Killed more than half the swarm.

Groundhawg · April 21, 2017, 11:51:19 PM

Shared this on another forum but wanted to post here also. Long post but I hope it keeps someone else from making the mistake(s) that I did today.

Killed more than half the swarm.

Well I learned a lot today and welcome any constructed criticism as to what I could or should have done different as it might help the next newbie. Got my first swarm call this morning. Well I asked some of the questions my mentor had advised me to ask such as: How big was the swarm compared to a football? Have used this since most are sort of oblong in shape. How high they were how far from the road, etc.

Wes said he thought the swarm was a large as three footballs and would fill a 5 gallon bucket! Of course I thought he might be a bit excited and his eyes building them up some. Well he was right it was a huge swarm! Larger than any swarm I had seen pictures of or you tubes videos of. The swarm was only about 6 feet high covering a three tree limbs. I easily lifted my cardboard box under the swarm and racked three to four pounds of bees into the box with my dustpan and still had as many left on the tree as in my box. Sat the box down below the swarm and used my bee brush to fill and refill the dustpan and transfer them to the box.

Was quick, easy, had just two bees sting me, closed up my box and loaded it the truck for the short, about 20 minute drive home. The box was about 4 inches deep in bees with many more on the sides of the box. Once home quickly setup the hive box and in less than 30 minutes from closing the box till getting to the hive body more than half, maybe ? of the bees were dead! The cardboard box has screen wire on one side and I thought plenty of air. While there might have been enough ventilation the sheer number and weight of the bees had smothered thousands of bees, and of course I am just sick about that.

Still was able to house a large number of bees in the hive with drawn comb, a frame with brood, and some sugar water but have no idea if the queen is alive or not. I just hate what happen and still not sure what I could have done different. Hindsight I would have carried a hive body with frames with me and poured the bees from the box to the hive body before leaving the tree. Maybe if I had thought to use two boxes they would have had enough room, maybe if I had ??.., or maybe if I had ?? .

Anyway if someone can learn from my error(s) or some of you want to unload on me than somebody else might not make the same mistakes that I did. I now wish the bees had left before I got to them but I can not undo it now and am trying to think of what to do next. My plans are to leave them alone for 3 to 5 day and see if there are any eggs or other signs of the queen being alive. If I can not find her or any signs of new life I think my three best choices are: 1) If there are enough bees left alive my mentor has offered to give me a newly mated queen. 2) Pull a frame with eggs from one of the other hive I have and see if they will make a queen. 3) Or if I feel there are not enough bees left to establish another hive combine them with another hive by trying the ?newspaper combine?.

Sorry so long but I have been beating myself up all afternoon and hope others can learn from the mistakes that I made today and help someone else to not make such errors as I did.

Captain776 · April 22, 2017, 02:41:13 AM

I am new but have done a lot of reading and video viewing.
From what I have seen and read, you should always bring a hive Box and frames with you and depending on how big the swarm is, you may need 2 or 3 boxes.
You are already most likely doing the rest, disassemble the swarm slowly keeping an eye out for the Queen, if you find her and get her into the hivebox, it makes the rest easier and if you don't find and capture the Queen, when you get the box(es) back home, the hive will make a new queen.
If you don't already know, watch a few videos of a hive re-queening and what to do and when go inspect.

Acebird · April 22, 2017, 08:35:19 AM

Bring the hive boxes with you so you can dump the bees in a box with frames that way they won't smother. Is the queen dead?

Groundhawg · April 22, 2017, 10:42:47 AM

To early to tell if the queen made it. I will let them alone for a couple of day since I have them in a hive then look for the queen or any signs that she made it. With so many dead I do not have much hope she lived through my errors. If not I will still try to save the remaining bees.

Michael Bush · April 25, 2017, 09:04:00 AM

You work with what you have handy, but it is nice to put them in the hive. For transport I like a screened bottom board (SBB) on the bottom and another screened bottom on the top so they won't overheat. My SBB all have the entrances blocked. Bees overheat pretty easily when confined.

DeepCreek · April 26, 2017, 10:49:23 AM

Quote from: Michael Bush on April 25, 2017, 09:04:00 AM
You work with what you have handy, but it is nice to put them in the hive. For transport I like a screened bottom board (SBB) on the bottom and another screened bottom on the top so they won't overheat. My SBB all have the entrances blocked. Bees overheat pretty easily when confined.

To elaborate further, don't use a screened bottom board while capturing a swarm. The queens pheromone will cause just as many bee's to cling to the underside of the box as you have in the box. I agree with transporting with a SBB and I use a Florida moving screen on the top.

Groundhawg · April 26, 2017, 11:18:53 AM

From Saturday ? 29 April.

Thanks folks for the ideas, information, and plans for what to do next time. And now I hope I quickly get another chance. I was really beating myself up yesterday and while still disappointed in what I did know that I have learned from the mistakes I made.

Not trying to make light of what happen but as one stated ?they were just bees? and with all most of us face each day if losing some bees is the worse that happens in some ones life they are blessed.

Did not mess with the hive today that I placed them in and they were coming and going steady. Lost a lot of bees but this time of year they can bounce back quickly. I will check them after the first of the week and if no sign of the queen I will get a new one from by friend and a frame or two of capped brood and fresh eggs and larva from one of my other hives.

Groundhawg · April 26, 2017, 11:21:24 AM

Update on swarm. Tuesday ? April 25th.

After housing what was left of the swarm in a 5 frame nuc on Friday with 3 frames of drawn comb and feeding sugar water I left them alone till yesterday, Monday. No eggs or other signs of a queen when I checked Monday, still have several hundred bees busy putting some nectar and sugar water in the drawn comb frames. Got a queen from my friend this morning and put her in the nuc and added a fifth frame with about half capped brood and larval ? might have been some eggs but I did not search for them.

Hopefully the remaining bees will settle in and once the new queen is released they will expand and make it. Now I am going to just leave them alone for the next few days and hope they do alright.

Michael Bush · April 26, 2017, 01:23:32 PM

>To elaborate further, don't use a screened bottom board while capturing a swarm. The queens pheromone will cause just as many bee's to cling to the underside of the box as you have in the box. I agree with transporting with a SBB and I use a Florida moving screen on the top.

Yes. Ideal would be probably a SBB with a tray that is pretty light tight and air tight and a screened cover with a cover over that that is light tight until you get them to move in. Then open them up so they don't overheat while confining them so they don't fly out.

BeeMaster2 · April 28, 2017, 12:31:58 PM

After doing the same thing, I added screen top and bottoms to most of my nucs. I also made screw on bottoms that I can remove once the bees are in the box so that they do not over heat in transport.
Jim