Bees bees bees.

Well. Caught a swarm a few months ago. They are doing great. Queen is a laying machine. Matter of fact she's laying in the super. We also got our four other boxes. Pretty good deal. Brood box super and bees for 225 with an established hive. Already added supers on them and have not had them two weeks. Another box has brood in the super. Fur what you think. We thinking bout splitting them two to get us 7. Work just called and a swarm showed up in a beam after lunch time. It's got insulation around it that really can't be torn off. We can get a few holes but bees are in a 20 ft stretch of it vertically. Do they normally stay low with queen? They are killing them tomorrow so we are limited basis. We have tonight to try. Any ideas from anyone. My neighbor has tried for a bit but they ticked now. Said he needs help so since we both work there I can get in. Last option is shop vac and hope for best. Though about putting a nuc with some comb or attractant to let it sit tonight but it's like they already set up. Any ideas.

Nadda clue here but wishing you the best of luck!!

Sounds good to me. I've had some hives really pack in a lot of honey in the past week. They got ahead of me and the amount of supers I had on the hives. I hate that happened because our flow is about over. I lost some honey and getting some comb drawn because of it.

Regarding the swarm, with them moving into a enclosed space, there's really no good way of getting them out. You could try using some of that liquid that is used to drive them down out of honey supers so you can get the bees out to take them off. Bee gone, or Bee Quick, or Honey Bandit or something like that. You could also try smoking the everloving crap out of the beam and try to push them out into a hive with comb.

Hard to get them to leave an area they have chosen. Sounds like a good place to put a swarm trap next year.

the issue it is at a chemical plant I bean.. cant really get a smoker going without all kinds of permits.. doesn't matter anyway.. went to get them and they were gone. have no reason why they were gone.... there were bout 50 bees on a piece of all thread but that was it.... no queen in that wad but there a ton of bees there two hours earlier..

They just used it as a stop over spot before moving to a hive location they had previously picked, or maybe the queen got killed, or eaten by a bird and they flew back to their hive.

Them suckers showed back up this morning. Right where they were last night. Must of had a hole they were in we couldn't see. There's 100000 holes they could of been in but I think they came back. They killing them now. Oh well.

Country,

Bummer on catching the swarm. I had a swarm a few weeks ago that got down in a block wall and I just could not get to them to get them out.

Are going to try and rob any honey for yourself? I might split one more hive of mine but I am trying to let my new hives build up strong for the winter. You might evaluate how strong your hives are before you split them. Like Fur said, I thought my flow was slowing down. In fact, I think the dry spell we had hurt my flow some. I'm hoping the sourwood bloom will be strong. Already scheming on how to get a hive to the hunting club for June.

Not planning on getting honey this year. If we do it will not be a lot.
We gonna try to get them again tonight. I have someone at plant looking where they go at dark. If accessible I gonna try em again tonight.

Have you made any honey on a sourwood flow before? I have read that it doesn't produce nectar at lower elevations, as in lower than 1800-2000 ft, but I have no idea if that's correct or not. I had planned on taking some to our hunting club last year until I read that. We have a good bit of sourwood down there.

Think I got em. I got 90 percent or better of the bees. It took air pressure and a 25 foot drop down a covered I beam to a bag. It took some doing. Will know today if got the queen. It was a ton of bees.

Fur,

Never tried to specialize on a bloom before. Last weekend when I moved a swarm, I got a couple finger fills of honey and it tasted just like my shrubs smell. So I started thinking I could put a new super on around the first of June and see what happens. I have a buddy that has 2 hives just for pollination and he said I could put boxes on his hives and see what happens. Never know but I will keep it updated.

Country,
Way to be persistent. If you don't think you got the queen you can steal a couple frames of brood from another box and probably start a new hive with the new bees. Even if you get the queen that should make them stay in a new box.

wade, that is exactly what i did this morning..

Well. I got a good many capped queen cells. Looks like I gonna have a queen in a little while must not of got her.

Capped queen cells on the frame of brood that you added to the swarm hive? If so, they should emerge Monday or Tuesday. I'd tear all of them down except the 2 largest or they might swarm again with another virgin.

yes there are 12 queen cells on the one frame of brood i put in there.

Fur,

Planning on building some Nuc boxes tomorrow afternoon. Have you tried doing something with extra queen cells like in Country's hive to start a Nuc box? Read about it online but just wondering if it works. Thinking about trying to get a couple of Nucs going.

