The Swarm II! - The Sequel

If you happened to read last year's post about the swarm in our backyard (The Swarm! May 4, 2020) and our feeble attempt to capture it, the sequel has a much better ending. Being novices last time didn't help either, but we do know slightly more about swarms with a year or so of beekeeping under our belt. We have a neighbor next to us that also has bees. This year he has added two new hives to the two he already had. He doesn't, however, "keep" these bees - he has two beekeepers that tend to the hives - one beekeeper for each set of two hives.

Earlier this year while we were over near our neighbor's hives (at this point he still had only two hives), I noticed a swarm on a fencepost near said hives (see last month’s post). We alerted our neighbor of the swarm and that was the last we heard of it. Recently I was walking our dogs near that same area and heard the telltale buzzing of a swarm (video below). Looking around I noticed that bees were alighting on fenceposts near the existing hives. No proof that they came from those hives but most likely they did. We alerted our neighbor again, but this time asked if we could attempt to capture the swarm. Alas no, he responded - he wanted to let his beekeepers know. Somewhat dejected, we asked him to keep us posted. They were most likely his bees anyway.

A couple of hours later we heard from him that one of his beekeepers was coming out. Thinking that was the end of the story we went on about our work. A little bit later we heard from him again. His beekeeper had captured the swarm. But... his beekeeper didn't want the swarm and the other beekeeper didn't either - the swarm was ours if we wanted it. "Yes indeed!" we replied and went about prepping some boxes (supers) to put the swarm of bees in. (At this point the bees were contained in two small portable hives called nuc boxes.)

Prior to receiving the swarm, we already had three hives but had discovered that one was Queenless - probably having swarmed herself with many of her subjects. We hadn't decided what to do about that yet, but ultimately it would be getting a new Queen from somewhere. Our hope was that there was a Queen somewhere in the swarm. We carefully swept (with a bee brush of course) the bees from the nuc frames into the box we prepped for them, while carefully keeping an eye out for a Queen. Lucky us, we found one and captured her in a Queen cage so we could finish moving the bees from nuc to bee box without losing her.

Having mentioned that we were Queenless in one hive, we decided that we would introduce our new Queen (and her swarm subjects) into that hive. You cannot, however, just put a new Queen and swarm subjects into an existing hive. A major battle would ensure pitting existing hive bees against the newcomers. Kelly did some research and found that a sheet of newspaper between the boxes of existing bees and the newcomers is sufficient to keep them apart but allows them to "get to know" each other. They chew through the paper over a couple of days and hopefully become one happy family. Fingers crossed we gave it a try and waited...

In the meantime, we still had one more nuc box with swarm bees in it that needed to be moved into another bee box and added to the already boxed swarm. Going thru the same process as we did with the first nuc, we began sweeping the bees from the nuc frames into the new box. Another surprise ensued - the second nuc box had a Queen too! We captured her as well. Not much you can do with a new Queen except free her or start another hive. We went with option two and got another box prepped to house a Queen. Once that was ready, we put the rest of the bees and the second Queen into that hive and hoped for the best.

A few days later we checked, and the merged hive had assimilated, with the older bees accepting their new Queen. The new hive was doing good as well, with the Queen staying put and starting to lay eggs. A much better ending than the first installment of The Swarm...

J.