Swarms-4/8/19

[Jacobs]

I called Wally for help getting one about 20 feet up a cherry tree in Jamestown. He brought a cloth bag swarm catching unit on an extension pole that he grabbed from Beez Needz. It did the trick and we safely (not counting multiple stings) got the bees down from where they had been clustering for a day or two.

A little later, I followed Wally to Randleman where a beekeeper had a swarm on a limb, fairly high up. We positioned my truck and set up my multi-position ladder at the highest A-frame setting. This allowed the beekeeper to go up the ladder, hook a hoe around the branch with the cluster, and with a good tug, drop the bees on the open hive where Wally had positioned it. We had this fun as thunder and waves of rain came through.

There was a lot more bee activity going on, but those were the swarms I saw today.

[WannaBee1]

I got this swarm the same day (4/8/19) in the lightning and rain just before it became a downpour. It was about a four pound swarm that looked like a little bear cub in a peach tree. I shook it down into my amazing swarm catching box and put them into a hive that was there waiting "just in case" of a swarm. I happened to have the frames because I was going to add a couple of supers to two of my hives before the storm.