Yes that's how I make all my mating nucs. Just place a couple of frames of capped brood and bees into the nuc, with one frame of honey and pollen, and place the queen cell between the frames. I have some 3 frame boxes that I use specifically for mating nucs and I only put one frame of brood in them. I use 2 when I make a 5 frame box.

Put robber screens on them if they're with your other hives, or when you later start feeding them to draw comb, they'll get robbed to death.

I no longer use swarm cells to do that with. I do that with grafted cells. I figure keeping swarm cells selects for swarmy bees.

As you've now found out, as well as immediately locking the swarm down to keep them from absconding, it also shows you if you got the queen without having to dig through and disturb a new swarm.

You can either tear all of the cells but 2 down or you can split the swarm and use the queen cells in multiple nucs, if you can cut off a couple of cells without damaging them. Just be careful and use a sharp knife. If you tear it open any where on the cell, throw it out and get another one. If you don't want to split them, tear em down like I said earlier or they'll definitely swarm with a dozen cells in there.

Brother got to see queens hatching out of one of his other hives today. He was checking gen since he was gonna split them. Well there was five queen cells and he got to see three hatch and watch one queen kill the fourth queen. He then captured the three and made a split with one and trying to figure out what to do with the other two. He has them at the neighbors house that has bees. He said it was neat. The nuc with the bees I got a a week or so ago he smushed them and and left on e or two queen cells in that one and they should hatch soon.

It's pretty cool to watch a queen emerge.

Interested in bees. Thought about having some on my property. How far would the hive need to be from the homestead?

I've got 2 hives 75 feet from my back door - in a subdivision in Hoover. Three dogs in the back yard and they have learned not to go stick their noses in the entrance but other than that I haven't had any problems. I give the neighbors a couple of pounds of honey and everybody is happy.

The pollinators had 384 hives about 400 feet from the house this summer and we never get bit. No work for me and he brought me 8 cases of honey yesterday. You need a calm type bee tho.

Wade, that sounds doable on my property. Thanks!!

thanks goodness...... the bees is got from work finally got em a queen.. they had some hatch and one never came back then put another frame in there of eggs and they made another one and she came back.. a big one too.. look in there today and when the bees didn't come after me i knew it.. they have been mean as rattlesnakes the past few weeks. i mean mad.. she had eggs everywhere in the frames.. hope she stays.... the other hive had a queen but lost it.. they got some queen cells made and hopefully come through..

Glad your work swarm made them a queen. Any idea what happend to your other hives queen? Did they swarm? I've got to dig in to my hives soon. I haven't opened some of them in a month.

no they didn't swarm i dont think. there were not many bees in there and they looked to be the same amount or so after she was gone.... it was another split.. she was laying good then gone the next check.

My buddy just texted me and another swarm box is full. Gonna move them to a hive next weekend. Maybe they will build up. I was planning on taking down my swarm traps around the first of July. How late do you guys leave them up?

I have already taken mine down. Recently though. You'll have to feed the heck out of that swarm. I caught one in early July last year, clustered on a mail box that made it over the winter and has done fine. I had to feed them all summer but it was a tiny swarm and that didn't take much syrup to do. They'll probably need pollen sub too.

finally! 8/8 on queens to hives.. one hive has a queen that is not laying very good. very sporadic and really not much. maybe its because she is new.. there is already some new queen cells so i think the bees know something i dont. other than that one, they are doing great it looks to be.. maybe this queen is just young and needs some time.. we will see.

The new Queen may not have been able to mate good with all this rain.
Where are the new cell? Are they it the bottom of the frame or from middle up.
At the bottom usually means swarm. If up high means they are try to replace her.
I would let them do they're thing.
Here's only bad thing about that. New queen has to go on mating flight and start lying eggs. Once egg is laid it takes 21 days to hatch.
Sometime they will get robbed out if the numbers get to low.
Good luck maybe they pull it off.

Well went into this hive today. Oh my goodness they are strong. There is not a missed piece of comb one without an egg or capped in it. She actually has two supers on top one being full with brood and the top half and Half with brood honey. Queen cells in it so guess we making a split tomorrow. Anyone see anything wrong with that.

Since they have swarm cells built, they will likely still swarm, even if you split them. I'd do a "shook swarm" on them, after you take your split out. You can watch a youtube video and see how it's done.

Who has had swarms already? Please post location and if it was your bees or if you have caught a swarm this year. Was at our beekeeper meeting Thursday (3/1/18) Four folks had lost a swarm and another fellow caught between 2/26/18 to 3/01/18.

Location(s) Dothan and Headland - lower SE Alabama.