So a swarm showed up at our house. Short of knocking on our door and asking for a hive box to go in to, they really couldn't have made it much easier for us to catch them. They were on a butterfly bush in front of our house. Easy to see, low to the ground, easy to catch. Obviously, these girls wanted to be ours! We loaded our utility wagon with a hive body with some drawn comb frames, grabbed our tool bucket with hive tool, smoker, saw, gloves, spray bottle with sugar syrup, and headed to the swarm. This was our first time catching a swarm, so we weren't really sure what to do or expect. We had seen some YouTube videos, so we figured we were somewhat educated. At first we tried scooping the bees with our hands and brushing them into the hive body. There were A LOT more bees than we thought, and we wanted to move quickly so as not to get them aggravated. Some people think that swarms of bees are dangerous. This is not true. Bees that have swarmed are actually quite docile as they have nothing to defend. We ended up cutting the limb off the butterfly bush and gently shook the bees into the hive body. We left the hive sitting out overnight to let any straggler bees get the scent of the queen and head into the box. The next day the bees were still with us, so we moved them to their new location. We added sugar syrup to a feeder, closed them up, and left them alone. Sometimes a swarm will decide they don't like their new location and leave. We saw bees flying in and out of the hive, so we figured they had decided to stay. Free rent, free food, luxury accommodations....what more could they want??? The bees are still with us, so they must like their new home!
No comments:
Post a Comment