Swarming Honeybees

[DaveNH]

Any other beekeepers out there?

Got a call today from the police in an adjacent town
wanting to know if I still collected swarms.
I said yes and they gave me the numbers to call.
Called the number, listened to the panic stories
and got directions. It's totally amazing how
many people are deathly allergic to bee stings!
90% of the swarm calls I get land in people's
yards that are allergic to bees. Amazing!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Nice size swarm, very nice. Very gentle 5 to 6 pounds
and on a corner fence post. Made a few braces
and put the new hive next to the swarm.
Saw the queen running around on the outside
of the swarm so I grabbed her and put her into a
queen cage. With the queen in the cage,
inside the hive, the rest of the bees followed
and marched right in. While I was waiting
for them to move in I walked around the house
looking to see where they came from. Sometimes people
have them in their houses and don't realize it untill
the fall when the populations a huge. I didn't see
any bees flying around but I did see an active hive next door.
I said to the lady that the bees probable came from
there. She then went on a good twenty minute rant
about the neighbor, kind of like the Redneck neighbor thread
a few days ago, his bees, the pools, the trees, the parties, the lawn, the this and the that....
the just about everything.

So I kept the bees.
Finders keepers right?/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I have a nice hive in the back yard inside a knothole in an old weeping willow. When the tree came down, I sawed that section out, after dark, and stood it back up with the loader. Wife thought I was nuts, till I reminded her those bees polinate her flower gardens and mater plants.
I know that swarm has been there for 5 years now, and I've enjoyed watching them. This winter, the wife asked me how they manage to survive the cold winter. She became convinced I am totally nuts when I informed her we would be providing them sugar if it is an unusually cold winter, but I think she is starting to believe they make their own heat.
When I was a kid, 2 or 3 nights a week were spent with my old man removing swarms from people's houses. 9 out of 10 times when we got there, it turned out to be wasps or hornets, so we just killed them off for people.
I've also held the cardboard box under a swarm while the limb got cut off. Seems like I always got elected to go up and spray the swarm down with sugar water.
One thing I have noticed over a lot of years, people who have a swarm in their yard always claim to be allergit to bee stings. I might be a bit of a cynic, but most people with a swarm who claim to be allergic, always want to watch while you collect the swarm, and I have yet to meet any who have a syringe of effinepherin around.
Here in upstate NY, beekeepers pretty much just tell people they won't collect a swarm any more, cause nobody wants to even pay you for the gas to come out. I hate to see a swarm killed, but I can't afford to go get them any more, and I'll admit getting a bit pi$$ed since one guy demanded I provide him with a certificate of liability insurance.
I guess it was good he annoyed me cause I saved the cost of making up a vacuum cleaner setup to harvest bees from house walls.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here in north Texas we have the added excitement with bees about them being Africanized. I guess folks got to get excited about something and bees are as good as anything to get excited about.

I have wasp nests all over the shop. They don't bother me and I don't bother them. Actually it's more if I don't bother them then they won't bother me. In ten years the only times I've been stung have when I inadvertantly bothered them. That's only happened a couple of times. I might be slow but I'm not stopped.

Years and years ago three of us came upon a ten wheeler loaded with hives that had gotten stuck in a ford. We were going back to look at the location we were going to build a catch pen and loading chute for an indian reservation's round up. It was May and warm outside Hemet California.

We found out a couple of the hives had broken loose the hard way.

The indian spokesman was a big old boy, probably three twenty, six five or so. Him and me were picking them up and putting them down when he pointed to a perk pond yelled something about getting in there. We did.

Dad gotten into the pickemup. He came by and picked us up. We were driving along talking about how exciting it was when I glanced over at the indian. His neck had big welts and was swelling fast enough to see it happen. I nodded to dad and he headed for the emergency room. They admitted the old boy.

I only had eleven stings on my head and dad had two on his hand. We didn't need treatment but they started bringing in old folks and pets from a nearby mobile home park.

Them bees I guess didn't take much to rocking and rolling in sunny southern California.

 

[Taz]

Hi Dave,

Yes, I'm also a beekeeper in So. NH. I'm on the Fire Dept. and put the word out that I'd take swarm calls about 4 years ago. Not because I need the bees but just for the fun of it. Not a single call yet. The mites seem to have had a devastating impact on the feral colonies around here. I'm currently running 2 stong hives outside and a two and a half frame observation hive in the house. The observation hive spins off swarms so I guess I'm doing my part in rebuilding the feral population.
I've been lucky so far and haven't had mite problems and don't treat for them. It's the bears I've got a problem with.
Here's one <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=rural&Number=146988&Search=true&Forum=All_Forums&Words=Taz&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=144524>bear story...</A>

 

[Bird]

Dave, when I was on the police department, the communications division kept a list of beekeepers in the area (about a dozen of them) who would go get swarms for the bees. We just gave the names and phone numbers to anyone who found a swarm and called.

I have no desire to mess with bees anymore myself, but got a fair amount of experience when I was a kid; had to help dad cut down a tree and get the bees to start our first hive, then he bought 6 more hives, so I didn't have any choice but to learn to work bees, move hives, collect honey, put out sugar water for them in the winter, etc.

 

[heehaw]

lots of beekeepers here..glad to see that..i don't mess with trying to get hives from folks houses..but from small, low trees is ok. when my kids were small, i did bee talks at the local schools, with an observation hive an all: years ago, my youngest daughter and i stood in the pasture while a hive swarmed, right around us, it was a really unique experience, bees everywhere, but no aggressiveness. i'm having a terrible problem with ants in the hives this year...any suggestions??
heehaw

 

[MossRoad]

We used to see swarms all the time when I was a kid. Now, here in northern Indiana, I rarely see any honey bees in my garden at all. I think the majority of the pollination for us is now being done by the bumble bees. We have lots of jellow jackets too, especially in the fall. I've read that the wild honey bees around here have mostly been killed off by the mites.

 

[DVerbarg]

Back when I was a young teenager my parents had a few hives. By picking up swarms we built up to 24 hives. Would only harvest about 40 lbs a year per hive. It was alot of fun getting swarms from people's yards.

When at home working on the hives I would just use gloves, smoker, and veil. But when we went out to get a swarm we would use the one-piece white jumpsuit with the integrated zipper for the veil. Kept the smoker going full strength, did not really need it but it made a great impression on people and many of the neighborhood gawkers would become honey customers.

Never saw a queen walking around the outside of a swarm, only had to cut a branch once (usually just placed the new hive just beneath the swarm and would wack the branch with a 8lb sledge or if small enough just give it a quick jerk), once removed an old established hive from a barn that took hours (based on the amount of comb it must have been there for years). Never removed one from a house and don't think I would want to. Had an observation hive just for fun, was great advertising as we got our photo and article on the first page of the paper (must have been a slow news day).

Managing the bees was alot of fun. Now that my oldest daughter is nearing 10 maybe I should get a hive or two and teach her those skills. It does seem quite a bit harder now then it used to be with the different mites and diseases now prevalent.

 

[DaveNH]

Re: Swarming Honeybees Update!

Received another call today from the same lady.
His other hive swarmed today.

Again, a nice size swarm, gentle and ... in a new home!

Maybe I should send him a Thank You card./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[DaveNH]

Sorry It took so long to respond.

5 years!
Sure would love to make a few queens from that stock.
Most all feral colonies have died off from the varroa mites. It would be great to get a line going that did not
need Apistan or CheckMite. If they ever swarm, please catch them and I'll take them off your hands!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif