Fraid nerves of a rookies first swarm catch

[Jedda]

Well I just joined this forum 2 days ago as spring is suddenly upon us in Australia and I thought Id better start seeking advice with the bee situation I found myself in. I took my young family away almost 12 months to the day and when we returned I discovered a swarm of bees had moved into an old oil can that I had turned into an extra large funnel. Id stored it upside down so the rain and leaves wouldn't collect inside of it and the bees moved right in. I searched my local area for bee keepers/ swarm collectors but there were none within 150km (around 100 miles). I called the local agricultural high school but had no interest, so in the mean time I started googling what I was facing. The first thing I found was comments suggesting a swarm wouldn't choose a volume less than 30 litres, but these bees were in a 10 litre drum, so I figured Id add the extra 20 litres with another larger oil drum so that the bee keeper I imagined showing up at some stage could easily remove the bees in the drum. I cut the top out of the bigger drum and the smaller one sat right on top, I also made up drilled out caps for the drum openings and it was a simple matter to just put on the lids and take the hive away.

A month went by and I still couldn't find anyone willing to come take them and I started making plans of taking them for a drive out of town and setting up their hive somewhere and abandoning them. In the mean time I continued googling and youtubing for information trying to figure out just what was going to happen. Well what happened was I got more and more interested and kept reading more about beekeeping till I started playing with the idea of trying to keep them myself. Why not, it looks soo easy on those youtube videos.

So during the last 12 months I've made some purchases of beekeeping supplies and spent countless hours planning the big move of getting the bees out of the drums. Last week I finally found the weather to be fine enough to start the transfer, and I cut the bottom of the drum out and sat it on an adaptor I made up to go onto a hive body. Took half a day all up and by the time I finished I was exhausted, mostly from the anxiety of being surrounded by thousands of confused bees while I altered their home.

Yesterday I decided to check how they were faring drawing out the foundation comb and found not much, only some slight drawing but no usable real estate. I looked inside the drum and it was gang busters with bees. I began to worry that they were taking too long making new comb and would swarm, so decided to prepare to cut them out in the next week or two, but today as I began to make more parts, I heard a loud buzzing and found my entire backyard swarmed with bees!

I watched them begin to ball up in a bush in my yard, but then disappointed watched as they again took to the skies and over the fence. I was freaking out a bit worried what the neighbours would be thinking, but luckily no one noticed. The bees then balled up in a low tree branch in the neighbours yard, so I knew I had to go deal with them; the neighbours don't even know I have bees yet so I didn't want them to find out like that.

I raced inside and pulled my beekeeping for dummies book and quickly read up on what it had to say on swarm catching. I also quickly made up some sugar water.
Then I went and informed my neighbour of the situation and she gladly allowed me access to the bees. Then things started going south, quickly. After telling her the bees would be docile and I was only wearing a veil for my own insecurities, bees started to fly out and hit me in the head. No worries I thought, Ill just spray them with sugar water and they will be as calm as lambs, which they were till I started carefully snipping their branch to size. The bees began to buzz their annoyance at me. Thinking placing them into the box I had wouldn't cause any dramas I carefully cut the branch and lowered them into the box. As soon as they touched that box they were into me! I wandered the yard trying to get the bees to leave me alone but they were having none of it and were furiously attacking me, stinging my wrists and clothing. I went home and lit the smoker to cover up the alarm sent on me, but because I had stingers in my clothes it wasn't enough and another dozen or so set upon me stinging at my veil trying to get me.

I went home and change clothes, which helped stop the full on agro, but I was still being angrily buzzed at whenever I approached the box. I informed my neighbour to stay out of her yard for the rest of the day :imsorry: then I took my angry box of bees back home being careful there was nobody around. I quickly built a 5 frame nuc out of ply, stole 5 frames from the old hive and got the bees to go into the box right on dusk (I stuck an old bit of their comb inside and gently shook a small lump of bees into the top). They were still furious with me and I had my smoker on hand to chase them away from myself, but being careful not to smoke the swarm or hive.

Right now I'm wondering what I've now got myself into, and if you have read all of this, thankyou, please offer any advice.

[jayj200]

A mean swarm. Oh my!

this doesn't sound good.
where are you cause your locale can tell a lot.

[sc-bee]

where are you cause your locale can tell a lot.

>Well I just joined this forum 2 days ago as spring is suddenly upon us in Australia

Jedda update your profile to show location for future post. A lot of beekeeping is location. Have you found the down under section of the forum?
That type of nasty behavior is not typical of swarms I have dealt with. The first thing that pops into everyone's mind is African influence. I have no idea of the Down Under chances? Dry swarm can be nasty bit they are usually not nasty after first setting out and you seemed to arrive quickly.

