Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => HONEYBEE REMOVAL => Topic started by: NasalSponge on May 24, 2011, 11:04:39 PM

Title: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: NasalSponge on May 24, 2011, 11:04:39 PM
Well in the mist of all the crazy weather here today I get a swarm call from a builder at a new home site. When I get there I find a crossover (my new term) meaning they are moving into a wall cavity (this is the closest I want to venture into JP's world) So the guy who built the wall very bravely removed all the screws and handed the hammer to me (I had a very large audience) I then removed a 4X8 sheet of wafer board and wow....huge swarm. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I trimmed a mite drop board to just fit between the studs and set my box minus two frames at the base of the wall. Slowly I scrapped the bees into the box, took 4 or 5 times before enough fanning was going to to get them to stay. Hour later I buttoned them up and took them home, might be the largest swarm to date. As a bonus the tornado's somehow missed us...my prayers for those they didn't.
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: hankdog1 on May 24, 2011, 11:48:40 PM
Sounds like you had a pretty good swarm call today.  How big would ya guesstimate the swarm to be since ya said it was your biggest?  Thoughts and prayers for those affected by those tonados bad stuff.
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: NasalSponge on May 24, 2011, 11:51:27 PM
2X4 studs on 16" centers, a full four feet full of bees.
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: NasalSponge on May 25, 2011, 12:45:47 AM
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k312/NasalSponge/SAM_0142.jpg)

(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k312/NasalSponge/SAM_0143.jpg)
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: schawee on May 25, 2011, 02:17:07 AM
good catch there,looks like you have a good one there .     schawee
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: montauk170 on May 25, 2011, 03:10:46 AM
Nice swarm! Looks like you might need a medium on top of that deep.  :-D
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: G3farms on May 25, 2011, 08:59:32 AM
Good looking swarm there, better keep an eye on them because they will be building comb like crazy.
Title: Re: Swarms and Tornado's
Post by: D Semple on May 25, 2011, 09:39:03 AM
I had a large swarm like that this year that abscoded after 2 days because I don't think they thought they had enough room. I'd give them another deep right away.

Good catch.

Don