Catching A Wild Swarm From A Tree! Another Hive @mountainjewel! 🐝🍯
Today is an action packed Vlog! I heard a loud buzzing coming from our woodland apiary and had to investigate. I checked both our hives and they were showing signs of healthy activity. Then I saw the swarm.
I looked up, up, up and saw 2 clusters of buzzing bees gathering on the branches of a yellow pine, perhaps 40' or 50' high. I knew I had to act quickly if I was going to catch this swarm.
I ran for the ladder, pole saw and bee keeping equipment. I set the 30' extension ladder against the tree and extended the pole saw to the full 20'.
I could just barely reach the branch and got to work. The idea is to remove the branch the bees are clustering on and move them to a hive.
We had an empty Warré hive and an extra hive stand on hand. Catching swarms is great reason to have extra equipment!
The bees follow the queen who is in the center of the swarm.
If you can move the queen, the rest will follow. Luckily when bees swarm they engorge themselves on honey and are most often quite docile. They are certainly not aggressive, although I did suffer two face stings during the filming of this video.
Once I got the branch cut, I trimmed it and put the entire swarm into a cardboard box before transferring to the empty Warré hive. I brushed the bees off as gently as I could and set them into their new home. Just like that we have another bee colony at Mountain Jewel.
Swarm catching is a little more action packed than baiting a swarm trap but the result is the same; obtaining feral or wild honey bee genetics for our apiary.
Enjoy!
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
So exciting! Well done Ini, can't believe you did this one by yourself! Awww and 2 face stings! Not good! But the honey down the road will make it all worthwhile! Well done!
Is was a bit of a challenge, but glad I'm in good shape. It's all worth the stings. I feel it is strengthening me and it's just another way to be connected to the bees ;)
Wow so cool, im sure they will love thier new home and hope the stings dont hurt to bad 👍
Thanks. The swelling goes down in a day or so. I'm checking on them today and we'll see if they like their new home.
Such a blessing when they arrive and what a buzz!!! 🐝🐝🐝
Really is a amazing! The power they carry is an honor to witness.
Another one! So cool! I do hope they all do very well.
Thanks. I know small hive beetles are an issue, so I hope we get some genetics that have learned to deal with them. Yet another stage of us introducing a pest into the bees life... Excited to see how they do too.
Honey is supposed to help with bee stings. But I have never had to opportunity to test this remedy. haha
Really interesting post :)
Glad you enjoyed it. I didn't think of the honey thing, although I had heard of that too. The stings are par for the course though, it'll just tak getting used to it.
Glad you enjoyed it. I didn't think of the honey thing, although I had heard of that too. The stings are par for the course though, it'll just take getting used to it.