First swarm of the year and man was it a good un.

vmmartin · April 03, 2012, 12:37:25 AM

My son and I caught this one this evening and we had a blast doing it. He is about 5'6" and 135 pounds. There was still about 3-4 pounds of bees that you cannot see in the picture. They filled up two deeps and I had to kick their butts to get them all in. Best one ever for me. I cannot wait to see how they do. Here is the only way I can post pic for now.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=406018712743024&set=a.244303715581192.72711.100000046962061&type=1&ref=nf

D Semple · April 03, 2012, 12:47:09 AM

Great catch, that's a huge swarm. Can't go wrong adding 2 more boxes tonight!

If they feel cramped they will be gone before lunch tomorrow.

Congradulations.

Don

vmmartin · April 03, 2012, 01:16:50 AM

My plan is to split them in the morning. Maybe check for multiple queens, if not add a frame of brood with eggs to each new hive just in case. Maybe split three ways?

jmblakeney · April 03, 2012, 01:54:58 AM

Wow great catch. Good luck with ur splits.

Kathyp · April 03, 2012, 12:17:33 PM

it's a beauty. just posted my CL ad yesterday. it's going to be in the 60's this weekend. your post is motivation!! :-D

schawee · April 03, 2012, 04:16:04 PM

NICE LOOKING SWARM .GREAT CATCH. ...... SCHAWEE

G3farms · April 03, 2012, 07:11:33 PM

WOO HOO nice Texas sized swarm you got there!!

Good luck with the splits.

bud1 · April 03, 2012, 09:36:06 PM

martin, you done got the prize fo the bigun so far this yr.

vmmartin · April 03, 2012, 11:25:24 PM

Thanks y'all. Split it two ways this morning and added a frame of capped brood and eggs from my favorite hive to each split. Never saw a queen on either side of the split but their behavior told me which box she was in. Reduced the entrance down on the other and they both looked normal this afternoon. Time will tell. Hope to post some pics later.

hardwood · April 03, 2012, 11:30:35 PM

WooHoo! Good one!

Scott

vmmartin · April 03, 2012, 11:50:35 PM

Thanks Scott. I am no expert in anything, much less bee weight, but my best guess is that the swarm was between 8-12 pounds. I did the first shake into a double deep with frames of foundation in the bottom and nothing in the top deep to serve as a funnel. When I shook them they overflowed the top box. Man it was cool. The second shake garnered me about 6 stings, I think mainly because they had been through a morning rain storm and were a little angry. I will always remember that one.

JP · April 04, 2012, 01:12:20 AM

Nice swarm Mike! Ours lately have been averaging close to two pounds. Caught a few bigger but nothing like that so far this season.

...JP

vmmartin · April 08, 2012, 12:05:03 AM

Update on the splits. WOW. I have only been at this for two years but what I saw today blew me away. I split the big swarm Tuesday morning (I caught them Monday evening). I put each in a double deep configuration with new Duragilt with the bees on top and put a frame of brood and eggs in each top box. Hive A I will call it seemed to have the queen and Hive B seemed to not have her. When I checked on them today Hive A had both boxes drawn and almost full of nectar and I did find the queen and she is laying up a storm. Hive B had about 16 frames drawn and the frame of brood and eggs had 27 queen cells on it. I can't believe it. I added a super to hive A.
I am tickled pink over the two hives.

G3farms · April 08, 2012, 12:11:35 AM

As fast as they are building I would split each one of them again. You have enough queens to do that.

vmmartin · April 10, 2012, 11:54:02 PM

G3, didn't even think about that. I called my buddy that was wanted to split a few of his and he came over yesterday so we could cut a few capped cells out for him. There were 41 cells either capped or about to be. I think I am going to let the two splits go for now but will definitely split the hive with the original queen. I like her kids.