"Swarms" 10/18/18

[Jacobs]

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One of our GCBA members was working at this home this morning and called about a swarm. Most were on the ground and some were about 9 feet up in a dogwood. He did not have equipment to house them and was looking for someone to rescue them. I got a small queen in a clip from the bees on the ground and vacuumed them up. I took my swarm bucket up a ladder and about a dozen stings later, had the tree bees in the bucket. I later learned that they had been there since Saturday. I don't know if they were separate swarms, but when I mixed them together, I did not see fighting. They are in a nuc with a feeder and tomorrow afternoon, I will release a queen from the clip. Before I do, I will look for another queen on the frames. If there are 2 queens, maybe the catcher clip will prevent them from being able to fight each other. If there were not 2 queens, why wouldn't the tree bees join their queen and sisters on the ground?

[Jacobs]

I saw a small, runny queen on one of the frames of bees this morning. The larger queen was still in the queen catcher clip with a clump of bees around and on the clip. I released her into the nuc and will let the bees sort things out. I hope to see a more focused colony with pollen coming in in the next week or so, but if not, there are enough bees to combine into another hive and give it a good boost.

[Jacobs]

It looks like the smaller queen won out and she is laying up a storm. The newspaper combination of the Hurricane Michael Tree bees is a success. There are at least 5 medium frames of bees in this nuc--plenty to attempt an over wintering. If we get a several day warm stretch, I'm going to try and catch and mark the queen.