Sorry Pooh Bear, But These Bees Are Making Honey For Me!

A few weeks ago, I was out running errands when I received a text message, with this picture attached, informing me that I should hurry down to the beehives. One of the hives had swarmed and it was in a nearby apple tree.  Mark just happened to be in the right place at the right time and actually saw them leave the hive and settle in the tree.  This was all new to me and I didn't want to miss out on the action, so I turned the car around and headed home to learn how to catch a swarm of bees.

Having your bees swarm isn't the best thing that can happen and there are a number of ways you can prevent it.  But at this point it was too late and since we are new at this beekeeping thing, I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  Next year, provided the bees survive the winter (oh please let them survive), we will try to take steps to prevent this from happening.   Everything is a learning opportunity and here's what I've since learned about why and how bees swarm.
Why do bees swarm?  Basically it's because they've outgrown their home.  It's  part of the natural life cycle of a colony of bees and usually takes place in late spring or early summer.  They are more likely to swarm during a light honey flow that precedes a major honey flow.  Hive congestion is the main reason they swarm, but it can also result from a failing queen (which I sure hope it not the case with our bees).  If we had been watching, and knew what we were watching for, we would have seen signs that they were getting ready to swarm.  They'll build a number of queen cells, to provide the hive with a new queen when the reigning queen takes off with the swarm.  The queen cells are larger and lighter in color than the regular cells.  Bees also begin clustering on the landing board of the hive.  This can be misleading because they also do this during hot weather, but I'll be watching for this in the future.  They usually depart between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon.  Their journey takes place in two parts.  First they hover near the front of the hive in a large group and then fly off, usually to a branch of a nearby tree.  This is what our bees did and luckily they didn't pick a branch that was too high, making it easier for us to collect them.  They will wait here for a few minutes to a few days, depending on how long it takes the scout bees to find a new home for the colony.  A new home could be in a roof or wall cavity or a tree (which the bears would like).   So you're probably thinking if this is a natural thing to occur then why is it bad?  From a beekeepers perspective, swarming isn't a good thing, because it leads to weaker hives and less honey production.  But now that it's happened the next best thing is to try and capture the swarm and build up another hive.

Luckily we had an extra hive body and frames and just had to add new foundation.

Even though the bees were supposed to be very docile during a swarm, we decided to put our suits on anyway.  Mark has more experience with beekeeping than I do, but even this was new for him.  I was glad he was going to handle the bees and let me photograph, although I must say, taking pictures through a veil with gloves on isn't the easiest thing to do either.

The queen is somewhere in the middle of that mass and theoretically the bees are more interested in protecting her than they are in us. I sure hoped that was the case.

How do you hive a swarm?

Because the bees chose a nice low branch, Mark was able to hold the hive close enough to the swarm to brush them right in.  If they had flown higher, the branch could have been cut and brought to the hive.  But this was so much easier.  I have the nicest bees. They are so considerate!  Everything happened pretty quickly at this point.  He scooped as many as he could off the branch.

Then he shook it a little to get the rest.  I don't think they especially liked this part, but they quickly found the rest of their family and all started going into the hive.

He arranged the frames so they could settle in a little easier.

Stepping back and assessing the job, he watched to see how many were still on the tree, while I cheered him on from behind my lens.  Yes!!  We did it!!  We hived our first swarm of bees!

I admit he did the hard work, but even this photographer's heart was racing for a few moments there. I didn't have a telephoto lens or anything, so I was pretty close to those bees too.  It was totally exciting!  I'm happy to report that we suffered no stings and the bees seem to like their new home.  Mission Accomplished!

  I used this book as a resource to learn all this cool stuff about swarms.  It was Mark's Father's Day present and we put it to good use right away.  I highly recommend it as it's packed with useful information.  The only problem is the print is really small.  Definitely need bifocals for this one!