About 10 o'clock this morning I looked out my window to see a swarm of bees in the air over my deck. At first I thought they were moving into the bait hive I have at the side of my deck. Then I realized they were leaving the one hive I have on the other side of my deck. Going out my front door I could see the swarm was gathering in the honeysuckle growing on my fence. I got my bee vac and sucked them all up. I was pretty sure I had the queen as stragglers were gathered around the exhaust of the vac. I decided to hive these at my outyard in Gibsonville (12 miles away). My bee vac is battery powered so I could keep air flowing thru it while driving to the farm.
There were a lot of bees. The hive they came out of has a scale and later the scale record showed a loss of 10 to 12 lbs between 10 and noon. The vac container is a 5 gallon pail and it was at least half full of bees. I set up a medium 8 frame box with some full and partially drawn frames, removed 4 frames from the middle and dumped the bees in. I replaced (gently) the frames I had taken out and added another medium box of drawn comb in the second position with a shallow box of wax foundation on top.
Here's a pic of the bees left in the pail
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3r0fi2dixj7bz ... d.jpg?dl=0
And another pic 2 hours later
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i558hw4xb470z ... r.jpg?dl=0
And a bumble bee ducking into the pail to get out of the strong wind
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pp2hqsi4rci1f ... e.jpg?dl=0
Caught my own swarm
Re: Caught my own swarm
Nice catch Bill. One of mine swarmed at about noon, as well. Seems like it was a good day for swarming. Guess 80° temps will do that. I have another hive that will swarm soon, if i don't split them soon.
Is that an Everything Bee Vac? Looks familiar.
Duane
Is that an Everything Bee Vac? Looks familiar.
Duane