[ocba] SWARM questions - Those left behind.

Peter Smith psmith at leaptec.com
Thu May 8 08:46:41 EDT 2008


I recently hived a fairly large swarm of bees from a neighbor's yard which
was wrapped around a small tree trunk about 15 feet off the ground. They are
doing well in a nucleus box and seem active and happy. There is some
consternation on the part of my neighbor, who is a little afraid of bees,
that I did not "get" them all, there remain a few hundred in the original
spot, and they seem to have drawn a small comb. I have already made a return
trip to try capturing more of them, but because they are actually quite high
up and wrapped around the trunk, it was hard to shake and brush them all
into the collecting box while standing on a ladder.

 

I have a couple of questions for those who may have done this a few more
times than I have: a) What would you expect to happen to the unfortunate
ones inevitably left behind when a swarm is captured? b) Is it surprising
that they will try to draw comb? c) Does this indicate perhaps I missed
collecting the queen (I think this is highly unlikely due to the statistics
involved and the condition of the new hive, but I did not actually find her
on the frames in the nucleus box when I looked). d) What would you suggest I
do to remove the remaining bees from the tree so that my neighbor has peace
of mind? 

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

Peter Smith

Hillsborough

 <http://www.leaptec.com>  

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/ocba/attachments/20080508/9186b536/attachment.htm 


More information about the ocba mailing list