Guilfordbeekeepers.org

As the contact person for Guilford County Beekeepers Association, I have been getting more "swarm" calls in the last week than I have ever gotten before at this time of year. I'm not sure if we are dealing with SHB absconds, starving bees or something else. I have directed callers to our swarm list. I would like to know what folks are seeing as they collect these 'swarms." Are they queen right? Will they stay in a hive or try and abscond again?

I had bees show up at the house about 11:30 am today. I'd estimate about enough bees to cover a little over 1 medium frame. The unmarked queen is in a catcher clip in a nuc. Even with the queen in the nuc and a feeder jar on top, a lot of the bees are not entering the nuc.

I've just had another small arrival at the house. I have put out a nuc and hope they will go in. I need to go ahead and put some bait hives out because small groups of bees are arriving fairly regularly. I think they are attracted to old comb from deadouts I have to clean up.

The latest arrivals at the Jacobs Home for Wayward Bees came in at around 9:45 am this morning. I gave them 5 medium frames in a deep nuc I was using as a bait hive. A small spray of Swarm Commander convinced them to go there as they arrived. My last 2 arrivals before this one have unmarked, laying queens, and are each in a 1 box medium nuc. I am giving them a pint of 1:1 regularly to encourage the queens to continue to lay. I have a bee event in a couple of weeks, so I may mark these queens and then use the best looking nuc to put in my observation hive.

The August 20, 2022 arrival has a queen, but she has not started laying yet. I am keeping a pint of 1:1 on them as well as on the 2 earlier arrivals.

I caught two mini absconds/swarm too. I am close to the PTI. Both landed on a fence post that I sprayed with swarm commander about a month ago. Saw relatively small queens. Fortunately I have some extra bees that I can use to combine with them.

My newest arrival came on the afternoon of September 27th. I'm not sure if it is one that arrived earlier and absconded again or if this is a new colony. There are less than 2 medium frames of bees, but as of yesterday, there were eggs and larvae. I am feeding them and will play with them like I have with 4 other late arrivals.