Late season swarm

[Potlicker1]

Here it is, late August in Wisconsin and I get a swarm call. Sure enough on a tree there they are. Not a huge swarm but a swarm none the less. Well I captured them but now I'm not entirely sure what to do with them. Should I try to overwinter them? I'd like another colony. Queens are valuable to me. Or should I just join them to another colony? The fall goldenrod is here and it's getting late. Any thoughts.

[AliciaH]

What did you hive them in?  Many here have mentioned successfully wintering nucs.  So, feed, feed, feed, feed, feed.....Also, if you have other hives, is it possible to pull and store a few honey frames to be able to feed back to the new hive in case they don't get enough tucked away?

[dpence]

Interesting, I also got a late season swarm call.  I thought perhaps a tree the hive was in got knocked over by wind or lightning, we had a lot of storms here.  Yes indeed, feed em.  Luckily the aster flow is yet to come here.

David

[Potlicker1]

Well as for now I have them in a 4 frame nuc but I don't believe that will be sufficient to make it through our winters. I have feed on now.

[tandemrx]

further south in Wisconsin, but had a swarm on August 6th out at the bee yard, then just had another swarm from my backyard hive this past Sunday the 22nd.

And the backyard hive that just swarmed is a swarm I caught in the neighborhood on June 11th  :? :?

They were just what I thought of as getting to a decent strength for overwintering and they swarmed.  They had an entire hive body of extra room (undrawn though, as they have been reluctant to draw out this second hive body for some reason - even though there were a lot of bees in the 2nd hive body and I was feeding them gallons of syrup . . . they would just devour the stuff . . . and still are devouring the stuff).

[Potlicker1]

Any chance they're getting somewhat honey bound with the aggressive feeding. I'm not into the fall feeding yet. Seems a little early for these parts. Goldenrod is blooming strong. I think we just came through a derth but now isn't just to bad.

[tandemrx]

I had to feed this hive - not feeding my others yet, save for one hive that I just did a combine on.

My backyard hive had zero stores since they started late being a June swarm and a queen that was laying like crazy (and I needed her to in order to get population strong for winter).  But she had room to lay eggs yet and they certainly could have worked the second hive body if they felt they were getting short on space.

But, it is possible there was a bit of an imbalance in usable space versus her rate of  production.  I haven't ever had frames that were so wall to wall eggs/brood (well usually because they will put some honey stores on the top of the frame - in this case she would just fill up the entire frame except for a few cells along the wires of the foundation - giving them no room to put stores).  Now they at least have a super that is full that I will leave them for winter, but they still need a good bit more.

I was really shocked at this swarm.

Maybe they didn't like the new copper hive cover I built them  ;) . . . they get the fancy digs (stained hive, new copper top) compared to my hives in the bee yard (painted, standard telescoping)

[AllenF]

It is best to put a late season swarm on drawn comb to give them a boost.   Then feed away. 

[tandemrx]

In my case I did hive them in drawn comb.  When they filled the drawn medium super and a drawn deep with brood I gave them another deep (with the hopes of reclaiming my medium super that I hived them in, but that won't happen because now it will be their winter stores).

Its the bottom deep that they won't draw (for a month during a decent flow and some feeding).  Then they swarmed.

I will continue to feed, no matter what they have a ways to go to get adequate stores in this hive.