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And Now They Are Swarming

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beeboy

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 29, 2004
350
1
0
70
Port Orange, Florida, USA
Well went out to check the hives between thunderstorms today and found the hive #4 had thrown a small swarm, maybe 1 1/2 lbs of bees all clumped together on the side of a hive. Got the gear on, veil and gloves, and swept the bees off the hive into a small bucket. Took a shallow with drawn comb and set it up with a queen excluder between the hive body and bottom board, dumped the bees in, saw the queen and closed it up. It's great to get another hive this was but how do I stop the rest of the hives from swarming or is it too late. I inverted the hives last month to give more brood room and have plenty of room for honey. I'm planning to open all the hives this week and pull any full honey frames, does anybody know what else can be done cause I'm stumped :-\. Can't make too many more hives, getting a bit low on equipment.
 

kace069

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 21, 2004
470
0
0
46
Wow, I didn't know they would swarm this late.

Well I would say start putting supers on.

I have also read about a technique to trick the colony into thinking that they have swarmed. I'm not sure about the details. Something to do with a white bed sheet leading up to the entrance and dumping bees onto it. It will prolly be a day or two before i can reaserch my books for it. But maybe you can find something on the web like this.

Another thing you may want to try is to just remove queen cells they are starting to build when you open them up. If there is no new queen being reared they won't swarm?? I think??? Seems to make sense to me but maybe not to the girls.
 

beeboy

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 29, 2004
350
1
0
70
Port Orange, Florida, USA
I'm wondering if I didn't cause the swarm. I requeened a hive about six weeks ago but the queen didn't take. Ended up getting a second queen for that hive but always wondered where the first one went to. Maybe the first queen moved over to another hive, set up house and triggered the swarm. No real problem, the swarm is really small, only covers three shallow frames part way so I didn't loose a lot of bees in the main hive. Kind of feel sorry for it cause it's so small :-\. Going to see if I have any shallow frames with brood and move one over to the swarm hive. Putting on the moon suit tomorrow and going after honey, should be able to pull the frames, extract and get the empty frames back on the hives in one day. It's going to be hot work but worth it.
 

kace069

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 21, 2004
470
0
0
46
How many frames are you extracting? With what a 2 frame extractor?
 

beeboy

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 29, 2004
350
1
0
70
Port Orange, Florida, USA
Well I opened two hives yesterday morning, bees were agressive and got stung a couple times. Think it was a bit too early in the morning for them an I wasn't wearing my moon suit plus none of the comb had been capped yet. Ended up being a waste of time although it looks like I will have three shallow super full and maybe half a deep. I'm using an old Kelly two frame reverable extractor that must be 50 years old. Takes a bit of time to extract but it was free ;D
 

kace069

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 21, 2004
470
0
0
46
I noticed in the other post that you were looking for shallows with brood. What are you running a deep and a shallow for brood chamber?
 

beeboy

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 29, 2004
350
1
0
70
Port Orange, Florida, USA
One hive pulled a fast one on me. When I added the shallows for honey a queen moved up into one and turned it into a shallow brood super. I was hoping to get a frame of brood out of it for the swarm hive but didn't have any luck, it was all honey, no brood. I'm using two deeps for the main hive and am adding two or more shallows for the honey flow. I think I have twelve deep and twelve shallow supers which is enough for 5-6 hives depending on how big they get. Been noticing that the shallows are a lot more work to get the honey out of. They only produce half the honey that a deep does and they take the same amount of time decapping and extracting plus they cost almost the same as a deep. I do like them though cause they weigh less. Remember a couple of full deeps that must of weighed in over 100 lbs while a full shallow is in the 45-50 lb range.
 

beeboy

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 29, 2004
350
1
0
70
Port Orange, Florida, USA
Mediums would be the way to go with deeps for brood. I attached pieces of 1x2 pine on the sides of all my deeps as handles, couldn't get a grip on the little slots that are supposed to be hand holds, made a big difference with moving them when full. This is the first year I've tried to standardize my equipment with deeps for brood and shallows for honey. Before it was whatever was on the hive at the time was a honey super, much easier but not an effective use of equipment.
 
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