Guilfordbeekeepers.org

The kids were walking out by the garden the day before yesterday while I weeded. All of a sudden Taeler comes running up to me and says there is a swarm in a tree.... I thought she was pulling my leg since it's so darned late in the year but sure enough there was a soft ball size clump of bees in the tree.

The kids ran and got their stuff together and a ladder to get up there with but by the time they came back out the bees had moved to a different tree about 10 feet away. The new tree was back in the tree line a little bit so Taeler and Caleb decided to try to see if they could lure the bees into a nuc box with some lemongrass oil. The bees ended up clumping up on the bottom of the ladder and just kind of hanging out there, I think they would have gone on in by dark but Taeler got tired of waiting for them to go in and decided to catch her little swarm "Wally style". I'll try to send pics tomorrow of our little girl "coaxing" the bees into the box.

I don't know if there is any chance at all of these bees making it through winter time but the kids seem to be content to try it

I think it will be almost impossible this late. If it is little then combine them with another hive. It will be their only chance of survival. Although with God ALL things ARE possible....Good Luck!!!!

Where are the pics, and how is the swarm doing?

PS... Teach Taeler the old adage...Do as I say, not as I do.
She could get hurt following some idiot like me.

Sorry, I forgot about pictures!


I can't believe she saw that and thought swarm, I would have thought (and did) that it was just a big pinecone!



the kids couldn't get up in the tree so they put the nuc box on their daddy's ladder and tossed in a few drops of wally's lemongrass oil



the bees really really love wally's lemongrass oil!!



Taeler got tired of waiting for the bees to go into the box and went after them "wally style" but we made her wear the veil and gloves, Caleb wore his suit because he was thinking those might be his mean bees that swarmed.



There really weren't very many bees, but the kids had fun and learned a little more about the bees. The tiny swarm flew off sometime soon after we gave them the box I guess, that or they made a home in one of the other hives. We found out the day before yesterday that a man just a little over a mile from us had several hives on his land to work his watermelon fields, could have been from one of those hives I suppose.

I'll tell her that old saying Wally, but she's kinda hard headed sometimes ( like no one could tell that!).[/img]