Seems you did well. Feed them a little and try to anchor them. Seems you are entering spring and a flow should be on or starting. They will be able to build up without fed if you have a flow. I don't imagine you have any brood to anchor them with since the others are in a drum. Do you plan on cutting the ones out of the drum or you are just going to see if they move in the box on their own. The latter I suspect from your earlier preps.

If the new swarm stays put give them some time and then evaluate temperament. Hope you have a good relationship with the neighbors, not a good way to start out. "You got this swarm of bees in your yard that came from my can and don't come out because I pi$$ed them off :jawdrop:" Hang in there seems you have already took the bull by the horns and are willing to learn :)

[Lone]

G'day there Jedda,

Welcome to beekeeping.

Now that is a great story and a very good way of finding out how you react to beestings.

I'm not sure if I understand completely.  Did you put some kind of frame in the drum for the bees to draw out into comb that you could then put into your manmade hive?  In average circumstances, bees will take anything from one day to a year or so to draw out random comb, depending on their needs and what sort of flow they are on.  So it's not surprising that after a week there wouldn't be much built.  But the usual way of doing a cutout is to take whatever brood comb there is already (given the number of bees you should have lots of this) and lakka-band it into frames.  When you place it into your new hive they are likely to stay as they rarely abandon brood.

Another thing to note is that it sounds more like they were disturbed into absconding rather than swarming?  I'm not too sure of the lingo but a regular swarm is a planned event with only some of the colony leaving and measures taken to make a successor queen for the original hive.  They also leave full of honey, which is said to be the reason that a swarm is docile.  Or perhaps your bees were ready to swarm and it's a coincidence it happened when you were playing with them.  The odd swarm can be temperamental and it doesn't hurt to always have a smoker lit up just in case, and your pants tucked into your socks.  I haven't tried sugar water, but I have been around people who open a hive without smoking them first.

From my experience NOTHING ever goes as smoothly as those swarm catcher videos, but every time it's a new learning experience  :)

If your bees continue to have attitude problems, your next lesson might be "How to Requeen".  It will be easiest while they are still in the 5 frame nuc box.  

Now that it's spring, I'm sure you'll get plenty of practice with swarms and hopefully some honey to sweeten the poor neighbour up.

Lone

[sc-bee]

Yes it is a great stroy and indeed WELCOME. I actually siad this in an original post but hit the wrong key and deleted it all and had to start all over :shock: And I am a slow pecker on the keyboard  :-D

> Last week I finally found the weather to be fine enough to start the transfer, and I cut the bottom of the drum out and sat it on an adaptor I made up to go onto a hive body. Took half a day all up and by the time I finished I was exhausted, mostly from the anxiety of being surrounded by thousands of confused bees while I altered their home.

Lone sounds as though he is trying to get them to move into the box from the drum. Could be a long process but could work according to how it is oriented. But it will take a while if at all. Are there bees still in the drum. They could have absconded due to the disturbance but it is also spring and you could have had a swarm. But as we both stated reproduction swarm are usually docile and easy to handle. If it were an abscond as lone suggest they very well could be ugly. Check the drum, one look will let you know. Also if they absconded from the drum they could be robbing the resources so don't let that fool you into thinking they are still using the drum as a home.

[Lone]

Oh I see..Jedda was probably trying a trapout?  I'm too lazy for anything so slow and laborious   ;)

SC, you type just fine; it's your accent that is tricky haha

Lone

[sc-bee]

Oh I see..Jedda was probably trying a trapout?  I'm too lazy for anything so slow and laborious   ;)

SC, you type just fine; it's your accent that is tricky haha

Lone

Yea and the broken sentences because I don't want to type :-D I talk a little like Bud "but he gots me beets."  :-D And I agree I would just do a cut out especially as early as ya'll are in the season.

[Lone]

No probs.  I guess every tenth word of what Bud says and fill in the inbetween parts myself.  So I get the meaning, it just might be a different meaning.

Lone

[Jedda]

I apologise for taking so long to reply, I was unsuccessful as the bees decided the box I made up wasn't good enough and moved out again. Was feeling a bit miserable about the whole affair so took the family out for the day to get my mind off of my failure. I don't know the situation with the oil drum hive yet. I watched it for a few minutes this morning and saw workers coming and going, bringing pollen in but a lot less than before the swarm, so hopefully there is still a viable colony.

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what was the cause of the swarms behaviour. One thing I know is that the bees suddenly became nasty a couple of months ago and we had a week or two of keeping away from the hive as the bees were constantly trying to sting people in the yard, and unfortunately one chased my 4 year old son into our house and stung him on his head (man they came close to destruction when the wife found out), then one had the cheek to attack her the next day but I managed to smack it off her head hard enough that it didn't return. And this was not even from going near the hive. I'm hoping if there is a new queen things may calm down a bit, but I am actively trying to find a better place to put them away from people. Its a shame because when the bees were new they would occasionally land on someone for a rest and Id gently brush them off with my hand without any problems, and had them land on my hands and just sit there without a worry.

