To Catch a Swarm

One of the great things about keeping bees, especially for the first time, is you already know there is a decent chance they could up and leave.  This helps curb the disappointment of losing a colony.  The most important thing is to learn from the experience and make corrections to how you kept your colony before the swarm.

The other good part about bees swarming is that your bees are not the only ones that may do it.  Throughout the early spring, It seemed swarms were being spotted all over the place by friends and family.  As much as beekeepers seem to hate their hives swarming, they LOVE finding a swarm.

A swarm is focused on one thing:  finding a new place to build comb and a colony.  Scout bees have already found suitable places, it's just a matter of moving together to that new place.  What a beekeeper wants to do is capture that swarm with the queen and choose their new home for them (i.e. a beehive).  Of course each swarm I learned about was far too far away to go capture (I even saw one up in Seattle!) . . . until a little over a week after my bees left.

A homeowner left a message with the nature center reporting a swarm.  I called them back and left a message explaining I was interested in trying to capture the swarm if they could give me their address.  Soon after work, I heard back from them and spent my afternoon making this wonderful bee swarm capturing box:

The idea is to gently scrape or forcefully shake the bees into the box, hopefully getting the queen inside.  Then I would put the lid on.  Next step would be to wait while the bees flying in the air sniff around for their queen.  They would enter the box through the funnel, but the funnel would prevent them from being able to fly back out.  Tada!  Swarm captured.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at their home, I learned they had an actual hive of bees living in the wall of their house.  Lacking the knowledge and equipment to get them out, I left disappointed.  A few weeks later, Wally received a similar call which turned out to be a hive of yellow jackets, so at least I made out better than him.  Turns out, not everyone knows a bee swarm from bunch of bees (or wasps).

So, now on to plan B which I'll outline in my next post.

And away we go!

I was headed out to lunch on June 21st when I saw a beard of bees clustered outside of my hive.  I went up to check to see if the cluster was my bees.  Indeed it was my bees . . . all of them.

No bees were left inside the hive, which meant the queen was somewhere under that cluster.  Now, it was a very hot day, so Wally suggested there may not have been enough bees to keep the hive cool, so a bunch moved outside.  But, with the queen in the group, it most likely meant the bees were preparing to swarm and abandon ship.

The queen is in the highlighted circle (still a virgin).

So why would such a small bunch of bees swarm like this?  Usually, it is due to several negative factors.  I have two immediate thoughts on what caused the bees to prepare to swarm.

First, from day one, carpenter ants were raiding the sugar water I placed in the hive.  A strong colony would be able to fend these ants off, but my colony never really reached a size (due to the loss of the first queen) that was able to overtake them.  I even witnessed some of the carpenter ants team up and kill a bee or two as the bees wandered near the sugar water.  I suspect the ants began raiding the honeycomb as the population of bees dropped and as we were trying to boost them back up.

Second, the hive certainly could have gotten too hot.  There was more sun than I expected where I placed my hive.  In a few years, it may be a good spot for an apiary, but apparently, not yet.

Unfortunately, once the bees begin swarming actions, there is little you can do to stop them.  They have already picked a new place to live.  With a colony as small as mine, it would not be worth putting the stress on them to try to recapture the group.

At 5:00, I walked back up to my hive to see what was going on.  Suddenly, the bees began to take off, swirling up into the air.  I sat on the ground as I watched every last one buzz off into the air, filling the sky around me.  Then, they were gone, hopefully to a new home that they would be able to flourish in.

Flying off into the sunset.