1st year Beek, 1st swarm removal

[Meadlover]

Well after several months on a swarm list I got my 1st call for a swarm that had set up in a tree. Conveniently I had knocked off work an hour early to drop into the beek shop to get some bits and pieces. As I was trying to decide whether to get a hairlcip style queen catcher or not I received the call from a guy not too far from home who had a swarm land in a tree just above head height in his paddock of his 10 acre property. Well needless to say, that sold me on the queen catcher, and I proceeded to finish up my purchases ASAP and head off home to get my gear together. After stuffing around for a while getting some frames together plus all my other bits and pieces I headed off to his block and got there 30min-1hr before sunset.

The ball off bees was just above head height in a small tree, which was quite convenient as the branch was nice and supple and would be easy to shake. To cut a long story I had 1 box full of frames - 2 old dark combs, 2 foundation, 2 frames with wax coated plastic foundation, 2 one piece full plastic frame/foundation, and 2 wired frames with tounge depressers that I hope work as starter strips. A few dabs of lemongrass oil for good measure on top of the wooden frames plus a drop on the entrance of the hive. I put this on the ground plus an empty super on top to give room for the bees so I didn't squash them, plus room to put a cutoff branch if required.

I gave them a light smoking (not sure if this was really needed or did much??), climbed 2 steps up my ladder with a cardboard box under the ball of bees, gave the branch a sharp shake and 95% of the bees fell into the box, then tipped them into the hive and put the lid on. I then waited around 5 min to let the remaining bees settle back onto the branch.

I checked with the owner and since he wasn't concerned about the tree, I gave it a haircut to remove the small cluster of remaing bees and placed that into the hive on top of the frames, in the hope that if I missed the queen she would be on the branch in the cluster somewhere. I then put a white pillowcase in front of the entrance of the hive (should have done that before I started) and it looked like the bees outside the hive were all facing toward the hive (I think this indicates that the queen was inside??). At this point I left the hive to settle and hopefully collect all the returning foragers, and went inside with the owner to have a cup of tea and a chinwag for an hour or so until the sun had well and truly set.

On returning to the hive, I unfortunately found 3 cane toads sitting out front of the hive feasting on the bees remaining outside  :-x they got stomped  :-D. I then put a strip of flywire over the entrance and stapled in on to contain the bees, loaded the hive onto the ute, and on returning home placed the hive on a pair of old wood trestles and ripped of the flywire to release the bees. I also wedged 2 pieces of wood in both side of the entrance to reduce it to about 1/3 of it's full opening width.

Next morning I placed a ziplock bag of 50/50 sugar water on top of the frames to give them a feed, and to try to convince them to stay.

1 day later (this morning) I checked as I rushed out of the door late for work, and they look happy, although there is a slow trail of ants getting into the hive, so that is my priority tonight, to block the ants getting in. 2nd to do tonight is remove the empty super on top of the hive. I don't really want to disturb them but I might open them up and if the numbers look light I might transfer them to a nuc as I'm not sure if there is enough to fill a 10 frame box and the SHB are devastating here ATM!

All in all it was a very simple, pleasant, fun, rewarding experience, and was certainly alot less time and effort that the cutout I did nearly 2 weeks ago. Both have been a great learning experience though.

ML

Oh and I did take a few photos so will upload them tonight when I get home.

[Meadlover]

OK here's the photos:
Close up of the swarm


From another angle


My setup before the shakedown


The collection of bees 5 minutes after shaking the main ball off


And finally the hive after the main ball and the remaining cut off branch was put in
'


Does the angle and stance of the bees in the last picture look like that when the queen is in there? or am I reading into it too much?

I just did an inspection 10 minutes ago to find that they have taken all of my small baggy of syrup, and they are building comb like demons. The 2 old dark combs in the centre are half full of honey already.
There was at least 3 queen cups that they are building - does this mean the queen isn't in there?
I was really quick so as not to disturb them but I didn't see the queen although it would have been hard to spot her.

There is about 3-4 frames covered in bees. I guess I will transfer them to a nuc since there is only about 3-4 frames of bees (once I've finished making it).

Should I wait a few days to see if there is any eggs in the new comb that they build? If I don't see any eggs I'm guessing within a week? I will probably combine them with my current nuc hive that has the new queen I bought a few weeks back and make 1 full hive.
Any advice or ideas?

Thanks

ML

[Lone]

Well done, ML, a true bee buster.  Good to see you didn't use your genocidal beevac.

Only advice I can give you is, if you haven't added welding some toad/ant proof stands together to your list, then plonk it on a table with oil cans on the legs till you have.  By the way, a swarm trap is now on my list from today, after finishing the nuc box and the solar wax melter.  I'll race ya with the nuc box - I just need to brand and paint mine.

