Honey Bee Swarm Capture, Unpredictable Honey Bees, and the Boss Shows Up to help. Got them! NOT!

mmm-hmm I told you they were gonna swarm so I was setting up my garden and wouldn't you know it I look out across the yard and the bees are swarming in my apiary so where are they collecting right here and there are two bundles to swarm collection spots and what's going to happen is even though they're there's one group here and there's another group up here those two groups are going to combine later and this is a group that I was looking at the hive earlier and they were massed on the front of it so I knew that we're gonna go in fact if I just expanded the box right now would that have changed anything and stopped the swarm no because by the time they're swarming out there's already Queen cells in there and the Queen cells once they're capped the old Queen takes off before the new Queens replace her before they hatch out that avoids Queen conflict but so I jumped off the tractor and ran over here really quick grab my camera just so I could share with you what it's like to be in the middle of a honey bee swarm because for me this is the most traumatic time of year and because they're accessible they're only seven or eight feet off the ground let me try to get them in the shot there's seven or eight feet off the ground so they're gonna be easy to collect and I am gonna put him in a hive but what if I wasn't here and I didn't see it happen what would happen well they would just go off and establish themselves in the environment somewhere probably replacing and colony of bees that did not make it through winter so this is cool it's exciting if I was going to expand the box to prevent them from swarming I would have had to do that a week or two ago so even today this is the first day that we've had really great weather and you can hear them already quieting down and that's because they're consolidating here so I just wanted to give you a quick update the Green colony that I showed yesterday or in my Friday FAQ and when we're talking about the feeders this is not the horizontal long Langstroth hive this is a colony that made it through winter that was actually a swarm collected last fall so these are strong and this is what's considered by the way a prime swarm so that means it's the first form of the year out of that colony and three-quarters of the population that colony have probably come out with this group so there's going to be last year's Queen is with them so we know they're adapted to the local environment and this is going to be a great group of bees to have in the apiary and I already set out the bee box to put them in so we're all set so just in closing I'm gonna just make a continuous video here and show you the swarm and the bees assembling on this tree and this is of course a spruce tree take a look you can just hear how quiet they're getting and as I mentioned before they've assembled on a couple of different spots on this tree there's even some up here look at this group now it is possible that there's two queens but more than likely they're all just collecting on this tree and we're not going to grab them right now we're gonna wait for them to finish assembling on the tree hopefully in one snug cluster and then I'll come up and bag them up and we'll put them in there and you might be wondering what colony they came from I can tell you this particular colony had the entire front was covered with bees this morning even though there's still a cluster on the outside there that's 10% of what was on the front of the colony so that's where they came from how far did they go about 40 feet to this tree how long can they hang out in a cluster before they absolutely have to find a home well let the extreme limit you're talking about 10 days maximum before they left the colony of course they fed up on honey they loaded their crops we've got wax builders we've got nurse bees in here that have never been out of the colony before we've got some senior bees here and of course scouts and foragers are out looking for a new location of bee but because we're gonna provide that in a box where we gonna put them let's show you that they're gonna go in this hive right here it's already set up a single deep it's a flow hive to cedar and it's all ready to go it's got better comb in it and this is a hive that I pulled out and of course the old hives that was in this spot now belongs to our son about 15 miles away so this is it they're kind of scattered here how high-pitched that is and then listen how calm these are over here so let's see if I'm right we're going to come back in a few minutes and then we're going to see if they all consolidated into one large swarm and I hope they don't do it up there because now that's that's 12 feet up a little more challenging I'll still get them so remember how I say they might consolidate together and they would move so they left this branch and of course to make it easier on me they all went to the higher branch okay so now we have two swarms actually one is just flying in from the north and landing on this branch and that's five feet off the ground and this one is still hanging out but they are 12 feet off the ground guess what I'm gonna do I'm going to pick the low hang and swarm besides of these and they're coming from the north somewhere you can still see them coming in so when this is hour and a half after we did the first one when there was a really tiny swarm here on this branch but they moved up and joined with that group right there and now what I'm thinking is this group right here has more bees and they're right here right there never touch a swarm of bees undo it I'm just testing their temperament a little bit these are pretty laid back so you know what we're gonna get these let me show you how we're set up so as I mentioned before we're gonna put them in this eighth frame flow hive to just set up everything is brand new and we're gonna put an eighth frame slatted rack in it that's gonna go on the bottom are we set up on the inside we're using better comb why am i using better comb because pre-drawn synthetic wax that will help them get started right away and hopefully we'll make this appealing and they'll stick around we're gonna have to put the inner cover on and of course we're gonna have to feed them so let's get this ladder Drakon first and that's what it looks like with a slatted rag on nice solid