Quote:
I'm with you Stimp, learning about bee keeping sounds really interesting. Are you going to give a presentation at POOPS Maribeth? Hope so because the more I think about it the more interested I am about beekeeping.
Yes, I will have a display about beekeeping at POOPS and I should warn you that once I get started talking about bees, it is hard to get me to stop talking
The most important thing to know about swarms of bees is that they are not aggressive since they are not protecting any brood (think mama bear protecting cubs). The bees have left any brood behind and are looking for a new home. They have filled their stomach with honey to carry fuel to the new location, so they are flying relatively slowly. If you don't make sudden movements to put them on the defensive, they won't sting you.
When capturing a swarm, I only put on protective gear if the swarm is above my head, since I don't want bees to accidentally fall down the neck of my shirt - where they would of course feel threatened and sting me. If they are on a limb of a bush, I spray the inside of a cardboard box with sugar water (I keep 20 oz bottles of water in my swarm kit and add sugar and a spray bottle lid when I need it), spray the cluster with sugar water, place the cardboard box beneath them and cut off the limb and the whole cluster and branch fall into the box. I place the box on the ground and walk away for about 10 minutes and if the queen is in the box, the other bees that have started flying around when the cluster fell will go into the box as well. I close up the box except for a small hole and the remainder of the bees will fly into the hole after their queen.
While the bees are going into the box, I take mouthwash and pour it on the surface where the cluster was hanging and in the immediate area of the cluster, to cover the pheremone odor of the queen, so the remaining bees don't continue to congregate where the queen used to be. When I have most of the bees and the ones flying around aren't too interested in going into the box, I duct tape the box closed (I put a few small holes in the box before beginning for air) and put it into the back of my van. Any bees that escape the box and fly around inside the van are not trying to sting and will usually stay close to or on the box.
When I get home, I thump the box one time on the ground to dislodge all the bees that are now hanging upside down from the inside top of the box, and dump them into a prepared hive body that has some frames of foundation. I close up the hive and stuff the entrance with grass so that they have to stay inside the hive until they clear away the grass from their front door, which takes a day or two. By the time they have eaten their way out, they are acclimated to the hive body and will stay put .
Spraying sugar water on the bees, is a great way to calm the bees, because they can't fly when their wings are wet and they spend time grooming the sugar off themselves and each other.
I'm with you Stimp, learning about bee keeping sounds really interesting. Are you going to give a presentation at POOPS Maribeth? Hope so because the more I think about it the more interested I am about beekeeping.
Yes, I will have a display about beekeeping at POOPS and I should warn you that once I get started talking about bees, it is hard to get me to stop talking
The most important thing to know about swarms of bees is that they are not aggressive since they are not protecting any brood (think mama bear protecting cubs). The bees have left any brood behind and are looking for a new home. They have filled their stomach with honey to carry fuel to the new location, so they are flying relatively slowly. If you don't make sudden movements to put them on the defensive, they won't sting you.
When capturing a swarm, I only put on protective gear if the swarm is above my head, since I don't want bees to accidentally fall down the neck of my shirt - where they would of course feel threatened and sting me. If they are on a limb of a bush, I spray the inside of a cardboard box with sugar water (I keep 20 oz bottles of water in my swarm kit and add sugar and a spray bottle lid when I need it), spray the cluster with sugar water, place the cardboard box beneath them and cut off the limb and the whole cluster and branch fall into the box. I place the box on the ground and walk away for about 10 minutes and if the queen is in the box, the other bees that have started flying around when the cluster fell will go into the box as well. I close up the box except for a small hole and the remainder of the bees will fly into the hole after their queen.
While the bees are going into the box, I take mouthwash and pour it on the surface where the cluster was hanging and in the immediate area of the cluster, to cover the pheremone odor of the queen, so the remaining bees don't continue to congregate where the queen used to be. When I have most of the bees and the ones flying around aren't too interested in going into the box, I duct tape the box closed (I put a few small holes in the box before beginning for air) and put it into the back of my van. Any bees that escape the box and fly around inside the van are not trying to sting and will usually stay close to or on the box.
When I get home, I thump the box one time on the ground to dislodge all the bees that are now hanging upside down from the inside top of the box, and dump them into a prepared hive body that has some frames of foundation. I close up the hive and stuff the entrance with grass so that they have to stay inside the hive until they clear away the grass from their front door, which takes a day or two. By the time they have eaten their way out, they are acclimated to the hive body and will stay put .
Spraying sugar water on the bees, is a great way to calm the bees, because they can't fly when their wings are wet and they spend time grooming the sugar off themselves and each other.