I'm not completely new to bees, over 20 years ago I went to an agricultural high school and spent a semester studying beekeeping, and we had a few hives that the teachers used for demonstrations. We never got to handle the bees ourselves but got to stand as close as we dared to the hives (with veils) while they were worked on. I have a great memory of the lead teacher suddenly walking several paces away from us one day after he opened a hive and dropped his pants to his ankles to release a bee that had marched all the way up his leg to his crotch :-D This was with a class of about 20 teenagers, so he was very embarrassed! He told us he was hoping the bee would just sting him on his leg but just kept climbing higher till he lost his cool :lau:

Anyway back to the topic on hand, just to make it a bit clearer of what is in my yard, I have a normal looking single Langstroth deep hive body sitting on a bottom board with 10 frames of wax foundation inside (all on a stand off the ground). On top of this is an inner cover with a large hole in the center of it, and the oil drum sits over that hole with the bottom cut off. The bees originally used the top opening of the oil drum but I've blocked that with a ventilated cap and forced them to start using the main entrance of the bottom board. I was hoping the bees would be eager to move away from the drum as its entirely black and gets pretty hot when the sun shines on it, which has resulted in some very impressive bearding over the last 12 months. Last summer during the hottest days I regularly misted water on the bees and the drum to help keep them cool/alive as the heat was killing the brood. I could tell as they were dragging them out of the drum and dropping them on the ground, even fully formed baby bees were being pulled out half dead and left for the ants.

I'm not going to wait too long to see if the bees move down as I want them out of the drum before it gets hot again, so I suspect I'll be doing a cut out very soon, I'm just waiting on more frames to arrive to put the old comb into.

As for bee sting sensitivity, one of the bees that stung me was attacking my wrist so I tried to quickly brush it off with my other hand but accidentally brushed it into the elastic cuff of my shirt where I got an instant sting. I was too busy trying to deal with the other bees attacking my hands so I had to leave it there for a minute till the coast was clear and I could roll my cuff back to reveal a rather annoyed bee trying to look intimidating. I've got a little bit of swelling there tonight but I think carrying a 3 year old around all day irritated it as it looked fine this morning. 

[Jedda]

 Spent a while observing the hive entrance today, all appears to be normal. One thing I found interesting was a large amount of drones around the hive today. I've been trying to spot the big guys since the swarm arrived last year and have never seen a living one. Today I knew they were about because of the noise they made flying around. I even managed to catch one to show my son to help him overcome his fear of the bees which he enjoyed.

Something that I've never seen before were a couple of wax moth larvae being removed. I'm wondering if that could be part of what had the swarm cranky the other day?

[GSF]

Best of luck to you with your new adventure.

[Lone]

Hello there Jedda,

Bees won't necessarily move into a big box of plain foundation. Essentially you are giving them extra space to protect and which they apparently can't manage.  It would take a large hive on a good flow and I think they prefer moving up than down.  Those grubs could well be small hive beetle which you wouldn't have seen 20 years ago. When starting out you won't have any stickies, and doing that cutout I think would be best.  Mind you, I've never attempted a trapout because I'm too impatient and would rather have the hive in one day rather than over months.  Our first cutout left overnight with a similar setup to yours and similar amount of experience.  We put the section of log on top of the hive body and that was obviously a bad idea.

You do want drones in a healthy hive this time of year but too many might indicate a problem also.

Nico did a cutout last year from a 24 gallon drum for us.  It was also out in the sun in hot 40 deg C weather.  The comb was hanging from the top and the rest of the drum empty.  No accounting for their preferences.

Swarms on the other hand don't mind a box of plain foundation so it's a shame they left!

I'd advise getting equipped with full spacesuit for you and an offsider who can make sure the smoker is always working, before you attempt a cutout of your bad attitude bees.  You won't have much comb so you will have to put it into the smallest box you have, maybe one plain foundation between two frames of comb.  And make sure you have some kind of beetle trap. 

And have fun!

Lone

[Jedda]

Thanks for the advice Lone. The original plan was to place the hive body over the drum, but it was going to be a lot more involved trying to cut the top off the drum due to the modification Id done to make it a funnel, and I also had to rig up support for the new hive as it couldn't just sit on top of the drum setup as there was a risk of the drums coming apart due to the weight, its already a little lop sided from the weight of the comb inside.

A cut out would be the easiest way to move them into the new hive, but I'm worried about putting a lot of angry bee's into the sky. I'm hoping they can help me out by expanding down themselves, and then I can figure out how to get them to vacate the drum while I remove the old comb.

