Michael Weber
03-19-2010, 6:37 PM
Mike Henderson recently posted a thread about bees swarming. I have a swarm story some might find interesting and so not to highjack Mike's thread, I'll just start anew.
I used to keep bees as a hobby and had only a couple of hives. Shortly before having to give up the hobby because of moving to a new neighborhood I had one of my hives swarm. The bees landed on a tree limb in my back yard and I didn't know about it until I almost walked into it. The swarm was about the size of a basketball that had been stretched into an oval shape. I was just going to let nature take it's course and let them find a new home by themselves. But a co-worker whom I was telling about the swarm had a friend that wanted it. The friend lived over 30 miles away. He arrived that evening to get the swarm and we shook it down into a closed hive body. You may know it's essential to get the queen as well as the workers. We loaded the closed hive into a truck and he drove them home in the dark, unloaded them and keep the hive closed for 24 hours. Next day he opens the hive, installs a bee board, goes to work and when he returns there are NO bees in the hive. Next day he mentions to my co-worker who mentions it to me. When I get home that evening, those bees are on the same branch of the same tree they were originally. We had evidently not gotten the queen into the hive and they weren't going to stay put without her. How they found their way back from 30 miles away after having been dumped into a sealed box and driven all that way will never cease to astonish and amaze me. Natures little GPS.
I used to keep bees as a hobby and had only a couple of hives. Shortly before having to give up the hobby because of moving to a new neighborhood I had one of my hives swarm. The bees landed on a tree limb in my back yard and I didn't know about it until I almost walked into it. The swarm was about the size of a basketball that had been stretched into an oval shape. I was just going to let nature take it's course and let them find a new home by themselves. But a co-worker whom I was telling about the swarm had a friend that wanted it. The friend lived over 30 miles away. He arrived that evening to get the swarm and we shook it down into a closed hive body. You may know it's essential to get the queen as well as the workers. We loaded the closed hive into a truck and he drove them home in the dark, unloaded them and keep the hive closed for 24 hours. Next day he opens the hive, installs a bee board, goes to work and when he returns there are NO bees in the hive. Next day he mentions to my co-worker who mentions it to me. When I get home that evening, those bees are on the same branch of the same tree they were originally. We had evidently not gotten the queen into the hive and they weren't going to stay put without her. How they found their way back from 30 miles away after having been dumped into a sealed box and driven all that way will never cease to astonish and amaze me. Natures little GPS.