piece here and these will align with the inner frames and remember this is just an eighth frame deep that's what we're gonna start off with and that's the stand let's put the deep brood box on there and so that's all set up and we have the inner cover we're gonna have to put a medium super on there just so that we can put a rapid round feeder on so we're pre-staging everything cuz I'm confident those bees aren't gonna leave how close are they to the bee yard they are right there oh yeah they definitely want to come and live in this box that's what I'm getting from it look at the weight on the branch I'll bet we're looking at a good 5 pounds of bees right there we'll know better when we put them in my net well while I was getting everything together the swarm is leaving so they left the tree a swarm moves at about 6 miles an hour once they decide to go somewhere we have to follow these bees Quinn see how they're flying in the air right here where do you think they're headed we have to follow them can you go 6 miles an hour can you keep up with them yeah tell me when you where do they land listen to him you are my bee helper that is correct we hope they land somewhere where we can get them well that's it they went up over the treetops so now we're back to the higher sperm I guess and this is weird to change your mind and they're coming back again so they flew about a hundred yards put up over the trees did a u-turn and now they're gonna collect on this branch again same branches before and this time I think we're gonna try to get them before they change your mind again what a fickle group of bees so Quinn what do you think are we gonna be able to get them are these some ones that we're gonna put in the hive how do you know we need to go put them in the hive okay do you like these bees you think these are the best once or do you like the ones that are up higher oh you like both of them all right well we're gonna try to get these you can't believe you're in a bee swarm and are the bees are they bothering you no look beat yeah these forms are crazy most people never see one no because it's kind of rare unless you have bees right yeah so we'll get these in there so once we put them in the hive we're gonna have to feed them I've got a rapid round feeder and of course as per my recent video we put a tube sock ankle portion in there that's going to leach the sugars here up up to the top for the bees and no bees will drown so we're putting it on the deep and we've got a medium super on hot standby here that we're going to put in and that's going to be our feeder xem it's gonna sit on top of this inner cover and it's got a hole perfect for the rapid around so let's get this warm and before I bring the bees over we have to make space we can dump them in there we're gonna pull three of these frames and the slider crack is actually a good thing to have here because it gives us extra space at the bottom and that means that we can accommodate more bees right off the bat and the rest we have foundationless got one of those man lake pre wax frames which I don't care much about another foundationless acorn heavy wax and on the end another foundationless frame so I've got them in the bag and now we're gonna put them right in the hive I've also got a little handle underneath and here so when I shake it out I'm not pinching any bees we just shook them in there the bag pretty empty now and we've got them all over the landing work now we just want a button and we put the frames in now the better cone and make sure to push all of your frames to the middle leave the spaces on the ends for later and then what we can do on the edges is just below them off as you sly the cover-up so now the inner cover is on and we want to get that feeder in place let's queue Tippi off of there wrap it around right on the center we can look through and line it up make sure it's lined up with that hole there and it is and even before I put the frame on I'm gonna go ahead and fill that with syrup so the sugar syrups on and we've got half a gallon of sugar syrup in there we've got the sock and now we're gonna go ahead and blow the bees off the edges and put that medium super on just make sure you have no bees in your medium super and go ahead and we're gonna put a polystyrene cover on this one now we're all set and now it's a waiting game to see if we have the Queen in there and this is actually a 10 frame polystyrene cover and that's fine it works on eighths as well and this is just a temporary cover put a nice brick on top so the wind doesn't blow it off but it provides a nice overhang in case the bees need it these are new some are clustered on the outside let's take a look at that landing board and we've still got the net here what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the net we're gonna go back to the tree and pick up any stragglers with it so we come back over here and find out that that upper 12-foot cluster they decided to move out so they're gone we made a good choice grabbing the lower one and these are Scouts returning from where we just collected this swarm from so we're going to get the net and bag these up and make sure they make it to the new hive so we shook that little swarm collection there into the net and now if the Queen is here we'll see them march up the fabric and go right in there that's what I'm hoping will happen it looks like the Queen's there but time will tell the good news is some of the free flying bees from this swarm are joining the colony here so that tells me we must have the Queen and I do see some of these bees in the bag migrating up the fabric and they're gonna start walking into the hive so I think it was a good collection good swarm capture so following up here about 6:30 at night I have to say I don't like what I'm seeing on the landing board I'm seeing waggle dances from Scouts that are advertising it looks to me that they found another location they would like this swarm to go to well we've done all we can there preacher on comb Neve sugar syrup you have an eighth frame deep beyond that it's really just up to the bees whether they stay work out thanks for watching I hope you have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend

Channel: Frederick Dunn

Views: 33,279

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Id: rjCz-bKBjQc

Length: 33min 2sec (1982 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020