[jayj200]

That will take a long time

do the cutout rubber banding comb with brood to an empty frame no foundation

watch JPthebeeman some 250 videos helped me

[Jedda]

JP's video of getting bees off someone's car was one of the first bee handling videos I watched 12 months ago when I was trying to get a feel for how the swarm at the time would behave when I picked up the drum from the ground to put it onto the new one. I've watched pretty much all his video's in awe of his ability to understand the bees he is working with.

[Jedda]

"Ding ding, round two!"

I was discussing with the missus a couple of days ago how I was lucky to be around when the bees swarmed or I would have never noticed. Today I noticed they had swarmed again when I spotted a small ball of bees in the bushes where the first swarm queen had spent a few minutes. I only spotted them because I was watching the drum bees flight path up over the bush and tracking a drone at the time. They were calm and appeared to have been there for quite a while, but who knows. Told the missus who wasn't very happy about my plans to try messing with the bees again, but because this swarm was soo much smaller I felt less intimidated by it.

I prepared for battle quickly this time as everything was ready from the last swarm catch attempt, but this time lit the smoker straight away and got it good and smokey and put on some gloves straight away. I'm glad I did as this swarm turned out to behave in the exact same manner as the last one, fairly calm and happy till I started messing with it! This time after I sprayed them with sugar water, I decided to just shake them straight into their new home as the swarm was in my yard and I wanted to keep that swarm spot so it can attract any other swarms that may emanate from the drum hive. I put the box with empty frames about a foot below them on a ladder and shook the bush hard and most of the swarm fell onto it. I waited to see if the bees would calm down like they always seem to do on youtube videos but just as last time they were into me, so I slowly backed away from them then proceeded to spend a couple of minutes smoking myself to drive away the angry buzzers that wanted to commit hari cari on me. One couldn't be dissuaded no matter how much smoke she got and insisted on attempting to sting my leg so she got a good hard flick, something I noticed last swarm catch would injure a stinging bee enough that they couldn't return for another attempt.

I gave the swarm 20 minutes to calm down and then attempted to approach them so I could start putting a lid on. The bees were still sitting on top of the box and a small group on the bush. As soon as I got within their "perimeter" I had bees buzzing the veil so I backed off and smoked the bees harassing me. I tried again and was again repelled back. Id watched a youtube video of an impatient bee keeper smoking a swarm into a box so decided Id had enough and would use that approach since it was getting late in the day. I got the smoker really going then went in and turned the air white with thick smoke, put the lid half on then backed off and observed the effect. No bees dared to harass me that time and a good deal of bees took refuge inside the box. I went straight back in and smoked the bush even more and this time held my ground till I could see them all fleeing for the box.

I gave them a good 2 hours to compose themselves, and after the sun had set closed the lid. Only 1 bee came out and it angrily buzzed across the top of the box at me but remained grounded on the box while I carried it across to the stand next to the drum hive. While I was setting the box in position I had the opportunity to hear the new queen in the drum hive piping, so made the end of this swarm capture pretty cool. I placed a larger piece of old comb with honey in the box this time, so hopefully these girls will stay.

[Lone]

You are very brave!

[BeeMaster2]

Way to go Jedda,.
I have had 2 swarms act very aggressive. The first one tore me up, stung mostly in the head, the second one warned me, head bumped me in the face and ears. I suited up for the remainder of that job. They stung a friend, that I called and warned not to stop, in the face, when she got out of the car about 75' from the swarm ball. Luckily it is not the norm.
You mention that you heard the queen piping. That probably means that you will have another swarm from this hive. Usually it is a battle cry and the bees are holding them apart for multiple swarms.
Bee ready.
Jim

[sc-bee]

You mentioned the first aggressive swarm and telling the neighbors to remain inside. Now a second aggressive swarm. Think I know what I need too...... at a minimum not near the neighbors!!!

[Jedda]

Thanks Lone, I think if it weren't for youtube I wouldn't have half the confidence to attempt this without a beeks help.

You are right sc-bee, I need to move these bees to a better location as they aren't entirely urban bee keeping friendly. My only saving grace is I live on a corner block with elderly neighbours on either side who spend most of their time inside or away, and I have high fences that don't allow the bees to see anybody in the neighbouring yards. But moving the bees out of the yard is something high on my agenda.

I'm not very happy the bees want to swarm again sawdstmakr, I don't want anymore hives in the yard, my missus would kill me. I think anymore swarms will have to find their own way. I went out late last night and there was still piping going on in the drum. I was youtubing again after the swarm and someone mentioned that if you didn't put a frame of brood in a box of swarm they probably wouldn't stay unless you trap them in the box for 8 days and get the queen laying, so I put some mesh over their entrance while they were sleeping. I made sure they have plenty of ventilation and shade so they should be fine.