Can sugar water save a surprise Springtime Swarm? Early May and it's the third swarm of the season.

I stopped by to visit the bee yard today and as I was driving away I noticed that there was a swarm right over there so I'm going to go and grab a box and see if I can put it in as you can see that solar panel seems to be a perfect place for that swarm to land while it's looking for a new home so I will do my best to provide that home for it let's take a closer look as I move around the side I notice that's in fact a much bigger swarm than I thought that's a that's a that's a perfectly healthy looking it's warm of course because I'm a fan of close-up video and macro photography of bees let's go in for a closer look there's a wild dance taking place which means for this bee that's been out scouting for new applications to live and it's coming home and telling its sisters that it's found a place the fact that it's dancing directly south on the surface of the bees means that new home that it's found is directly south from the Azimuth location of the sun let's see if we can see any more dancing um as you can see I've put a trash can with some Hive equipment I've cleaned up underneath this swarm the idea being to knock it down into the box got a bottom board here an eight frame hive I've gone in and cleaned up those frames the idea that that's comb will be attractive to these bees it'll smell like a home of course these bees are gentle enough that I could in theory just hand them down or brush them down uh the benefit of using your hand of course is that you may in fact be able to find the queen while you're doing it another close look mm-hmm that's awesome amazing organisms as you can see some bees are already investigating this box it's got a great smell to it right as you can tell this equipment's been used for many years and so these bees are fine that are very appealing and also of course I put on a veil and a suit again just out of a abundance of precaution bees in a swarm state are just about at the most gentle you'll ever find them yeah these bees have been so unbelievably gentle I'm going to see if I can bring a few handfuls down at a time foreign preferred to get this a little higher but it seems to be going well let's see yeah look there's already some nasanov standing taking place up in the air excellent Let's uh let's go let's do this a few more times you can tell as you put your hand in here that the bees uh are connected to one another and so what I'm doing is I'm slowly pulling them apart foreign I'm not forcing them in any way as I slowly pull them away and down they go in this box that sounded like home I'm going to to a b brush wow of course the real question is getting to clean or so I prefer to say the mother bee into the hive okay as you can see we've got quite a large number of the bees from this formula five bucks still have quite a few though on the solar panel and I have not made any conscious search for the queen I do have a Queen cage here in case I need it as you can see they're not um terribly upset with me they are in swarm mode which means they're about as docile as you'll ever find here it's amazing well of course my rookie mistake being that I completely forgot that would have made a lot more sense to give them a good soaking with sugar water before trying to move them down so let's call that a call that a learning experience hive 101. it's warm catching 101 it makes good sense to give a look at soaking with sugar water it makes it a little more difficult for them to fly off and such large numbers it also gives them a little something to eat as they come down let's try this again shall we all right the bee is still on the solar panel I've given a nice dowsing of sugar water let's see if we get a better drop this time [Music] foreign [Music] use of sugar water on a swarm makes sense because uh you don't want to use smoke because you want the bees to use that nasanov Fanning tell their sisters to come into the hive sugar makes a nice sugar water makes a nice alternative [Music] of course the bees continue to come back here because they still smell the queen pheromones I think we are just about at the point where I've gotten all the bees I reasonably can off the solar panel [Music] it really does seem clear by the sound look up for just a final look all right as you can tell by the sound and that astronaut panic the vast majority of bees and [Music] bees and the bean is probably in there they're trying to tell their sisters the mom is here [Music] camera running here for a bit letting you watch the bees as they begin to acclimate to their new home I'll come back in just [Music] stay [Music] there [Music] the sugar water is perfectly acceptable to the bees they'll Simply Clean one another off business it's already working well I think we could call that a success we've got the bees from the solar panel down into their new home even on the landing board you can see the bees are busy [Music] foreign together and cleaning themselves cleaning each other I have marked this hive 25. tell by that sound all of those [Music] I will come back after the sun goes down and all of the scouts and foragers have returned as you can see a few are coming back now and they're a bit confused to see that the Swarm is not on the solar panel so I'll give them another hour or so to reorient towards the hive we'll then close it up overnight I will come back first thing in the morning before the foragers want to take off and leave and I will reposition it right over here I've got a couple of cinder blocks ready for that Hive to go into place 525 with a swarm successfully honed the last few straggling foragers and Scouts of the night you can see they're finding their way in so I'm very excited and happy about that I think Hive 25 is going to be great tomorrow we'll get it set up on a stand

Channel: Weekend Beekeeper

Views: 47,334

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Id: I6hLqdCml68

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2023