It would be odd if you didn't have the queen.  I suppose you can just check for eggs in a few days.

Lone

[Meadlover]

Well unfortunately I must have missed the queen as the hive ended up with a laying worker  :(
After a couple of weeks the numbers had dwindled and they had nearly filled 2 frames of honey and pollen.
I opened it up a few days ago and found a few too many SHB so took 1 frame of pollen/honey out and wacked it in the freezer.
The plan was to swap the other frame and rotate that through the freezer, and cut a queen cell from my trap out to put in there, but before heading off to work this morning I think the bees have absconded  :'(
I saw a large ball of bees hanging onto the front of the hive yesterday and just thought they were bearding because it was a hot day, but looks like they were getting ready to take off.

I will check when I get home tonight and if that is the case I will freeze the other frame, then I will put both of them into my trap out hive to boost their stores up.

Hopefully next time I will get/keep the queen, or be able to give them a frame of brood and eggs.

Even will such a bad ending it was a good learning experience to see what a hive with a laying worker looks like so that I might recognise the signs early up next time, or if one of my strong hives goes queenless.

ML

[Lone]

Hello ML,

Thanks for the update.  Why do you say you had a laying worker?  That weak hive of mine which I thought had a laying worker, turned out to have a superceded queen.  I had never had experience of either before, and why I thought it was a laying worker was firstly I didn't spot the marked queen, which I could previously do very easily, but mainly because there were only a few cells with eggs in them and there were several eggs in each cell.  I didn't think a queen would lay like this, but I've since discovered that a new queen will. I also must have got the time scale wrong for when I expected the queen to emerge from the queen cell I'd seen.   I was advised to see where in the cells the eggs were.  Apparently a laying working cannot reach to the bottoms of the cells, so the eggs will be on the sides.  

If the bees absconded, it would probably be from too many SHB.  You could try putting the next swarm into the smallest possible space so they can defend themselves. They would have needed eggs to requeen - I suppose that's the trouble with a swarm.  Did you ever see eggs?  Maybe they are just a swarmy bunch of itinerant bees.   Or if you have a hopeless-looking hive again, you could combine with your other hive and they will not go to waste.  Is your cutout hive still surviving?

By the way, that weak hive is now in a nuc box (did I beat you to it?) and seem to be picking up.  And there is some bloodwood out  :)

Lone

[Meadlover]

Why do you say you had a laying worker?

Lone, the reason I'm sure it was a laying worker was that there were multiple eggs in heaps of the cells, as in more than 5 eggs in those cells, and once the cells were capped they were ALL sticking out proud like drone cells.

I did also collect and add to this hive a small amount of bees from a swarm callout - when I say small I mean a couple of hundred bees (as in 1/2 a cup of bees). I thought they must have been the foragers from a swarm that returned after the main swarm had headed off for their new hive location, but maybe they did have a queen and swarmed out from my hive, taking most of the bees with her?

I checked the hive last night and there are some bees left but not many - not even enough to cover 1 frame.
I have put both the frames of honey & pollen in the freezer to either add to another hive later, or to place near a hive & let them rob it out, because 2 drawn out frames of honey and pollen are 2 drawn out frames of honey and pollen!

ML

[Meadlover]

Is your cutout hive still surviving?

No the cutout hive is dead and gone a few weeks back now.
The biggest mistake I made was trying to save too much brood comb - they got absolutely hammered by SHB. The bottom board was alive with SHB larvae it was that bad. As JP suggested in my cutout thread, I should have removed all the brood comb and put them onto clean foundation - drastic but probably would have saved most of the bees that were still alive.

The main problem I have ATM is that I am restricted to what action I can take as my 1 and only remaining 10 frame hive has taken a few hits this year and I've taken quite a few frames from it already so I don't want to take anymore frames out of it if I think it will be detrimental to the hive - need at least 1 hive to survive until spring this year! I did take 1 frame of brood and eggs without the bees about 2 weeks ago to make a trapout but as it was the brood only without the bees I don't think it should affect them too badly.

ML

[Kathyp]

consider all of this experience.  most of the time, swarms are easy.  you just got a hard one.  the queen may have been a straggler and become toad food, or she may  have been a virgin that did not get mated when you got them home.  she may have been lost on the mating flight, or been poorly mated.  there are lots of things that can go wrong and have nothing to do with you  :-)

if ever you are in doubt about having gotten the queen, you can always slip a frame of eggs into the hive. 

not to worry.  i don't remember how many swarms i picked up last year, but only one did really well.  the others ended up being combined with other hives or just died out.