Last Year I Started Beekeeping - So Exciting

[ThePigeonKid]

Just take it out. Bees are very clean and will remove things from the hive that they don't want in it ~ like the rubber band.

Will the queen be ok? The rubber band is what was holding the cage that she is in?

 

[madamwlf]

If it is hanging out then I can't see it still holding her cage. Might want to check on her to make sure her cage didn't fall.

 

[sgtmom52]

We got a call this morning for a swarm that landed in a backyard bush around noon yesterday. We went to collect it and found this beautiful large swarm.



We put a white sheet on the ground under the swarm and put a hive that has frames of drawn comb and swarm lure in it. We shook the branches making the bees fall onto the sheet then.....


We will go back in a couple of hours and pick up the hive.

 

[HardWayMike]

That is amazing! I wish that there were people around here that kept bees. I would love to have someone bring a hive or 2 over. It would be nice to have some bees to pollinate our garden and food plots. Again, that is truly amazing that they "march" right into the hive box like they belonged there in the first place.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I'm curious - do people pay you to come pick up the swarm?

How many hives do you have?

 

[sgtmom52]

I'm curious - do people pay you to come pick up the swarm?

How many hives do you have?

Not usually, in fact we often take a jar of honey to give to the homeowner as a thanks for calling us. If we get the swarm call from a business or the homeowner insists on paying us ~ we just ask for a donation to our local Beekeepers' Assoc. which we are members of.

We mostly only do swarms and not extractions where the bees are inside a structure, which is much harder. Each nice size swarm is worth about $80. to $100. to us as that is what a 3 pound package with a mated queen costs. We would much rather have a swarm as it comes from healthy overwintered northern hives instead of being shipped from the south. We have handled 7 swarm calls in the past month and there is about 3+ weeks left in swarm season here. There is no concern about Africanized bees here.

Counting this swarm ~ we have 16 right now. We have 8 at our house and the rest at 2 different farms. We will be moving some from our house to one of the farms later this week.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Makes sense. It's a plus for both of you - you get the bees and the homeowner gets rid of the bees.

 

[chigger bait]

I know our plant has someone on contract to collect swarms when they show up on our 800 acres.

The small part that I work on just covers 15 acres and I haven't seen the 1st swarm yet.

Just ravens in the pipe bridges and steel robbing pigeon and starling nest.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I checked on my bees yesterday (from the outside, I didn't open up the hive) and I had a bunch of bees (like 40 or so) hovering around the front of the hive again. And a bunch more congregating at the opening. I haven't seen that since the day I installed them 2 weeks ago. Some bees were still coming and going for pollen, but these others were just hovering. Things settled down in the evening and everything looks normal this morning with bees coming and going for pollen.

I'll be opening up the hive again either this afternoon or tomorrow to see if I need to add another hive box yet.

 

[sgtmom52]

I checked on my bees yesterday (from the outside, I didn't open up the hive) and I had a bunch of bees (like 40 or so) hovering around the front of the hive again. And a bunch more congregating at the opening. I haven't seen that since the day I installed them 2 weeks ago. Some bees were still coming and going for pollen, but these others were just hovering. Things settled down in the evening and everything looks normal this morning with bees coming and going for pollen.

I'll be opening up the hive again either this afternoon or tomorrow to see if I need to add another hive box yet.

If it is very warm outside, bees will often hang out on the outside of the hive or on the porch "fanning" to air condition the inside of the hive.