Guilfordbeekeepers.org

I'm not sure I'll get these straight--I finished a presentation at Phoenix Academy and picked up a couple of Wayne's Bee queens at Beez Needz when I got my first call. Wally arrived as I was vacuuming a bowling ball sized swarm from a tree near the Coliseum. Before we got done there David called me about one of my hives at the house putting out a large swarm. It gathered on a bush about 2 feet off the ground. That swarm answered the question I had about what happens when you see your marked queen dead in front of a hive and you hear at least 2 queens piping in the hive for 4-5 days without having a final battle.

I got a text that B_Lee could not get the next swarm to issue at the place where he had gotten 3 and David and I had gotten 2. David agreed to get that one after he installed a Wayne's Bee queen at hives in McLeansville. He got delayed by having to get a large swarm there. He got both.

Wally called that he was coming to get the 2 swarms we had hived earlier in the day. When he was almost at my house, he got a swarm call about 2 swarms near Groometown Road. The beekeeper only wanted 1 , so I went with Wally and he collected and helped collect the other.

If I count right, that makes 6 swarms. Are other folks seeing this much activity?

In between, I went and helped a guy get one out of a tree in Randleman. That makes 7. I finally got home at 9:30 last night. One busy day for swarms.

Wow, busy day! My one hive that made it through the winter was making a lot of noise last evening, I hope it is not thinking of swarming. I split it a couple of weeks ago, moved the frame with swarm cells to the 5 frame nuc box. Checking both of them tomorrow. Also checking the 5 frame nuc from the cut-out we did a couple of weeks ago.

They will still swarm, until you remove the queen and leave queen cells.

I picked up 2 more today. One in Climax and one in Greensboro.

That was my plan for tomorrow. To go ahead and move her to a new set-up and let them raise a new queen. I'm sure they may already be queen cells in the hive. Hopefully I'll catch it before it does swarm.

Should I put her in a 5 frame nuc or go ahead and put her in a 8 frame set-up?

5 frame with 1 or 2 frames of brood. 8 frame with 3 or 4 frames of brood. Depends on what you find in the main hive. Leave at least 3 frames of brood in the main.