hey i was just wondering if catching a swarm is a viable option for me. i live in the northeast state of pennsylvania. its generally colder up here so i assume africanized bees are less common in swarms. i understand genetics can be questionable but at the moment i gotta limit the money. your thoughts?
You may can sign up on a swarm call list in your area. Join your local bee club, someone there may help you out with some bees. I have in the pass caught more swarms than I had supers for, called beeks that had lost their bees and gave them some.
After you get some bees seems like you will see more swarms, and some won't bee yours. When I started I had 3 hives, caught 7 good size swarms in a week. Good luck
Joe
Thoms,
It is a great idea. The only chance of catching an Africanized hive is if you have a beekeeper who brought his bees from south FL up there and then they swarmed. I do not know of any commercial beeks that go from S FL to NE PA.
We do not have a problem with AHB even down here in N FL. They do not survive.
Jim
Go for it. You can find a lot of swarm catching info on Youtube or The Ohio State University Beekeeper Site.
Swarms usually begin at the peak of apple blossoms in spring and last a few weeks.
Equipment is easy to make.
I read it's like fishing, if one spot doesn't work find another.
Enjoy your bees.
Go for it! Last year was my first year and I didn't have the money for bees, so all of mine came from swarms and cut outs. I found a group that was willing to take me with them and ended the season with 3 hives. I'm looking forward to adding more to my yard this year.
I would say you're safe to catch your bees half wild. AHB are the same as any other honeybee, they also show the clustering behavior, but they're itchy, nervous, impatient bees, and have a tendency to swarm.
I caught a swarm last spring out in the swamps around the Tennessee river here, nice yellow bees. Opened the brood box for a peek on a warm day last month, and they're doing shabless. Only hot hive I've really had was a gift, and they gentled when the queen was superseded. All my bees are semi-erect, painted, and bloodthirsty ferals.
Not to say you will end up with a keeper, but each colony reacts to stress differently. You can have a "well bred" line of bees only to find, "nobody happy lest Mama happy." If you have them ambushing and dive-bombing you 75 feet from the hive, requeen.
The reason AHB don't survive harsher cold (I used to walk over sheets of ice on the sidewalks in Orlando at 7AM.) it's their swarming behavior that usually doesn't give them time to make enough stores, and build up enough to keep the cluster warm that long.
Our first year we caught a swarm to start. 2nd year we paid for a nuc in advance so we could have a second hive and ended up catching 18 swarms. We're in NE Ohio....I've caught 2 swarms in PA because they couldn't find anyone else. It's possible if you get your name out there and pretend you know what you're doing.
Craigslist ad for swarm removal.
Build several swarm traps. Best to get a beek with old deep boxes that are not really usable for hives. Many beeks have a pile of old boxes. Patch the box up. Put a plyood top and bottom. Drill an entry hole. Hang it in a tree. Lemon grass oil. Foundationless frames. Maybe one old comb frame if that beek will give you some. Put as many up as you can. There is a lot of good instruction on the web for swarm traps. Check the trap every week. This is a great way to get bee. And it is so much fun to check a trap and see bees moved in.