In the past 4 days I've gotten 5 unrelated local swarm calls. Fortunately, I've been able to capture them all. This is a lot more than normal for me (+/-5 in a year) and I've added myself to no additional swarm related sites (I can't find any more). I'm not complaining at all but I'm curious if others are seeing an increase as well, or if my proverbial dog happens to be in the sun right now. To top things off the one swarm trap I have up in my own back yard had a swarm move in yesterday.
That is awesome! Our swarm season is just starting and will probably kick into high gear after this cold front moves on. I hope I get that lucky this year!
year before last, i couldn't' keep up with them. i was getting swarm calls while i was out on swarm calls and had to quit when i ran out of equipment. last year, none.
enjoy it while it lasts!
We have had the exact reverse of what you are experiencing. Because of the mild winter & early build up our bees consumed most all their stores. In addition whatever they have been bringing in has been consumed. Most all of the removals I have been doing have had very little honey except for a very few well established colonies with surplus from last season or the one before it.
So we have lots of numbers but no honey!
They really have not been healthy enough to swarm. Average swarms usually run 2.5-3lbs in my area. This year you are lucky to get one over 2 lbs!
All this I believe will change within the next three weeks due to the Tallow flow.
...JP
I am new and know I must be doing thing wrong but I started this year with 3 hives in a single deep each and 2 shallow supers on 2 and 1 shallow on the other. By the time of first blooming they were down to about 1/2 a super each. I put them in 2 deep, new deep no drawn comb, in a few weeks started puting on super. Haven't when to bottom of hive in about a month, last week had 6 large swarms out of these 3. Caught all but am running out of boxes. They are real busy to 1 hive caught wednesday by sat where covering all frames, oh forgot to fill box with frames had 8 in 10 box they had built 2 combs from lid to floor about 6 inch at top and 2 to 3 inch at bottom of box. got all recaught in double boxes now.
Joe
Last year - 1 honey bee call turned out to be yellow jackets.
This year - so far 4 swarm calls, 1 cutout, 1 trapout.
We have had 2 swarm calls, which resulted in 4 swarms caught. They were all within about 100 feet. Both calls were within about a week and the swarms were all LARGE 2 basketball size, 1 larger than 2 footballs, and the last one larger than a football. Very happy with all of them. One of them had barely taken in a quart of syrup in a week and have belted out 2 1/2 frames of brand new comb! loving it
downhome
No calls this year so far.
i got my 5th call in 2 weeks today. the swarm was gone by the time i got there.
I am with JP, I have only had 2 swarm calls so far this year. The others have been cut outs and like JP stated they have had very little to no honey stores. I just did one today that took me 5 hours with 12 pounds of bees, but notta for honey.
Don't know how many calls, nor which were swarms and which were cutouts and trapouts. Don't keep records, but got about half of them. My helper has went from 3 to 21 hives. I have went from 5 to 15 hives, plus I have given a few away.
Had 3 calls today. Got one, going to trap 1, and one said no, so it isn't over yet.