Free-Bees!

The swarm cluster from far

This weekend Jackson was mowing and came in to let us know our bees were swarming.  He said it was like a hurricane of bees in the air.  Sure enough our 8-frame hive decided to split into two colonies.  Unfortunately we were not prepared and had no knowledge of capturing swarms.  We found enough equipment in the barn to come up with a hive until we could get more appropriate materials ordered.  What we lacked was the knowledge,  but we can be very resourceful!

After reading that you have 1-hour to 3-days to catch the swarm or they will find a new home on their own,  we were anxious to capture them.  After all, a package of bees costs about $125 and free bees sounded good to us!  We researched how to shake the branch and let the bees fall into your hive body or use a sheet to be sure bees don't fall into the grass etc.  The main idea seemed to be if you can get the queen then the swarm will follow her.

Closer view of the swarm

Our swarm had come to rest in a pin oak tree about 25 feet up.  A box on the end of a couple of two by fours would do the trick. Easy!  We went to the barn and found an old Lou Malnauttis Styrofoam cooler and two really long PVC pipes.  PVC and Styrofoam are light materials and would make it easier to reach the swarm, we thought.  The PVC poles ended up not being long enough so we backed Chris' truck into the brush and he climbed into the bed and just barely could reach the swarm. 

With a firm knock of the branch the majority of the cluster fell into the box.  What we didn't plan on was how heavy the bees were and in slow motion those PVC pipes began to bend and the box fell onto Chris' truck and the ground and we had a mess.  Bees were everywhere!  There was a puddle of bees on the windshield, a puddle on the hood,  a puddle on the ground and surprisingly still a bunch in the cooler.

So we just sat and kinda watched what was going on for a while.  Mostly we were dumbfounded at what happened,  be lets just say we were studying the bees behavior.  No bees were going back up into the tree,  the puddles were disappearing and the box looked about the same.  After about 10 minutes Chris saw the queen in the cooler.  It was the queen from the package we bought this year and she had a bright blue spot on her back.  WOOHOO!  We dumped the cooler into our makeshift hive and crossed our fingers and went in for the night.

Two days later we still have bees in the new hive.  This is not a story I would share with anyone from our bee club as they might kick us out for the crazy way we caught our swarm,  but needless to say, we are quite proud to have got the job done!  We now have 4 hives and have high hopes for a nice honey flow in July.