one of them and he said that him and his buddy were just going to do some work in their own apiary. The would be down soon. So they came down. Brought all the necessary swarm capture items. And one of these was an extension ladder. To make a long story shorter, the bees wound up being vacuumed into the bee vacuum box, because of the height. It worked. He sucked up all the bees. We put the hive into the apiary and the bees moved into their new home. That was such a wonderful experience.
BUT....these bees were nasty, never did get nice until the next summer. If I didn't have the four other package colonies to compare to (which were very sweet and nice tempered), I would have had a terror with beekeeping that would have made me always on edge when I was near the bees.
The summer after this capture, this colony swarmed. It still was so darn nasty. The old swarm colony was given a new queen (I had rid it of queen cells), and their temperament changed somewhat. I didn't go into this season with this colony because I lost them last fall. I had a varroa mite issue that collapsed 9 of my colonies. I now have 1 left and it is looking pretty fine.
I am armed and dangerous with my knowledge of the varroa mite and its stupid little life. I made many mistakes last year with the varroa mite and my colonies, I now now that. I know the symptoms of high counts, which is was totally kniave to last year.
My goal is for strong, varroa mite free, disease free colonies and I will succeed. Would you say I ramble? Some might, but yep, that is yours truly.
Have a wonderful and beautiful day, lots of good health. Cindi
Topic: A successful swarm capture (Read 3065 times)