[ocba] FW: Swarm story
rose wilson
rose.wilson at embarqmail.com
Thu Apr 3 18:45:37 EDT 2008
Hello everyone--
Yesterday afternoon, I had my first ever experience of hiving a swarm--and I
have photos to prove it! I hope you will bear with me for a blow-by-blow
account.
It was such a stroke of luck that I happened to be outside and passing close
enough to the hives to hear that loud humming of a swarm in progress. I
looked up to see clouds of bees around one hive and stretching up high in
the air. There was no sign of a clustered swarm, and I had to roam around
trying to localize the loudest humming for awhile before I found it, about
10 or 12 feet above the ground in a small tree. It looked pretty accessible,
so I began running around for loppers to clear a space in the thicket below
the swarm, for an empty box of drawn frame, for an old sheet to drape all
around the box, for a leaf rake to comb the bees off their limb--and the
camera. Poking gingerly with the rake, I managed to get a few small clumps
of bees plopped down on the frames. Some bees were landing on the sheet, and
making their way down to the box, which was encouraging. However, a lot were
flying back to the cluster on the branch. It was already late afternoon,
time, I thought, to be braver about dislodging them. I gave the tree a
really good shake and almost the whole cluster fell down. I did then leave
them alone for an hour, by which time, the swarm was gone from the limb, but
the box, which had been sitting on a log had slipped to a 45 degree angle. I
was sure the bees would have absconded, but they were still in there. I made
a firmer base, and shifted the box a little way to make a complete hive,
with one more empty hive body added.
There are a few bees coming and going today, not many as it is quite cold. I
feel they should probably be left alone to settle down, but with more rain
predicted, ought I to give them some sugar water to tide them over? I'd have
to take the hive cover off to put on a top feeder. Hoping for advice, Rose
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