Nice!Sometimes you get lucky, the landowner where I keep my bees called me tonight and said ‘I think you have had a swarm there is a massive clump of bees on one of the empty hives’
So I went over and had a look, checked my hives (i inspected them Friday and didn’t think it was one of mine but looked anyway) - not a swarm from one of my hives, so a nice prime swarm for me and it landed about 5m away from my hives in my pallet of spare nucs and old frames
I love free bees
Now all in a nuc, couple of handfuls scooped in and the others marched right in. Bit of feed on and I will look at them in a week!
View attachment 82233
I was hoping the swarm season was over. I've managed to not have any of my colonies swarm this year, well so far.Sometimes you get lucky, the landowner where I keep my bees called me tonight and said ‘I think you have had a swarm there is a massive clump of bees on one of the empty hives’
So I went over and had a look, checked my hives (i inspected them Friday and didn’t think it was one of mine but looked anyway) - not a swarm from one of my hives, so a nice prime swarm for me and it landed about 5m away from my hives in my pallet of spare nucs and old frames
I love free bees
Now all in a nuc, couple of handfuls scooped in and the others marched right in. Bit of feed on and I will look at them in a week!
View attachment 82233
That's what I do with all sorts of bees. I not a fan of feeding, just pick them up and place on a suitable flower in the sunshine. Often bees can get cold, not just in need of food, so putting them on a sunny plant can warm them enough.So I carefully scooped up the bee on to a twig and then deposited him on a bunch of flower heads. I saw him greedily lapping up the nectar, which was encouraging.
I just hope he could get enough to build up his strength and fly off safely and strongly.
Yeah tbh it’s a bit late for the queen to get sorted and laying her winter bees. I popped them in a nuc and fed them and will see how they do! Worst case scenario is I combine them with my smallest hive and snuff a queenNice!
Although this year, I could have done without all the free bees that settled in my apiary. Had more than enough hives as was and then more and more swarms seemed to be attracted to it.
Yeah will snuff a queen, probably the swarm queen as she is unknownI was hoping the swarm season was over. I've managed to not have any of my colonies swarm this year, well so far.
How are your other bees settling in? As clam as expected? Are you likely to requeen the swarm or keep them as is?
I lost two colonies over winter and one has gone quite small, but the others are looking ok. Not minding too much as wanted to reduce the numbers anyway.How's everyone's colonies doing? As ever, it's been a funny old start to the year. A couple of weeks ago the NBU were sending out starvation alerts and after a couple of days sunshine most of mine need their 2nd super.
Nice one!View attachment 87773
We had a nice prime swarm land in some of our equipment on Saturday. A lovely marked Buckfast queen that someone will definitely be missing.
It was a slow start to the season, but everything is kicking off now. We manage around 15 apiary sites, so rushing to get round them all before they swarm or backfill the brood boxes with honey.